Christmas Without Crying

My mother's in a polyester coat
I'm smiling so hard that my eyes are closed
Her hand is on my shoulder
It's snowing outside

Someone took all the old pictures out
And we're laughing and passing them around
Sitting on the couch, Bic pen on the back she wrote 1975
The days of the wish book catalog

You can sing all of the Sunday hymns
Cause you've known the words all your life
You can roll past that old high school and smile
At the glory days long gone by
You'll be thinking about Grandpa
When you're stringing up those lights
And that will be why
You can't make it through Christmas without crying
Without crying

Any mall Santa Clause will take you right back
Or the Church bazaar that your mama worked at
We all know we can't buy time, but we damn sure try
Little make believe to make the real world make a little sense

You can sing all of the Sunday hymns
Cause you've known the words all your life
You can roll past that old high school and smile
At the glory days long gone by
But you'll remember being 11
When you're stringing up those lights
And that will be why
You can't make it through Christmas without crying
Without crying

Daddy's still dragging the decorations down from the attic
Betting we'd all take the chance to go back if we had it

You can sing all of the Sunday hymns
Cause you've known the words all your life
And roll past that old high school and smile
At the glory days long gone by
And even if you wouldn't change one single thing about your life
It's a matter of time
You can't make it through Christmas without crying
Without crying
Without crying