The Same Christmas Cake

Christmas makes me realize how greatly things do change

Friends lose touch, people age, and family moves away

But it is what had stayed the same that gives me the most tears

For I've had the same Christmas cake for almost thirty years

Granny made it back in sixty-eight and gave it to my mom

Who gave it to her uncle who gave it to her son

Who then gave it to me and that is where it stuck

For I was only three months old and clearly out of luck

Each Christmas of my childhood that fruit-brick would return

My mom would place it on a plate and tell me I must learn

That it is rude to get a gift and not put it to use

And every year I'd take a bite and chip another tooth

After fifteen years of misery I'd had all I could take

That summer I went camping and dropped it in the lake

I thought that I was rid of it, but on Christmas eve

There it was "from Santa Claus" under the Christmas tree

Each year I'd try to lose it but it would just return

So I cried out "oh why have I been given such a burden?"

A voice replied, "it's not a curse, but the greatest gift"

"For when all else abandons you, you will still have it."

For all of man's creations slowly waste away

Relationships do crumble and buildings do decay

The pyramids and stonehenge slowly disappear

But if they were made of Christmas cake they'd last a million years