Snow Globe Rejects

and what they remind me each year

On my desk sit two snow globe rejects. My wife will not allow me—or, better said, actively discourages me from displaying them elsewhere around the house.

She has good reason.

These snow globes are old. They’re small—stocking stuffers from a Christmas long past—and falling apart. The decorative flairs adorning the outside of these little knickknacks are tattered, torn, unraveling. They’re cheap, too; nothing like the beautiful heirloom-esque snow globes my grandparents gifted us each year, the ones proudly adorning the mantel.

No—these snow globes are failing and flawed and, most importantly, quite nearly empty of water.

I should have led with that.

Santa is no longer awash in a winter wonderland, snowflakes dancing about his tiny frame. He stands in a puddle—a small plastic man entrapped in a small plastic case. The reindeer, too, stands aloof in its own plastic prison, glittery water barely reaching its tiny brown nose.

And yet, I keep them. I treasure them. I remember quite clearly the Christmas Eves on which I opened them—early gifts to ring in the Christmas spirit.

But all the same, each year the water grows more shallow; the glitter clings to the sides of the plastic globe with more desperation than charm. It doesn’t matter how hard I shake those little globes: if there’s not enough water to rise, there’s no chance for the snow to fall.

I won’t throw them away, though. One day they will inevitably become simple plastic statues trapped in a transparent enclosure, silent monuments to a past that was glitzy and swimming in cheer and wonder.

I wonder if they’ll mean something new on that day. Something important.

I wonder if they’ll remind me—remind us all—to keep filling our own cups, to keep dipping back into the Great Well of wonder and awe, to immerse ourselves in that sacred place lest we, too, become dry and empty and void of the holiday spirit we so earnestly seek each and every year. Each and every day.

I wonder if those snow globes—snowy no more—and the small friendly critters therein will stand watch, gazing out with quiet desperation: If there’s not enough water to rise, there’s no chance for the snow to fall.

Let us refill ourselves this Christmas season. Let us plunge into the depths so that when shaken, we glisten and glow with grace.