Fresh pine
\nAnd the scent of a wood-burning fire I would build<\/p>\n
Baked nuts and cookies
\nAnd fresh-baked breads Mom set aside for breakfast<\/p>\n
The silence of the morning was my favorite thing
\nThen, the glitter of white fairy-lights sparkling upon the tree
\nThe plethora of gifts spilling out far into the room
\nAssured me all was well with Dad and Mom, who were up late, playing Santa<\/p>\n
Fat stockings hung upon the mantle
\nEach tagged for us to find
\nAnd all I wanted, through my youth
\nWas this quiet, alone-time<\/p>\n
The best part of this Christmas morn
\nWas knowing we would see
\nMom sitting, tired, in a chair
\nAnd Dad beside the tree<\/p>\n
He was almost sad, when he would find he\u2019d reached the last few gifts
\nAnd I was sad to know, each time, how far from them I must have drifted
\nIt wasn\u2019t that I wanted much
\nIt wasn\u2019t that I was greedy
\nBut every box I opened was the reinforced belief
\nThat even here, amidst a family so large, I was only known by Stacey<\/p>\n
I\u2019d set aside the boxes and help clean up all the wrappings
\nRelinquish my joy to Christmas lunch, with the expected trappings
\nCheese and crackers, nuts, preserves and vegetables galore
\nAll my favorite foods and snacks I could munch on and adore
\nWhile in the family room, all day, Dad played his favorite Christmas songs
\nAnd all I wanted in the world was Dad’s presence, all day long<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fresh pine And the scent of a wood-burning fire I would build Baked nuts and cookies And fresh-baked breads Mom set aside for breakfast The silence of the morning was my favorite thing Then, the glitter of white fairy-lights sparkling upon the tree The plethora…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1098,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1136,441],"tags":[3910,3442,719,10],"class_list":["post-73800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-official-marathon-prompts","category-poetry-prompt-responses","tag-2020hr18","tag-2020poetrymarathon","tag-christmas","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1098"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73800"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74095,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73800\/revisions\/74095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}