Yesterday was the Boxing Day party of my neighbors and I think the photos tell it all. Every year they add another tree. I think they are up to 8 now. Their Jewish tree is hung upside down! Another tree is covered by cardinals. I don’t think I got a photo of it this year. At any rate, welcome to the party. Click on photos to enlarge.
See many more photos of the different trees plus explanations by Sergio HERE.
Scrooge Holds Forth on Christmas
It can be a bit frenetic, this yearly Yuletide season,
creating a fiasco beyond any rhyme or reason.
It carries us along on a tide of fir and holly,
demanding we be spirit-filled and reverent and jolly
until we’re nearly saturated with the Yultide spirit,
kind of sick of Christmas before we’re even near it.
All this peace and loving can be a royal pain—
pine needles barely cleared away before they’re here again.
We’re blanketed in blessings, gift-wrapped and over-gay
in an over-decorated binge-filled treacle holiday.
Oh for just one Christmas without reindeer-decked pajamas,
on a sun-filled beach somewhere—perhaps in the Bahamas!!!!
Prompts today are Yuletide, blanket, nearly, fiasco, carry and royal.
Please click on photos to read captions and enlarge pictures.
With the exception of the last photo, these were all photos taken on New Year’s Eve at my house. What started out to be a silent night turned rather loud once the fireworks started and every dog in town started to bark, but at least did serve to illustrate the brightness in the song.
The last photo of Santiago tucked into bed with the stuffed dog I got him in the States
was taken by his dad a few days ago. He is Yolanda’s grandson. I’ve been staying away because
of the corona virus, but I have held him twice–both times right after I had a covid test so I knew
it was safe.
Happy New Year everyone!!!
Click on photos to enlarge.
The Great Reveal
When it comes to Christmas gifts, I hope you get a passel
and you find unwrapping them to be a task most facile.
Every bound up package, may it be in bow or tassel,
a rip-roaring pleasure instead of any hassle.
And though we are adults now, let them be mementos of
all those bygone childhood years that all of us just love
to retain with pleasure in our memories—
how we would prod and finger gifts and ogle, guess and squeeze.
Then, finally, on Christmas morn, we’d wake up like a shot,
barreling downstairs at dawn to see what we had got.
Before the church bells drew us out, we had to do our duty
and reveal just what Santa had left us for our booty.
Thus however much we’ve tried maturity to hone,
at Christmas time we find how very little we have grown.
As we untie ribbons, rip off paper, pry off lids,
we discover in our hearts that all of us are kids!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to All!!!!
Xmas 2021—A Year in Review
How quickly now the new year waxes—
parties, valentines, then taxes
coming up in twenty-two,
when finally we’ll get to view
two-thousand-twenty-one as past—
a year that left us all aghast.
It’s doubtful we’d want to repeat
the year science failed to defeat
that curse it only vilipended
but, alas, it never ended.
It was another year most taxing—
too much discord, too little paxing.
I must lay out the brutal truth.
All-in-all, a year uncouth!!!!
Prompts today are finally, doubtful, pax, vilipend and layout.
“Baptism on the line, also called equatorial baptism, is an alternative initiation ritual sometimes performed as a ship crosses the Equator, involving water baptism of passengers or crew who have never crossed the Equator before. The ceremony is sometimes explained as being an initiation into the court of King Neptune.” Wikipedia
Baptism at Sea
We were happy at Christmas. Pale Andy didn’t dance, but moon makes even mouse-hair gold, and it was golden hair that swung to breeze. Out on the deck, baptized by salt spray, we watched dolphins spread out in a line, racing our boat to the equator and winning, flipping tails and turning in one fell swoop, synchronized in their returning to where we’d all just been.
But we went farther south, turned west, then up again on Africa’s farther coast.
We cross a fine line,
speeding into tomorrow,
courted by the sea.
This is Fran’s prompt for dVerse Poets: This week, Let’s give thanks! Write a haibun about one person, place, or thing for which you give thanks. It could be your favorite playlist or album, a holiday getaway, childhood home, or someone truly special to you. Whomever, or whatever, you decide to give thanks for, let your haibun manifest that to us!
For those new to haibun, the form consists of one to a few paragraphs of prose—usually written in the present tense—that evoke an experience and are often non-fictional/autobiographical. They may be preceded or followed by one or more haiku—nature-based, using a seasonal image—that complement without directly repeating what the prose stated. The haiku is a Japanese poetic form that consists of three lines, with five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third.
Okay! Prompt words for the day are knockers, combination, festival, beseech and sentence. What in the world would you do with a combination of words like that? Think of that before you judge me for this:
Hallo-fourthof-valen-mas
This festival’s the weirdest of any that I’ve seen—
a crazy combination of Christmas and Halloween.
The hire-a-Santa in the mall wears bear paws on his feet
and when the kids climb on his lap, they mutter, “Trick or Treat!”
Below the Christmas wreaths above, door knockers are kept busy
as grandmas baking Yule logs are kept in a fine tizzy
by swarms of little carolers who can barely reach
the door knockers, who gather with arms up to beseech
the homeowners for candy after every song,
then stuff it in the Christmas stockings that they brought along.
Scores of scavengers dressed up like shepherds or like kings
as well as Virgin Marys or angels sporting wings
abandon Christmas pageants to Trick-or-Treat instead.
You might ask me by what edict the world was made to wed
Halloween and Christmas? What legislative body
chose two celebrations equally over-gaudy
and mixed them both together to try to regulate
the number of occasions on which we celebrate?
I think it was the W-H-O that thought up this solution
to try to deal with Covid and to try to curb pollution,
then issued this weird sentence and made us all comply
to celebrate all holidays on the fourth of July!
And so in combination with the skeletons and holly,
as witches and small ghosts are enjoined to act more jolly,
fireworks are exploding in the sky far up above,
and as they trick-and-treat they also express love
by handing out their valentines—kill two birds with one stone
by trading hearts for Hershey bars with a ghostly moan.
And that’s how Hallo-fourthof-valen-mas has come to be
the only time when we’re allowed a group festivity.
And since part of it’s Halloween, without being asked
every guest, no matter what their politics, comes fully masked!!!
Prompt words for the day are knockers, combination, festival, beseech and sentence.
Hopeful Holidays
In almost every culture, at least once every year,
there is some celebration that brings on belly-cheer.
So bring out the turkey, the cranberries and beer.
Commence that over-eating that we all hold dear.
Over-feeding is a statement, a type of family caring,
as are the ugly Christmas sweaters you seem to be wearing.
After all the wrapping up comes all the paper tearing,
all the boxes opening and all the surprise-baring.
Then we dedicate ourselves to other acts of daring,
be it ham or goose or turkey, lutefisk or herring.
Lucky, lucky people to have family for bearing:
Aunt Stella’s time-worn stories and Uncle Herman’s swearing.
Each of us just wondering how far-flung friends are faring.
Here’s hoping you have friends and family with whom you are sharing.
Even though we may have masks spread out from ear-to-ear,
let’s end the year departing from these months of constant fear
to shift our expectations into a higher gear,
hoping 2021 turns out to be less queer!!!
Prompt words today were caring, lucky, dedicated and belly-cheer.
Merry Christmas everyone. Treasure your families, even in their absence.
This, too, shall pass. xooxox
Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash
Last Time I Went A-Wassailing
Having voracious appetites for whimsy and for wine,
and although the custom is not culturally mine,
I find passing the wassail cup simply too divine.
Sadly, with each passing, I’m increasingly supine
until the floor once under foot ends up under my spine.
Asked to leave the party when I got out of line,
I thought I’d go a-caroling somewhere except online.
Alas, I lost my Wassail cup near Hollywood and Vine,
and afterwards my harmonies started to decline.
So if you dare to venture out and take the same bus line,
if you find a Wassail cup, it’s certain to be mine!!
Prompt words today are wine, voracious, wassail, and whimsy.
Wassailing is a British tradition, but how it was initially performed seems to have varied by region. The most modern version involves wishing good cheer and health in the coming year to the people around you, usually while drinking a warm spiced punch. The wassail beverage likely started as a hot, sweetened mead or wine. Nowadays, the punch is a bit more complex, with fall spices, fruit juices, and sometimes other liquors added to the mulled wine or cider.
Christmas Cancelled!!!
Lower the pinãta. Bring the party to a halt.
Cease your roar of protest, for I’m not the one at fault
for curbing your frivolity and quashing all our fun.
If you need a scapegoat, Father Christmas is the one
who turned Rudolph out to pasture and retired his sleigh to blocks.
while Gaea, Christ and Santa Claus have some major talks.
The Christ child won’t be crowned this year. The elves are on vacation.
Santa will stay a figment of your imagination.
The only Santas left are those “Ho ho” ing for their wages.
St. Nicholas gave up the ghost when we put kids in cages.
He sold off Donner and Blitzen when we turned our backs
on nature’s other creatures: the elephants and yaks.
All the endangered creatures in the forest and the seas,
those crippled by pollution, global warming and disease.
He closed up his workshop as we squandered nature’s gifts,
deserted the North Pole as the glaciers formed their rifts.
Now bad boys won’t get presents and, alas, the good ones either.
We’re being banished to our rooms while nature takes a breather.
Will Christmas come another year? I guess we’ll wait and see.
Next year will we be perched on or turned over Santa’s knee?
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 