Category: photography

From “Christmas Baubles” by Kate Williams in Christmas Poems, compiled by Paul Cookson: 

Baubles
fragile, fire-bright
hanging, hovering, quivering
reflectors of tiny glinting tints
tree treasures

From “Turn the Handle” by Julie O’Callaghan in The Twelve Poems of Christmas, selected by Carol Ann Duffy:

Once I turn the handle
I am in the dream-time-zone of winter
yakking about happy festive topics
while pushing beautiful cakes
carefully between my choppers.
Robins hop out of harp notes
holding tinsel in their beaks
for the chandelier.
I make the acquaintance
of a large spruce tree
loaded down with baubles and gauds:
its needles point toward
the glittering snowdrift
at the base of the french doors.
I toss a frozen bombe into my gullet.
Sparklers explode from my ears.
The man sporting a holly wreath around his neck
has called for a game of charades.
If you are a Christmas Mummer,
crawl out from under the piano.

You are granted only one
spangled room in your life.
Turn the handle.
Step inside.

From “Christmas Glitter” in Living Christmas Every Day by Helen Steiner Rice:

With our eyes
we see the glitter
of Christmas,
with our ears
we hear the merriment,
with our hands
we touch the
tinsel-tied trinkets,
but only
with our hearts
can we feel
the miracle of it.

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From “Winter” by Alfred Lord Tennyson in The Christmas Treasury: A Collection of Stories, Poems, Carols, and Traditions, edited by Kate Hayden:

The frost is here,
The fuel is dear,
And woods are sear,
And fires burn clear,
And frost is here
And has bitten the heel of the going year.

Bite, frost, bite!
You roll up away from the light,
The blue-wood-louse and the plump dormouse,
And the bees are stilled and the flies are killed,
And you bite far into the heart of the house,
But not into mine.

Bite, frost, bite!
The woods are all the searer,
The fuel is all the dearer,
The fires are all the clearer,
My spring is all the nearer,
You have bitten into the heart of the earth,
But not into mine.

From “The Nest” in Lights from December: A Collection of Christmas Poems by Arlene Johnson Jens:

A nest became empty and dry —
Its mud sides had cracked
and its lining of grass
became brittle and chippy.
It fell from the bush
where the evergreen foliage
had buried it.
There it was.
A nest on winter’s ground.
For what?

In the light,
pearls from the earth
moistened the nest.
Its case
became clay
and the brown dry slivers
revived.

A small boy came along
and shrieked, “Hey,
a nest for my snowball!”

And he placed it there
with tenderness.

Why do we have

The Solstice of Winter
The Saturnalia of the gods
The Festival of Lights
The Light of the World!

Before hearts turn to emptiness
and dryness, become cracked
and brittle and chippy,
they must fall from the
protection of darkness
to be renewed and refreshed
by a Light!

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From “Old Shepherd, Remembering” by Grace V. Watkins in Christmas: An American Annual of Christmas Literature and Art, Volume 43:

“You are too old for tending flocks of sheep,
Especially at night,” they tell me now,
The younger shepherds. “You would fall asleep
Or stumble in the dark.” If they could know
The hunger in my heart to be again
Within that field beneath the starlit sky!
It’s lonely when you are the only one
Still living who beheld the angels high
And radiantly fair, who heard their voices.
But oh, I know with flaming certainty
That I shall hear them, see those angel faces
Again. How bright, how glorious they will be
In vaster skies, in realms of loveliness
Beyond what earthbound hearts can dream or guess!

From “O Sanctissima” in The Carols of Christmas:

Day of holiness,
Peace and happiness,
Joyful, glorious Christmas Day.
Angels tell the story
Of this day of glory;
Praise Christ, our Saviour,
Born this Christmas Day.

Oh, how joyfully,
Oh, how merrily,
Christmas comes with its peace divine!
Peace on earth is reigning,
Christ our peace regaining;
hail, ye Christians,
hail the joyous Christmastime!

Oh. how joyfully,
Oh, how merrily,
Christmas comes with its life divine!
Angels high in glory
Chant the Christmas story;
hail, ye Christians,
hail the joyous Christmastime!

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From “The Letters” in Silly Rhymes for Christmas Times: A Collection of Festive Poems by Nigel Smith:

10th December 1880:

Dear Santa, my name’s Vicky, and I’m only eight years old,
I’m sending you this note, because I’ve been as good as gold,
I’d really love a doll’s house, in my stocking Christmas day,
I hope your gnomes will make one, and you’ll bring it on your sleigh.

9th December 1881:

Dear Santa, this is Vicky, I’m the one who wrote last year,
I asked you for a doll’s house, which alas, did not appear,
I guess my note got lost, or failed to reach the gnomes on time,
I still would love a doll’s house, by the way, my age is nine.

14th December 1882:

Dear Santa Claus, it’s Vicky, it’s the third time that I’ve wrote,
I really can’t imagine why you didn’t get my note,
I’m ten, and getting anxious, for a doll’s house of my own,
please pass this letter quickly, to the doll’s house-making gnome….

From “The New Nutcracker Suite” by Ogden Nash in Poems of Christmas, edited by Myra Cohn Livingston:

A little girl marched around her Christmas tree,
And many a marvelous toy had she.
There were cornucopias of sugarplums,
And a mouse with a crown, that sucked its thumbs,
And a fascinating Russian folderol,
Which was a doll inside a doll inside a doll inside a doll,
And a posy as gay as the Christmas lights
And a picture book of the Arabian nights,
And a painted, silken Chinese fan —

But the one she loved was the nutcracker man.
She thought about him when she went to bed.
With his great long legs and his funny little head.
So she crept downstairs for a last good night,
And arrived in the middle of a furious fight.
The royal mouse that sucked its thumbs
Led an army of mice with swords and drums.
They were battling to seize the toys as slaves
To wait upon them in their secret caves.
The nutcracker man cracked many a crown,
But they overwhelmed him, they whelmed him down,
They were cramming him into a hole in the floor
When the little girl tiptoed to the door.
She had one talent which made her proud,
She could miaow like a cat, and now she miaowed.
A miaow so fierce, a miaow so feline,
That the mice fled home in squealing beeline.

The nutcracker man cracked a hickory nut
To see if his jaws would open and shut,
Then he cracked another and he didn’t wince,
And he turned like that! into a handsome prince,
And the toys came dancing from the Christmas tree
To celebrate the famous victory.

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From “Holly Fairies” by Aileen Fisher in Christmas Bells are Ringing: A Treasury of Christmas Poetry, by Sara and John E. Brewton:

Oh, fairies love a holly tree
The foliage makes a roof
of sturdy shingles,
always green
and new and weatherproof.
And even under winter skies
the berries burn so bright
they look like
little fairy lamps,
with bulbs of crimson light.

Oh, fairies love a holly spray
too much by far to leave,
and so they up and follow it
indoors, on Christmas Eve.

And that is why each house
is blessed
where holly sprigs are seen,
because the fairies
still are there
beneath the red and green.

From “Hallelujah of Whales” in Following Their Star: Poems of Christmas and Nature by Maxwell Cordon Wheat, Jr.:

Christmas Eve aboard the vessel
rolling in troughs
over the ocean canyon
scientists and crew wait in the radio room
the little tree flashing
red and green bulbs….

The sound engineer
is turning dials, flicking switches
They have seen the Humpbacks that day
spy-hopping, breaching
curving under with flourishes of huge flukes
There must have been a hundred

These whales sing mostly in the dark
The ship’s people have come in from the deck
where they have been watching
the bright planet in the East
They hear a bellowing solo
an answer from miles away
duets, trios
Humpbacks compose their songs
sounds that swell and boom
reverberating from canyon walls

Listen!
The rejoicing of whales

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