Holiday Dreams

Holidaydreans

I remember that Christmas
with fear and alarm
cause it seemed every wrangler
who worked on the farm
stopped to watch Martha Stewart;
an expert for certain
on how to make cookies
and hem up a curtain.
She showed them what’s needed
to prepare for the feast…
How the presents should look…
How to cook the Roast Beast.
While the ranch hands all watched her,
there was one who did not.
A scraggly old miser,
a miserable old sot,
who hates all the feasting
and won’t do a thing
except stand on his porch
and curse when folks sing.
And my, how they’d sing.
They would sing, sing, sing, sing.
He would cry and would groan
from night until noon
cause not one of those carolers
carried a tune.
And, this year he vowed
he would wreck the whole feast…
He would ruin our Christmas
and steal our Roast Beast.
Well, I bundled all up
in my flannels and cap,
climbed under the covers
to take me a nap.
There’s a ruckus outside
and it’s not even dawn
so I jumped out of bed
to see what’s going on.
And what to my glazed over eyes
should appear
but the source of the clamor
and clanking I hear.
Ebineezer S. Grinch;
that holiday louse
was destroying the “good things”
we’d done round the house.
He took down the tree,
stole the presents beneath
with their hand stenciled paper.
That terrible theif.
He drank our mulled cider,
ate each cookie and scone,
snatched wreaths made of pine boughs
and stole the dog’s bone.
In the midst of this nightmare,
Charlie’s Angels appeared
spreading news of great joy…
just what that Grinch feared.
Martha Claus and her elves
then went round the house
repairing the damage
done by that louse.
Then off to my right
I heard somebody cough
and I knew in a flash,
I had simply dozed off.
I’m still at the gathering
of singers and poets
Nothing has changed
and wouldn’t you know it
the best part of all
of this festivity
is the poems all rhyme
and the songs are on key.

Jeff Hildebrandt, copyright 2002