39 Christmas poems

(A Christmas Circular Letter) The city had withdrawn into itself And left at last the country to the country; When between whirls of snow not come to lie And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove A stranger to our yard, who looked the city, Yet did in country fashion in that there He sat and waited till he drew us out A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was. He proved to be the city come again To look for something it had left behind And could not do without and keep its Christmas. He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees; My woods—the young fir balsams like a place Where houses all are churches and have spires. I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees. I doubt if I was tempted for a moment To sell them off their feet to go in cars And leave the slope behind the house all bare, Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon. I’d hate to have them know it if I was. Yet more I’d hate to hold my trees except As others hold theirs or refuse for them, Beyond the time of profitable growth, The trial by market everything must come to. I dallied so much with the thought of selling. Then whether from mistaken courtesy And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether From hope of hearing good of what was mine, I said, “There aren’t enough to be worth while.” “I could soon tell how many they would cut, You let me look them over.” “You could look. But don’t expect I’m going to let you have them.” Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close That lop each other of boughs, but not a few Quite solitary and having equal boughs All round and round. The latter he nodded “Yes” to, Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one, With a buyer’s moderation, “That would do.” I thought so too, but wasn’t there to say so. We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over, And came down on the north. He said, “A thousand.” “A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?” He felt some need of softening that to me: “A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.” Then I was certain I had never meant To let him have them. Never show surprise! But thirty dollars seemed so small beside The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents (For that was all they figured out apiece), Three cents so small beside the dollar friends I should be writing to within the hour Would pay in cities for good trees like those, Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools Could hang enough on to pick off enough. A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had! Worth three cents more to give away than sell, As may be shown by a simple calculation. Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter. I can’t help wishing I could send you one, In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.

It was Christmastime, the balloons needed blowing, and so in the evening we sat together to blow balloons and tell jokes, and the cool air off the hills made me think of coffee, so I said, “Coffee would be nice,” and he said, “Yes, coffee would be nice,” and smiled as his thin fingers pulled the balloons from the plastic bags; so I went for coffee, and it takes a few minutes to make the coffee and I did not know if he wanted cow’s milk or condensed milk, and when I came out to ask him, he was gone, just like that, in the time it took me to think, cow’s milk or condensed; the balloons sat lightly on his still lap.

Almost the first reindeer shipped North by boxcar from Lapland but a toy model got there first. A dwarf invented reindeer on his own. He was Santa’s favorite. He hadn't known they already existed. This discouraged dwarf was close to taking his life but Santa showed up encircled by snow. He said, “I will use the real reindeer for my sled always in yoke to your original invention.” That night the gears that turned the Pole stopped and began to turn the other way, so it be so. My love is a toy model waiting for a reindeer to carry me.

In the middle of December to start over to assume again an order at the end of wonder to conjure and then to keep slow dirty sleet within its streetlight

Bethlehem in Germany, Glitter on the sloping roofs, Breadcrumbs on the windowsills, Candles in the Christmas trees, Hearths with pairs of empty shoes: Panels of Nativity Open paper scenes where doors Open into other scenes, Some recounted, some foretold. Blizzard-sprinkled flakes of gold Gleam from small interiors, Picture-boxes in the stars Open up like cupboard doors In a cabinet Jesus built. Southern German villagers, Peasants in the mica frost, See the comet streaming down, Heavenly faces, each alone, Faces lifted, startled, lost, As if lightning lit the town. Sitting in an upstairs window Patiently the village scholar Raises his nearsighted face, Interrupted by the star. Left and right his hands lie stricken Useless on his heavy book. When I lift the paper door In the ceiling of his study One canary-angel glimmers, Flitting in the candelabra, Peers and quizzes him: Rabbi, What are the spheres surmounted by? But his lips are motionless. Child, what are you asking for? Look, he gazes past the roofs, Gazes where the bitter North, Stretched across the empty place, Opens door by door by door. This is childhood's shrunken door. When I touch the glittering crumbs, When I cry to be admitted, No one answers, no one comes. And the tailor's needle flashes In midair with thread pulled tight, Stitching a baptismal gown. But the gown, the seventh door, Turns up an interior Hidden from the tailor's eyes: Baby presents like the boxes Angels hold on streets and stairways, Wooden soldier, wooden sword, Chocolate coins in crinkled gold, Hints of something bought and sold, Hints of murder in the stars. Baby's gown is sown with glitter Spread across the tailor's lap. Up above his painted ceiling Baby mouse's skeleton Crumbles in the mouse's trap. Leaning from the cliff of heaven, Indicating whom he weeps for, Joseph lifts his lamp above The infant like a candle-crown. Let my fingers touch the silence Where the infant's father cries. Give me entrance to the village From my childhood where the doorways Open pictures in the skies. But when all the doors are open, No one sees that I've returned. When I cry to be admitted, No one answers, no one comes. Clinging to my fingers only Pain, like glitter bits adhering, When I touch the shining crumbs.

’Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house, Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugar plums danc’d in their heads, And Mama in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap — When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash. The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow, Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below; When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-deer, With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled, and shouted, and call’d them by name: “Now! Dasher, now! Dancer, now! Prancer, and Vixen, “On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Dunder and Blixem; “To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall! “Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!” As dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly, When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky; So up to the house-top the coursers they flew, With the sleigh full of Toys — and St. Nicholas too: And then in a twinkling, I heard on the roof The prancing and pawing of each little hoof. As I drew in my head, and was turning around, Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound: He was dress’d all in fur, from his head to his foot, And his clothes were all tarnish’d with ashes and soot; A bundle of toys was flung on his back, And he look’d like a peddler just opening his pack: His eyes — how they twinkled! his dimples how merry, His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry; His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow. And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow; The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath. He had a broad face, and a little round belly That shook when he laugh’d, like a bowl full of jelly: He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, And I laugh’d when I saw him in spite of myself; A wink of his eye and a twist of his head Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread. He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And fill’d all the stockings; then turn’d with a jerk, And laying his finger aside of his nose And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose. He sprung to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew, like the down of a thistle: But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight — Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Christmas morning before everyone wakes i sit with my coffee and my bible and the quiet this is the gift i give myself every year before the beautiful noise starts

Every christmas eve my dad read the same story and we put out cookies and argued about whether santa was real we all knew we played along anyway some things are true because you keep doing them

Christmas eve every year the kids on the stairs waiting for permission to come down we all pretend the magic is real even the ones who know maybe especially them