THE GIFT OF GLITTER

I was sitting at the dining room table writing out my Christmas cards when my son Alex walked by.

“Glitter!” he cried. “Are you kidding me?”

I looked next to the envelope that I'd been addressing. The card had a picture of Santa getting ready to go down the chimney, slung over his shoulder was his toy sack filled with wrapped gifts. The entire edge of the card was covered with gold glitter.

I smiled as I went back to addressing the envelope. “Isn't glitter fun!”

“No.” Alex shook his head. “It's not.”

My husband Steven walked in the room. Alex looked over at him. “Didn't we talk about this last year?” he asked.

Steven looked confused. Alex pointed to the cards on the table.

“Oh, yeah. I thought we said no glitter this year.” Steven said.

“Exactly!” Alex added.

I stopped writing for a second and looked at both of them. “I never agreed to that. When I get the mail this season I'm hoping it's filled with sparkly pretty cards.” I rubbed my nose with the back of my hand.

“See that's exactly my point!” Alex cried as he pointed to my nose. “Your face is covered in glitter now!”

I rubbed my nose again.

“Nope.” Alex shook his head. “You just put more glitter on.”

“It's fine.” I said as I blew some glitter off the table.

Alex looked at the chair that was in the direction of where I'd blown the glitter. It happened to be where he usually sat at dinner. “Great. My butt's going to be covered in glitter for another year.” he sighed.

“Oh, come on!” I got up and went over to his chair. Sure enough there was glitter on it. “Okay, fine.” I brushed it off. “Is that better?”

Alex shook his head. “You know we're going to be finding glitter on us until Easter.”

“Now you're just exaggerating.” I said as I went back to addressing my envelopes.

Steven sat down at the table and looked at the address book I was working from. “Remember a few years ago when everyone thought it would be fun to add confetti to an invitation?”

“Oh my gosh! I forgot about those!” I looked up from my writing and looked over at Alex. “You'd open the envelope and along with an invitation to the birthday party a handful of confetti would spill out!” I had to laugh. “'Please come to my party and now go vacuum your living room to remember me!'” I looked over at Steven. “Those invitations didn't last long.”

“No, they didn't.” He looked down at my Christmas cards. “That's exactly how we feel about glitter.”

“Wait! Glitter is timeless!”

“Not to us it isn't.”

Alex sat down next to him. I was beginning to feel like I was in the middle of a glitter intervention.

“Maybe you walking around with a few specks of glitter on you might seem cute but guys aren't thrilled with looking sparkly.” Alex explained.

I looked over at him and was afraid to tell him he already had a few specks on him. “You're right. Next year no glitter.” I promised.

“Good I'm glad we had this talk.” Steven said as he got up along with Alex to go into the living room.

I couldn't help but smile as I watched them both walk away with little gold specks of glitter shimmering on the back of their jeans.