Wishing You Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2014!

The Styrofoam snowman lookalike Santa 

Sits next to a penguin vase
In fake snow, tinsel

A gilded fruit bowl

“Not fit for food consumption”
Pine branches and cones made of plastic

The Night of GMO Christmas

Stores full of sad, frazzled people 
Buying gifts 
They’ll return next Monday

Lasciate omni speranza?
To be is just to have? 

Still, there's the happy warmth 
Of a baby dozing off 
On Grandpa’s lap

A child’s laughing 
At paper angel’s wings

She crumples in her hands

With pink cheeks, smudged by chocolate
From a large bite of a cookie
She made with her Mom
For Santa

“Merry Christmas” - she smiles
And all is well on Earth
And in Heaven
All is well and will be
Tonight

(c) 2013 by Maja Trochimczyk

Ella Fitzgerald "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas: http://youtu.be/9L5mPfpeXxk

Christmas Eve

By Christina Rosetti

Christmas hath a darkness
Brighter than the blazing noon,
Christmas hath a chillness
Warmer than the heat of June,
Christmas hath a beauty
Lovelier than the world can show:
For Christmas bringeth Jesus,
Brought for us so low.

Earth, strike up your music,
Birds that sing and bells that ring;
Heaven hath answring music
For all Angels soon to sing:
Earth, put on your whitest
Bridal robe of spotless snow:
For Christmas bringeth Jesus,
Brought for us so low.

Polish Christmas Carol (Bog sie rodzi): http://youtu.be/wriBVTJY_cA

The Holy Night

By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

We sate among the stalls at Bethlehem;
The dumb kine from their fodder turning them,
Softened their horned faces
To almost human gazes
Toward the newly Born:
The simple shepherds from the star-lit brooks
Brought their visionary looks,
As yet in their astonied hearing rung
The strange sweet angel-tonge:
The magi of the East, in sandals worn,
Knelt reverent, sweeping round,
With long pale beards, their gifts upon the ground,
The incense, myrrh, and gold
These baby hands were impotent to hold:
So let all earthlies and celestials wait
Upon thy royal state.
Sleep, sleep, my kingly One!

Polish Christmas Carol (Lulajze Jezuniu by Mazowsze): http://youtu.be/inoWL5fhZWA

311 (Snow) by Emily Dickinson

It sifts from Leaden Sieves — It powders all the Wood. It fills with Alabaster Wool The Wrinkles of the Road — It makes an Even Face Of Mountain, and of Plain — Unbroken Forehead from the East Unto the East again — It reaches to the Fence — It wraps it Rail by Rail Till it is lost in Fleeces — It deals Celestial Vail To Stump, and Stack — and Stem — A Summer’s empty Room — Acres of Joints, where Harvests were, Recordless, but for them — It Ruffles Wrists of Posts As Ankles of a Queen — Then stills its Artisans — like Ghosts — Denying they have been — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKG5iJb2kSY  - Ella Fitzgerald's Christmas Song _____________________________ Photos of snowflakes by Wilson Bentley (1865-1931) from Wikipedia under standard terms. Photos of Holly and Poinsettia leaves by Maja Trochimczyk