Cream-colored ponies and crisp apple streudels...

Hope you got to spend Christmas with those you love. I certainly did.

And even though I know it's about more meaningful things, the gifts aren't so bad either. Here are some of my favorites.

Leigh Ann compiled the pictures from that day into a book. What a wonderful gift.
I love that Mom takes the time to personalize our gift tags. She selects old Christmas cards that "look like us," cuts the edges with pinking shears, and then occasionally writes funny little messages on them. For instance, for my new pajama box, she signed it from my pets, suggesting that they were getting tired of seeing me in crap sleepwear. Thanks, Mom.
I would've never thought to do this. I absolutely love it.
Both of these are made out of old pieces of silverware.
Homemade wrapping with a true treasure inside...
That's right, Minit Mart, I'll be keeping that daily $1.47.
I may not know the difference between an iPad, iPod, and e-reader, but I'm not above kitchen gadgetry.
Cowboy boots are facing retirement...residents of Marrowbone will now get to see me walking the dogs in jogging pants and these.
***
“I just wish I could do a British accent…” Christmas Eve, 2011

Every year I inevitably sit befuddled, contemplating, planning, and searching for inspiration;
the sights and sounds of the past year, the journey; a Christmas Eve poem, the destination.
If I’m not mistaken, I threw in “moobs” last year for visual and alliterative effect,
the height of the poetic bar, thus thankfully suspect.

So here I sit, pet menagerie by my side and mediocre literary standard in mind,
searching for my entry point, my hook, that irrefutably impressive opening line.
…[Five minutes later]…
Uh, well, in lieu of said perfection, perhaps I should just consider Option B,
a poem about Grandma’s pickle, Zach’s concentrating face, nay, Leigh Ann’s mini-me.

“Wildcat,” “Rollie Pollie,” and “Granny Pig” are all one in the same,
for Isabella Kurtys Morgan is rather fond of the sophisticated nickname.
“Sweet Pea,” “Little Rascal,” and “China Shop Bull,” has a creatively foolish flair,
a trait surely inherited from the Morgans, one among the Turners, undeniably rare.

Regardless of the daily moniker, however, her presence is a daily joy;
better than the most beautiful of Etsy ornaments or holiday-themed, mass-marketed toy.
The little girl who inexplicably loves ol’ purple shirt worn by my brother-in-law, TJ,
is the most perfect of Christmas gifts, one whimsically wrapped in footy panda bear pjs.

Sure, she, in pretty white tights, might stick her foot in cake icing again this year,
all the while procuring 46 suckers and performing Mrs. Barbara’s song about reindeer.
She, doing her best Waffle impersonation, will take food off everyone else’s plate,
a skill honed from much practice, one required when your parents are always late.

She might run a cat-toting stroller into one of Nonna’s newly painted walls,
or insist on simultaneously carrying around her bowl of noodles and roughly 14 dolls.
She will talk over everyone else if she has something to say,
but usually to spout something incredibly endearing like “and you have a nice day.”

For, see, she is a stinker if ever a stinker there were.
Born and bred of foolishness, forget incense and myrrh.
Yet she is my Christmas angel, my queen of queens, on December 25 and every other day,
“What child is this?” you ask… Hmmm, just depends on who she wants to play.

Well, lightening hasn’t struck me yet, the irreverence thus apparently kept in check.
But “Granny Pig” superimposed into something less religious might permanently save my neck.
How about “Nonna Got Run Over by a Vacuum Popper” or “GP is Coming to Town”?,
both hopefully performed by a little girl in a pink tutu, brown horse dress, and her favorite flannel gown.

With that image in mind, it seems time to end this little Christmas ditty,
read in the coziest of decorated dining rooms among those far more witty,
Yet, write and read I have, in hopes of upholding a Christmas Eve tradition,
one the Little Rascal will inherit someday, or at least I will petition.