You do the whole thing now. All of it. There is a turkey and it is not burned, and there are little potatoes that got crunchy on the outside the way I always wanted them, and you made the gravy from the pan and did not even pour it from a jar. When did you learn all this? Nobody told me you could be the one who knows where the good plates are.
You put candles out. Real ones. You lit them before anyone came, when the room was still empty, just so it would look nice when they walked in. I saw you do that.
But you are tired. I can tell because you keep standing up to get things nobody asked for. You laughed at the joke somebody told, the boring one, the same one from last year, and you laughed anyway because it made them happy. I did not know you could do that on purpose.
Here is the thing I want to ask. When the plates are cleared and it goes quiet, and it is just the lights on the tree still blinking in the dark room, will you go and sit in there by yourself for a minute? Just to look at it? I used to lie under the tree and stare up into the branches like it was a whole city.
You built the whole day. You are allowed to go and be small inside it.
Will you still crawl under the tree? Even once?
I saved that spot for you.