A Christmas Gift

Thanksgiving napkins were put away. The holders on the table stayed. Soon the silver fingers were seen holding folds of red and green. The turkey made of paper brown from the front door was taken down.  Its hanging hook left to hold. Salutations from verses old. A cornucopia the table graced. Now holly candles take its place. Surrounded by snowflake mats, replacing those with pilgrim hats. Pie pla...

A short distance from my beach house door,   the surf seized a bottle and tossed it on the shore.   Old Dog, Ziggy, and I on our daily walk, hearing the morning talk,   I saw the sunlit bottle with a rolled up note inside,  and wondered what was sent on the early morning tide.   I picked up the bottle sunken in the sand,   and read its cryptic note trembling in my hand.  Whoever finds this bottle,...

 Now let me tell you in this season of cheer,  of gifts received throughout the year.   The breeze that turned my whirligig's wings,   carried the fragrance of lilacs in spring.   A tall cluster of tulips, yellow and red,   stout sentinels on their mounded bed.   And the quiet evening when I heard the murmuring note of a cooing bird,   and saw before the light was gone the singer of that even...

From the warm kitchen of my friend B,   A gift of fruitcake was given to me.   Now a fruitcake buyer I've never been,   A fruitcake taster, yes, now and then.   Beneath its rum soaked cover  The cake I sought  Drew a slice and thought,   What makes this the best of all the rest  Is that special ingredient,  Thoughtfulness.

Has it been so very long ago?   In your lifetime and mine,   we've forgotten what it was like to be a child at Christmastime.   Remember how our small world changed as it started turning red and green?   And there were boxes and bags not supposed to be seen.   Things came out we remembered seeing the same time a year before.  Holly trays and a brown acorn wreath that Dad hung up on our front...

You can sit by a fire on a cold winter night,   lie in the sun when the weather's right.   You can warm your hands where the wood stove glows,   adorn a cozy coat when the west wind blows.   But no greater warmth will you come to know  than that which comes from watching your little child grow.   What you cannot do,  although at times you try,   is to keep those young years  from passing on b...

Perhaps you could explain to me  a phenomenon I often see.  When driving through a city or town  where road crosses and jaywalkers abound. This is the question I ask   When you stop your car to let them pass   Why do the young with bodies strong and sneaked feet  take so long to cross the street?   And haven't the strength the good God gave  to raise a hand in a thank you wave?  But the old,...

It was a cold Christmas Eve,  and I was very young.   The Grange Hall tree was lit, and old time carols were sung.   It was there that I saw Jenny in the glow of candlelight,   pouring hot cider for the folks gathered there that night.   Oh, we fell in love and dreamed what the future might bring.  Our wedding day, tiny tots, a farm with fruitful plantings in spring.   We were poor country folk wi...

It was Christmas Eve with the sun going down  on a snow covered street  in a small coastal town.   Most town folk had gone to family and home  Just a few souls remained, where many had roamed.  Shop lights were shut off, the late shoppers done,   And off in the distance, Christmas carols were sung.   The shawled old woman looked bent and gray,  As she slowly stepped along her way.  This special wi...

Christmas 2024 marks the first year that our family won't receive the annual Christmas poem in the mail written by Grampy Ted. As the year turned from summer to fall, in the midst of a move, we dusted off some old boxes and found recordings left by my grandfather.  To keep an decades old Christmas tradition alive, we decided to gift his poems back to our family and the world. This final poem...