heids macdonald | there's room

There’s room.

Honestly.

There’s room.

There’s room

for the uncle

that loves the gawdy decorations

and the kids running cut-out paper snowflakes along every banister, 

and the teenager who is embarrassed to admit they still want to decorate the tree.

So, the cool aunt with the buzz-cut

whose wife is just as cool 

inviting them to help out

is just the ticket.

There’s room for deep inhales and longer exhales, 

because the spicy smell of apple pie in the oven reminds you

of mom. 

And that is wonderful

and lonely

and triggering.

Because mom was complicated. And there’s room for that. Honestly. 

There’s room.

There’s room

for Hanukkah candles burning in window sills

and for the cookie platter

supplied to the shift workers for whom Christmas day

is just another shift.

There’s room

For family – all sorts.

For re-uniting family:

perhaps dysfunctional but trying.

For found family:

perhaps that crew of queers who can’t go home anymore. So, they say to each other,

“There is still pumpkin pie on the menu!”

For grieving family:

Perhaps rotating cigarette breaks on the steps to the hospital, when the walls of the palliative room are closing in.

And there’s room for the words,

“I hate Christmas,”

because why does everyone die in December?

There’s room.

Honestly.

There’s room.

There’s room

for putting up the tree

the day after Halloween and leaving it

till spring. 

There’s room

in the Christmas eve service

for everyone.

So church, remember that.

And there’s room

for the person that can’t darken a pew.

Afterall,

The Christ child grew into person

who had a thing or two to say about

the religious establishment’s treatment

of “the least of these.”

There’s room

for loneliness.

You are not alone in this.

There’s room

to forgive

and for not knowing how to yet.

There’s room

for the same stories told over and over:

of babes and misers and angels and red-nosed reindeer, and prophetic stars and lassoing the moon,

and poor, ordinary, occupied people...

waiting.

There’s room for mulled wine and chocolate and

Those caramel covered marshmallow things. 

HONESTLY! THERE’S ROOM! 

There’s room

at the table for the ones who never seem to fit. Maybe that’s you.

In which case,

there’s room for you – 

along with the shepherds and stargazers

and unwed pregnant teenagers and dreamy carpenters and livestock:

all welcome when

there was no room

at the inn.

Because gathered round love

(humble and asking for nothing)

There’s room for you.

Honestly.

There’s room. 

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heids macdonald : heidsmacdonald@gmail.com