Posted in Christmas Poetry, For Those in Need, MUSIC & SONG, tagged Celebration, Christmas, Christmas Eve, complacency, FAMILY, goodwill, Joy, loneliness, New Year's Day, New Year's Eve, poverty, sadness on December 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Now that it’s Christmastime
Won’t you please forgive the tearful eye?
Please forgive the shabby man on the street.
Now that we’re almost there,
On the verge of another year,
Please forgive the tattered shoes on his feet…
Hey, don’t you look away,
This can’t wait for another day.
Hey, don’t you look away,
This can’t wait for Christmas Day.
On Christmas Day we gather [...]
Posted in Christmas Poetry, FOOD & DRINK, tagged Christmas, country, excess, feast, food, gluttony, Philip Massinger, poem, renaissance, waste on December 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Men may talk of country-Christmasses and court-gluttony,
Their thirty-pound* buttered eggs, their pies of carp’s tongues,
Their pheasants drenched with ambergris, the carcases
Of three fat wethers bruised for gravy, to
Make sauce for a single peacock; yet their feasts
Were fasts, compared with the city’s…
Did you not observe it?
There were three sucking pigs served up in a dish,
Ta’en from [...]
Posted in Christmas Poetry, tagged 1973, apocalypse, apocalyptic, Christmas, Comet, cult, December 26, false, Kohoutek, kuiper belt object, perihelion, prophecy on December 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Tonight, the North Wind at my back and the
Horns of the young Moon in the western sky
Carried me off to another season; I don’t know why–
Perhaps because the stars shine brightly on Winter nights.
Evening Star and Seven Sisters, riding high,
Reflect in my eye, and carry me back to Christmas–
On the streets of Seattle, 1973, with [...]
Posted in Christmas Poetry, Fight the Holiday Blues, For Those in Need, MUSIC & SONG, SIMPLIFY!, Traditions, tagged commercialism, FAMILY, Greg Lake, I Believe in Father Christmas, Joy, meaning of christmas, Noel, peace, spirit of christmas on November 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
In the video below, “I Believe in Father Christmas,” Greg Lake is singing about a process he went through, that many people go through as they grow older:
1.) The wonder and innocence of Christmas
I remember one Christmas morning
A winter’s light and a distant choir
The peal of a bell, and that Christmas tree smell
And their eyes [...]
Posted in Christmas Poetry, SIMPLIFY!, tagged Christmas, comfort, fire, fireplace, hearth, James Walker, poet, Poetry, safe, simplicity, warm, winter on November 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Posted in Christmas Poetry, tagged 1865, Christmas, cold, excerpt, John Greenleaf Whittier, poem, Snow, Snow-Bound, winter on November 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Posted in Christmas Poetry, FOOD & DRINK, MUSIC & SONG, Traditions, tagged caroling, Christmas, drinking, old english, toasting, tradition, Wassail, Wassailing on November 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
We tend to think of “Wassailing” as the old English tradition of going from house-to-house at Christmas with a wassail bowl either offering a drink and expecting a gratuity in return, or simply expecting the bowl to be filled with drink. This is accurate, but Wassailing was more than that. The term “wassail” comes from [...]
Posted in Christmas Poetry, Uncategorized, tagged Good Hours, poem, poet, Poetry, Robert Frost, Snow, winter on November 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I had for my winter evening walk—
No one at all with whom to talk,
But I had the cottages in a row
Up to their shining eyes in snow.
And I thought I had the folk within:
I had the sound of a violin;
I had a glimpse through curtain laces
Of youthful forms and youthful faces.
I had such company outward [...]
Posted in Christmas Poetry, Traditions, tagged Bryan Procter, Christmas, evergreen, holly, Laurel, Mistletoe, poem, song, traditional, verse, Victorian on November 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
THE MISTLETOE
When winter nights grow long,
And winds without grow cold,
We sit in a ring round the warm wood-fire
And listen to stories old!
And we try to look grave (as maids should be)
When the men bring the boughs of the Laurel tree.
O the Laurel, the evergreen tree!
The poets have laurels, and why not we?
How pleasant, when night [...]
Posted in Art, Christmas Poetry, Traditions, tagged antique, classic, Clement Moore, Harpers, historical, magazine, Santa Claus, The Night Before Christmas, Victorian, Visit from Saint Nick on November 6, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Note how Saint Nick in the leading illustration has something of a rustic “gnomish” quality, as compared to later, red-suited incarnations of the fat man.
Click on thumbnails for full page view.
Printing tip: these images will print better when saved to your computer and printed locally, rather than printing directly from your browser.
