Unwrapped

The house is layers,
an onion,
a rose unfurling its petals,
or a pass-the-parcel -
peel them back for all the Christmases we've had:
waking on cold mornings throughout those early years
to fat, stuffed woollen stockings
loaded with gifts from Leigh Toy Fair,
fortune-teller fish to curl in tiny palms,
miniature slinkies
wind-up toys
and tins of little sweets shaped like lemon pips.
Later, there's a photograph of us
as grown ups
around the dining table in dressing gowns
with cups of tea,
no mad hurry of presents or routine, just
us in our natural habitat
and Mum's face is one of pure contentment.
Now, to open the door
is half-like walking into a different house,
but steeped in those memories,
like how once we wrote a Christmas book together,
sugar paper, drawings and glue:
you led the project,
naming characters, making flaps to lift,
I was on five-years-younger duties
involving glitter glue.
The layers peel back,
memories unwrapped, and
in a second's glance 
there we are again,
tiny and in dressing gowns,
waiting outside the front room door,
hushed and sparkling with anticipation,
waiting to hear Dad say "He's been!"