Poems for Christmas Eve

The first of our Christmas poems. Happy Christmas!

One Wise Man

His missus sighed, “I suppose you’re

off chasing stars again this year?  

Where to this time?”

“Bethlehem.”

“And where the heck is that?”

“Two full-moons west of here.”

“Well I never. Better hire

a herd of camels, take a good

supply of dates and presents.

Gold, frankincense and myrrh

are quite in vogue this year.”

“Gold! Camels! Presents!

Giving them away!

Not much profit there, I’d say.”

“Exactly! So tell the other three they’re

going on their own this year. Let’s holiday

away together – just you and me;

I hear The Valley of the Kings has

great weather this time of the year.”

“I’ll go and pack my dear.”

Mike Lee

Walking in Woods on Christmas Eve

Nothing is missing

in this forest of pine trees

look, Christmas presents

 Johanna Boal 

Jingle Bells

Every Father Christmas in the world rocked up,

to protest against the commercialisation

of Christmas,

faces upturned to the heavens,

pleading for some respite from mock reindeers

in shopping malls,

and flashy toys, baubles and billowing cheeks

of cherubs blowing silver trumpets,

past which rivers of people flow

on escalators, to plastic Utopias

“We love the Christmas carols,

but we feel like stuffed turkeys in our red garb

and caps,” chanted one Father Christmas,

while the others chorused:

“Enough is enough, we are on strike.”

On the way to the protest point

each Father Christmas

was given a wand by a real fairy

who said her place had been usurped

by gaudy imitations

on top of artificial trees

They had never been on a protest march,

so could Father Christmas

wave a magic wand and turn

each bogus fairy into a frog

“We will do that and more,”

sang the Father Christmas strikers
”We will turn every bright bauble

and piece of tinsel that we see,

into a partridge in a pear tree.”

Clarissa McFairy

I counted the cakes I’d made:

Rich fruit cakes, iced and decorated with flowers

red roses, delicate yellow freesias,

open daisies, from the fortieth to

the sixty fourth of my parents’ anniversaries.

Christmas cakes, rich and fruity, or apple light

 for every year of my marriage,

including the first we left in the oven

while we went back to bed, letting it burn.

Novelty birthday cakes,

owls, witches, castles, cars, a big red dice,

 football pitches complete with players

I forgot to return to my friend,

and underneath, layers of sponge

filled with jam, or gooey chocolate cake, or gingerbread.

A hundred scones once for cream teas, at school

 flap jacks, brownies for the fair, a cake

 for each cub and scout trip

my boys made ‘so they’d have something from home’ –

the leader’s words.

 Still to count the weekday

cup cakes or the Sunday treats I called a halt,

went on strike. Said that’s it.

The kitchen’s closed to cake.

It lasted for two whole years and then

I went back in, made a Christmas cake,

marzipaned it, iced it, then armed with food dyes:

red, blue, yellow, green, silver, gold

 I splashed the surface with colour

like Jackson Pollock.

Susan Jane Sims