Tag Archives: Christmas poems

Seasonal No-Nos for RDP, Nov 12, 2024

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Seasonal No-Nos

Coal in your stocking? There’s a reason.
(You’ve commited Yuletide treason
if you’ve been Christmas present squeezin’.)
These forms of unkind family-teasin’
aren’t allowed during this season:
You aren’t allowed to rag on sister
just because her boyfriend kissed ‘er.
Cannot short-sheet brothers’ beds
or put such mischief in the heads
of younger siblings so they do
naughty mischief, taught by you!
Can’t tease the dog or put the cat,
curled up, in your grandpa’s hat.
Cannot set the hamster free
to frolic in the Christmas tree.
Cannot conspire to spike the punch
when preacher’s asked for Sunday brunch.
All sorts of rules I could tell
to relieve the seasonal Hell
of switches in your Xmas stocking,
but I will do no further talking
of naughty things that you could do
to direct Kris Kringle’s wrath towards you.
For you require no more instruction
concerning means of the destruction
of the plans of all the others:
grandparents, sisters and brothers,
parents, uncles, aunts and those
who’ve wrapped up books and toys and clothes
to make your Xmas bright and fun
(so long as you have wrapped up none
of the gag gifts formerly plotted:
broken, ugly, fetid, rotted.)
Please wipe such plans out of your head,
or you’ll be sent,hungry, to bed
presentless, alone, unfed!!!!!

For RDP: Seasonal  Image by Shutterstock

Alibi

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Alibi

There’s an untrue rumor that I can’t dispel
about a certain ruby ring found within my cell.
They’ve just heard from my lawyer, but haven’t heard from me
about why that ruby ring was not beneath the tree
with my lawyer’s wife’s name on it, for she’d seen the receipt
in his bottom desk drawer and, thrilled with the deceit,

thought, “It is a gift for me. I’d better feign surprise.”
But in fact she had no need at all for this disguise,
for there was no tiny box with her name upon it—
no ruby ring within it, waiting for her to don it.
Instead, a brand new blender turned out to be her present,
and can you guess that her reaction wasn’t very pleasant?

Just where was the ruby ring? Her angst knew no restraint
as former suspicions resumed with no constraint.
His frolics with his secretary he’d declared long over.
Was he lying to her? Was he still a rover?
Her honeyed voice escaped her. Her shrieks grew shrill and scary.
How could her husband leave her arms to screw his secretary?

That’s how one more deception about the jewel missing
ended with me out on bail and my lawyer kissing
his wife for once, declaring how he preferred her culture
to any lowly secretary, then went on, the vulture,
saying how I stole the ring right out of his pocket
before he left my jail cell and heard the jailer lock it.

Now he said he’d go and if the warden didn’t mind it,
he’d do a search through all my cell to see if he could find it.
Then quickly, he reclaimed the ring to slip upon a ledge
underneath my mattress, at the very edge.
The fingers of his mistress and his wife were the same  size,
and so his wife was placated as she slipped on her prize.

And the diamond ring that he bought his secretary
after he took her ruby back was indeed so very
much bigger and expensive that she didn’t mind
exchanging her first Christmas rock for a better kind.
And rudely roused and blamed, fresh from my Christmas nap,
I had no objection, charged with another rap.

For my lawyer paid my bail and also said that he’s
defending me pro bono—foregoing any fees!!!

 

Prompt words today are just, dispel, frolic, constraint, culture and ruby.

Humbug

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Humbug

I’m already tired of Christmas before it’s even through,
and there are three more gatherings that I still have to do.
I look into the mirror and do not recognize
that woman that looks back at me in my face’s guise.
Should we discuss those brand new lines etched across my face?
How did they choose their birth date? How did they choose their place?

Perhaps they represent my angst over this Christmas season
that somehow soared way out of hand—nearly beyond reason.
Next year I won’t put up a tree. Stow every Xmas light
up in my spare room closet, safely out of sight.
I won’t say Merry Christmas to everyone I meet.
I’ll fly down to Bermuda and complain about the heat.

I’ll stay in a four-star hotel and won’t regret the tab.
I’ll forget my seafood allergies and dine on shrimp and crab.
Or perhaps I’ll go to Paris and scale the Eiffel Tower,
then sit in a sidewalk restaurant, my expression bored and dour.
My Christmas will be different. Perhaps I’ll dine on horse,
swearing when I’m finished that I’ll have no remorse.

Wherever I might choose to go, whatever choice I make,
I will not trim a tree, no Yuletide spirit will I fake.
I won’t bake star-shaped cookies dozen after dozen
or debate on what to buy for any second cousin.
I’ll make no trips to Walmart, braving holiday masses.
I’ll simply get my Yuletide cheer from bottles and from glasses.

Sangria for my breakfast. Tequila served with lunch.
Mid-afternoon martinis drunk with the cocktail bunch.
No over-saturation with holiday excesses.
No presents piled under the tree and wrapping paper messes.
If I have a hangover, it will be gin or port.
No light strings to untangle. No ornaments to sort.

Then, after all is said and done, the truth will be, I fear,
that my Christmas spirit will re-emerge next year.
For, New Year’s resolutions, as firm as they may be,
seldom last throughout the year. Somehow they seem to flee.
And so it is with Christmas. Much as we try to beat it,
It seems that every year we are destined to repeat it.

 

Prompt words today are birth, discuss, nearly, gathering, represent and mirror.

Christmas: A New Rendition

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Christmas: A New Rendition

That the papers had a field day is totally explicable,
“Santa Stuck in the Chimney and for Hours Inextricable!”
So now he’s on a diet. No more cookies, no more milk.
He’s restricted to mere salads and others of their ilk.

He’s feeling way less boisterous. No more “Ho ho ho’s!”
So there’ll be fewer miracles in our stockings’ toes.
That year the Grinch stole Christmas  just might  be repeated
and socks hung on the mantel might have to be re-feeted.

Prompt words today are field day, inextricable, fireplace, boisterous, miracle and rendition.

Seasonal Bribery

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Seasonal Bribery

Santa’s elves are in the workshop wrapping caramel kisses
to put in the stockings of little boys and misses
whose lofty thoughts are centered on baseball gloves and dolls—
hopes whispered into Santa’s ear in numerous city malls.

But my premonition is that though your needs are captivating, 
there’s a likely chance that Santa’s been equivocating
about giving you the puppy that you’ve been asking for
every day and every night for a year or more.

I’ve heard Santa’s considering the possibility
that you might be lacking in responsibility.
Would you fill his food bowl and pick up puppy poop?
Would you train him not to raid the chicken coop?

Everything about a puppy is not cute and nice.
He might bring you baby birds or even wiggling mice!
Tear up favorite clothes you leave upon the floor,
chew up all your Barbie dolls and Teddy bears and more.

You’d have to learn to clean your room and put your things on shelves—
all the things observed by Santa and his elves.
Do your chores the first time requested by your mother.
If you can’t do your present chores, could you handle another?

It’s not too late to change your ways. Come help to dry the dishes.
Santa might be watching and decide to meet your wishes.
You have another month or two in which you could grow up
enough so you can handle caring for a pup!!!

Prompts today are caramel, workshop, premonition, lofty, responsibility, captivating.

Christmas Mayhem

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Christmas Mayhem

No holly’s hung, no lights are lit.
The whole kingdom’s in a fit.
The castle’s dark without a tree.
No decorations there to see.
Warn the palace. Call a jury.
We’re indicting them of worry.
What’s the source of their reserve?
What has quenched their Christmas verve?

What has caused the royal court’s
spirit to be out of sorts?
Is it the Prince or Queen or King
that’s robbed them of their royal zing?
One parlor maid revealed the cause
of their neglect of Santa Claus.
Their tree’s not up or decorated
because they’re all addlepated.

Reticent of jingle-jangle,
for their lights are in a tangle.
The queen’s all thumbs, the king has gout
and cannot sort his tree lights out.
The Prince is spoiled so won’t help.
They should dethrone that royal whelp.
But it’s the truth, there is no doubt
that someone has to sort them out.

Send in a tailor, schooled in string,
to come untangle everything.
Get a lumberjack to see
if he can cut them down a tree.
Hang on candy canes and balls.
Toss on their tinsel, deck their halls,
for royalty undecorated
will for sure be under-rated.

Prompts today are worry, palace, jingle, reticent and reserve. All photos courtesy of Unsplash.

Holiday Reprieve

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Holiday Reprieve

Do you approach with trepidation
all this Christmas titillation?
When all its plans start to congeal—
the presents, decorations, meal,
all the usual preparations
and the usual perturbations—
perhaps you need to curb frustration
by taking off on a vacation.

Life is short. Don’t hesitate
if you’ve no wish to celebrate.
So much of Christmas’s elation
is a mere regurgitation
of the things, year after year,
we’ve done to try to raise some cheer.
If neither presents opened nor
those Yule carolers at your door
bring you peace and joy and cheer
even at this time of year,

more ways than one to cook a goose.
Open the cage and let him loose,
then pack a bag and take off, too,
to Zanzibar or Katmandu.
Go find a place that is less spangled,
simpler and less Xmas-angled.
Go examine life’s ecologies,
and I’ll make your apologies.

Prompts today are life, congeal, usual, trepidation and celebrate.

Unwrapped Gift

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Unwrapped Gift

You thought life had an itinerary all mapped out and planned?
You thought it was a deck of cards, all dealt out and fanned?
You’d play this card, then that one and win the game with ease?
Fate saw your plan and chuckled and brought you to your knees.

So much for jubilation, for celebration and
your misapprehension you’d been dealt a winning hand.
Humanity is just a part of Nature’s total plan.
Evolution didn’t end when she invented man.

In one hand she holds her sketch pad, in the other an eraser.
One she uses to create herself, the other to efface her.
One creation a success, another a mistake,
Our triumph’s not the only choice that she has to make.

It’s time for the whole human race to eat its humble pie
and align itself with nature, or make the choice to die.
Nature’s not here to conquer. It’s here to show the way.
The truth of that’s the gift that we must learn this Christmas Day.

Prompt words today are humanity, itinerary, celebrate and jubilation.

Sneaky Peeky

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Sneaky-Peeky

I’ll admit I’m not exempt
from feelings that are quite verklempt,
for I find it over-pleasant
when opening a Christmas present
to find that object wrapped inside
(the very one you tried to hide,
but in fact, through search and guile
I’ve known about for quite awhile.)

I discovered it a week ago
as I was searching high and low
to see what you had bought for me.
I simply couldn’t wait to see.
Yet see me ahh and oh and ooh,
putting on a show for you?
What you see as over-reacting
is in fact just over-acting.

Prompt words today are joy, guile, present and verklempt.

 

 

Festive Is

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Festive Is

. . . ribbons and candles and holly.
Christmas trees, parties both raucous and jolly.
Confetti in hair and the nerve to kiss boys
beneath the mistletoe, and other joys.

Presents and eggnog and wedding cake, too.
Fireworks. Flags waving red, white and blue.
Easter egg optimism in the hunting,
papel picado and streamers and bunting.

Festive is hearts charged up with the living.
Anticipation and loving and giving.
Remembrance of exploits and births and unitings,
Easter ham slicings and turkey leg bitings.

May baskets on doorsteps. Socks hung in a row.
Eggnog and streamers wherever you go.
Who knows where festivity had its first starts—
Easter egg rolling or Valentine hearts?

Square dances, cloggings and Virginia reelings
end up on the feet but start with warm feelings
that set toes to tapping and make folks so restive
that they have no choice but to end up as festive!

Before presents and food and new decorations
increase credit card debt to new elevations,
perhaps we’ll remember to go back to the start
and return the horse to in front of the cart.

Our kids need to learn that joy can’t be bought,
and it’s up to us that the lesson be taught.
Before it’s too late, we must somehow impart
that there’s no charge for love and no price tag on heart.

Word prompts today are festive, nerve, optimism and charge.