Working on Christmas

At the ticket window
on our Christmas "family ski vacations"
dad would ask,
"Now, how many pizzas is that?"
as he shelled out several hundred dollar bills from his worn leather wallet.

We were perplexed,
$500 for a day of skiing,
not to mention all the gear,
the accommodations,
the meals

and then presents
from Santa
all around the tree.

How many pizzas is that, I would wonder.
Never too good at math, I tried to count
how many pizzas my dad had to sell
at his shop
to let me ride that lift way up in the sky,
to taste snowflakes on my lips
to marvel at all the different shapes fallling on my gloves?

"No two snowflakes are the same," my mom would tell me.
"Wow," I thought telling her I felt like I was flying through the sky
on a cloud.
The chair lift,
when you're eight, from Southern California
on a "family ski vacation",
is the shit.

Still is.

Now, I live in the snow,
in one of those fancy, fun ski resorts
filled with beautiful people
and so many cute lift operators from all over the world.
There are dozens of chairlifts outside my door
and I still enjoy the ride,
but not at Christmas.
The tables have turned these days;
I toil
during the holidays
earning my rations while the "other half" enjoys their
picture perfect "family ski vacation".

How many pizzas does it take nowadays,
twenty years later,
to ski at Christmas?

They could cover the mountain,
pepperoni and cheese.

It would take a million pizzas to ski Aspen at Christmas!

It's a complete ripoff,
I think.

But then this lady smiles,
as she pays me $150 for her apres ski massage,
and tells me
she has never has so much fun
spending time with her kids
and they don't fight
because they are so
enamoured with the scene,

the snowflakes.

No two are the same.

Somebody's got to work on Christmas,
or who would run the lifts
so all the kids from the lowlands
could feel like they're floating through the sky

on a cloud.