It was a morning late in December. The sky was lit with a wintry glow.
Halos, tinted sunrise pink, silhouetted icy clouds below.
One cloud stood out from the others. It seemed to be filled with light.
And it looked like a heard of slumbering sheep if you squinted your eyes just right.
The cloud seemed to be keeping a secret. It seemed to have something special to hide.
But few could even begin to imagine the magical goings on inside.
For deep in the cloud’s silver lining, all tinsel and glitter and cheer,
The snowflake pageant had begun – the snowflake event of the year.
The pageant is an honored ritual – and a spectacle they say.
It pays tribute to every snowflake that will fall on Christmas day.
Snowflakes appear before the pageant, all primped and polished and fine,
So everyone can marvel at every intricate, lacey design.
In tiny snowflake voices each snowflake shyly, and before all,
Tells their secret snowfall wishes (mostly how and where they’ll fall).
“I’ll dance to earth with a fairy’s grace…”
“I’ll land gently on a child’s face…”
“I’ll float as far as the eye can see…”
“I’ll light on a handsome Christmas tree…”
Once the pageant is completed – dreams shared and hearts aglow –
The snowflakes proudly take to flight for a magical Christmas snow.
Well, the pageant was going well this year. They were half through the wish-sharing part,
When a fine snowflake by the name of Jake shared the wish inside his heart.
“I’ll make the world a better place. That’s what I truly want to do.”
The room went silent. Then a snicker. Then a low voice muttered, “You?”
The crowd broke into laughter. Jake turned pink, then pinker still.
His eyes began to well up. But he said to himself, “I will.”
Jake stepped out of the silvery light. (The laughter finally decline.)
“I’ll catch a sunray as I fall,” said the next snowflake in line.
With watery eyes Jake focused on how the ballroom walls were shining.
The sun’s distant rays formed dazzling sprays against the snow cloud’s silver lining.
When the pageant was finally over (Jake never though it would end),
He was the first snowflake into the air, and the first one to descend.
As he started drifting earthbound, Jake felt centered, calm and free.
He floated and flipped like a feather. It was like he always thought it would be.
In his heart he knew he was special. That was all he needed to know.
He saw the world below through loving eyes as he led the parade of Christmas snow.
Twila claimed to be nearly eighty. She was securing her scarf with a knot.
She had kind eyes and the careworn look of a woman who had loved a lot.
Her life had been lived for her family. She worked hard and she loved and she prayed.
She knew she was getting older, but the love inside didn’t age or fade.
Last year her daughter’s family moved up north – so very far away.
So she saved her pennies to visit them for the Christmas holiday.
It was there in the yard with her grandbabies (apples of her adoring eyes)
That Twila happened to be the first to see Jake floating from the skies.
Twila had never seen a snowflake. She came from deep in the hot, humid south.
Her family never had money to travel. They lived mostly from hand to mouth.
“Heaven sakes,” she said to herself. “I never thought I would live to see…”
Her voice broke off into a silent sob. Her eyes filled with tears and glee.
Twila’s eyes never left the snowflake. Embarrassed, she dried her tears.
She thought she’d never seen anything more beautiful (in all her eighty-five years).
Jake was moved by Twila’s emotion. And he was proud to play a part
In a grandma’s first White Christmas – a memory she’d always hold dear in her heart.
Then a sudden winter wind swept through, whisping Jake high into the air.
He saw the earth tucked under a blanket of snow. Snowflakes flew everywhere.
The world looked tranquil and content. That’s the way that Jake felt too.
And as he drifted down he lost himself in the wondrous wintry view.
Timmy had just turned nine years old, an age when Christmas is filled with joy.
But Timmy was troubled, the truth be told, ‘cause he was different from other boys.
He wasn’t so good at fishing or football or other stuff like that.
Try as me might he was hopeless with a baseball, a mitt and a bat.
But Timmy was good at other things. He loved writing stories that rhyme.
His imagination ran away with him and he would loose all track of time.
Other kids never understood why Timmy liked so much to write.
Sometimes they poked fun at him, or tried to pick a fight.
Timmy hated being different. It caused him pain and stress and strife,
Until that Christmas day when a certain snowflake fell into his life.
Timmy was sitting on the back steps. His hands were so cold they were numb.
When Jake landed on his jacket sleeve, he wondered why the boy was so glum.
Timmy looked closely at the snowflake. He though the pattern was quite grand.
Then he studied another snowflake that had just landed on his hand.
And then another and another on his nose and knee. Then more.
Until Timmy thought of something he’d never thought before.
Every snowflake’s different. Every boy is different too.
We must be who we are meant to be and do what we’re meant to do.
Timmy’s face got brighter, and he brushed the snow away.
He went inside to write a poem about this magic Christmas day.
Jake’s snowflake face was bright too, as he lay there feeling coy.
He had made the world a better place – for a grandma and a boy.
Of all the things that Jake believed, there was one he knew was true…
No one ever succeeded at anything they didn’t believe they could do.
Fabletime 