After midnight mass, I go across the street from the church to a friend’s house, chat for a little while, say hello to his parents and his brother visiting from Los Angeles. I wish them all a Merry Christmas and I meet my father outside and we drive through downtown.
It’s quiet. Christmas lights wrap around the street lamps, a dusting of snow collects on the brick sidewalks downtown…
Folks are turning in, preparing for Santa’s arrival…
Before I go home and put myself down for a long winter’s nap, my father and I stop at his parents’ house…
Grandma’s prepared a bowl of soup for us, there are a few cookies on the table. An uncle, an aunt, a cousin or two drop in and out on the way home as well…
My grandfather has a cup of coffee. It’s late. It won’t keep him up. In fact it will help him go to sleep.
It’s quiet. The anticipation of Christmas – memories of the past, eager for the future, tranquil in the present – we sit around a kitchen table in a house in the middle of town, in the middle of America, in the winter over a quarter century ago…
I hear that front door POP open. It was never locked.
The images are blurry. Faded.
But vivid…
Damn near tangible.
I can taste the coffee. Touch the table, feel the periphery of the room adjacent to the kitchen, the hallway behind me…that front door…
Not like it was yesterday, but rather like it’s happening right now.
Merry Christmas.
C I P R I A N I 
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