[Intro] On three, say “we’re happy.” Don’t move the mess. Just move the frame. [Verse 1] Matching sweaters, borrowed smile, tags still on the sleeve, you say, “Let’s look natural,” like that’s something we achieve. Kick the laundry down the hallway, hide the boxes by the door, if it’s not inside the picture, it was never here before. Tripod shaking on a chair, timer set to ten, you pull me in much closer than you do when it’s just us again. Kids are screaming off the frame, you whisper, “Can you please?” we hold our breath and fake a life in pixel-perfect ease. [Pre-Chorus] Hold that pose, don’t move, don’t shake, if the picture doesn’t crack, maybe nothing else will break. [Chorus] Christmas for the camera, not the heart, we frame the love and crop the broken part. Say “we’re fine” on three, don’t blink, don’t breathe, if it looks good in the frame, who cares what’s underneath? Christmas for the camera, shining on the glass, thirty perfect seconds strangers double-tap and pass. We look like love so we don’t have to feel it, picture-perfect people with no idea how to heal it. [Verse 2] You say, “This one’s going up, everyone will see how we kept it all together, just the kids and you and me.” But I still hear what you shouted by the sink an hour ago, while you tilt my chin to daylight like the lens can’t ever know. You swipe through the almosts, “No, my face… no, your eyes,” turn a little, hide the shadow, keep rehearsing all our lies. In the corner, on the carpet, someone’s halo starts to slip, we just pinch them to the edges with a two-fingered grip. [Pre-Chorus 2] If we hold this pose just right, maybe all the cracks stay out of sight. [Chorus] Christmas for the camera, not the heart, we trim the truth and keep the pretty part. Say “we’re fine” on three, don’t blink, don’t breathe, if it looks good on the feed, who cares what’s underneath? Christmas for the camera, hanging on the wall, we look like we had everything when we barely had it all. We look like love so we don’t have to feel it, freeze the frame and pray the future kids believe it. [Bridge] One day they’ll be scrolling through a December long ago, see the fairy lights and matching smiles in artificial snow. They’ll say, “We looked so happy,” and we’ll both know what we see: a perfect little postcard where the truth was not invited to be. You stand a little closer so the frame looks tight, funny how we only touch when there’s enough light. We fix the angle till the mess is gone, if we never zoom out, maybe nothing’s wrong. [Breakdown] Post it, prove it, say it’s real, filter what you shouldn’t feel. Smile, click, save, play the part, frame the room and miss the heart. [Final Chorus] Christmas for the camera, not the heart, we frame the love and hide the falling-apart. Say “we’re fine” on three, don’t blink, don’t breathe, if it looks good in the frame, who cares what’s underneath? Christmas for the camera, glowing on the screen, we look like someone’s heaven in a night that wasn’t clean. So I take one shot with no pose, no script, no fixing what is crooked, no controlling what has slipped. Christmas for the camera, then I turn it off and see all the unedited and broken still belong to you and me. If the picture lasts forever while the moment’s moving through, I’d rather keep it out of focus if it means it’s really you. [Outro] No filter, no countdown, no proof. Just us.
