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From “Solstice Songs: O Holy Night” in The Return of the Light: Twelve Tales from Around the World for the Winter Solstice by Carolyn McVickar Edwards:

Oh holy night!
The stars are brightly shining!
It is the night of the Sun Child’s birth.
Long we have lain in cold
and fear of hunger
But Sun returns
And the Earth wakes again!
A ray of hope:
The weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks
A new and glorious morn!
Sing and give thanks
Oh lift your voices high now
The Sun returns
Sun returns
to light the world.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Oh Sun returns!

From “December Mist” by Morgan Golladay in Solstice: A Winter Anthology, edited by Dianne Pearce:

Sunlight reflects blue off the
banded mist, begotten by yesterday’s
warm sun on December earth. The gods of
soil and field slumber still,
cold slowly settling into their bones.

I walk the verge, waiting, watching….

I greet this Solstice
with calm, measured footsteps, waiting and
watching
as cycles turn.

From “Winter Solstice Sleep” by Clive Frobisher in A Poem for All Seasons, compiled by Robert Blackham:

As sunlight withers and day departs,
Night time claims the hills and fields.
Cloaking treetops in icy darkness,
Forgotten ghost of summer past.

Creatures bolt into earthy beds,
Spiralling into slumber farther deep.
Through the longest night of year,
Nothing stirs, time seems frozen still….

Through the winter they endure,
Dormant in subterranean cocoons.
Awakening with the yawns of Spring,
The creatures rise to start anew.

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From “The Bride of the Mistletoe” by James Lane Allen in The Ultimate Christmas Collection:

“It was a pleasant afternoon to be out of doors and to go about what they had planned; the ground was scarcely frozen, there was no wind, and the whole sky was overcast with thin gray cloud that betrayed no movement. Under this still dome of silvery-violet light stretched the winter land; it seemed ready and waiting for its great festival.

“The lawn sloped away from the house to a brook at the bottom, and beyond the brook the ground rose to a woodland hilltop…. Out of this woods on the afternoon air sounded the muffled strokes of an axe cutting down a black walnut partly dead; and when this fell, it would bring down with it bunches of mistletoe, those white pearls of the forest mounted on branching jade. To-morrow eager fingers would be gathering the mistletoe to decorate the house. Nearby was a thicket of bramble and cane where, out of reach of cattle, bushes of holly thrived: the same fingers would be gathering that.

“Bordering this woods on one side lay a cornfield. The corn had just been shucked, and beside each shock of fodder lay its heap of ears ready for the gathering wagon. The sight of the corn brought freshly to remembrance the red-ambered home-brew of the land which runs in a genial torrent through all days and nights of the year… but never with so inundating a movement as at this season. And the same grain suggested also the smokehouses of all farms, in which larded porkers, fattened by it, had taken on posthumous honors as home-cured hams; and in which up under the black rafters home-made sausages were being smoked to their needed flavor over well-chosen chips.

“Around one heap of ears a flock of home-grown turkeys, red-mottled, rainbow-necked, were feeding for their fate….

“Thus everything needed for Christmas was there in sight: the mistletoe — the holly — the liquor of the land for the cups of hearty men — the hams and the sausages of fastidious housewives — the turkey and the quail…. They were in sight there — the fair maturings of the sun now ready to be turned into offerings to the dark solstice….”

From “Christmas 1949” in Christmas Poems by Dorothy Stott Shaw:

Saturn and Mars have met and kissed
And passed and gone their innocent ways,
And solstice-ward the pattern moves
Of lengthening nights and shrinking days.

Two planets blossom in the west
Like stem-less flowers of yellow light;
Westward the constellations move
In spangled splendor through the night.

Motionless in the shimmering dark,
Hushed in the hollow under the hill,
The trees stand tall to touch the stars;
The snow clings fast; the twigs are still….

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From “The Hymn” by John Milton in Christmas Poems, selected by David Stanford Burr:

At last surrounds their sight
A globe of circular light
That with long beams
the shamefaced night arrayed;
The helmed Cherubim
And sworded Seraphim
Are seen in glittering ranks
with wings displayed,
Harping in loud and solemn choir
With unexpressive notes,
to Heaven’s new-born Heir:

Such music (as tis said)
Before was never made
But when of old the sons
of morning sung,
While the Creator great
His constellations set
And the well-balanced world
on hinges hung;
And cast the dark foundations deep,
And bid the weltering waves
their oozy channel keep.

Ring out, ye crystal spheres!
Once bless our human ears,
If ye have power to touch our senses so;
And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time;
And let the bass of Heaven’s deep organ blow;
And with your ninefold harmony
Make up full consort to the angelic symphony.

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From “Brighten the Corner Where You Are” in Thankfully: The Christmas Guest and Other Poems by Helen Steiner Rice:

We cannot all be famous
or be listed in ‘Who’s Who,’
But every person great or small
has important work to do,
For seldom do we realize
the importance of small deeds
Or to what degree of greatness
unnoticed kindness leads —

For it’s not the big celebrity
in a world of fame and praise,
But it’s doing unpretentiously
in undistinguished ways
The work that God assigned to us,
unimportant as it seems,
That makes our task outstanding
and brings reality to dreams —

So do not sit and idly wish
for wider, new dimensions
Where you can put in practice
your many ‘Good Intentions’ —

But at the spot God placed you
begin at once to do
Little things to brighten up
the lives surrounding you….

For if everybody brightened up
the spot on which they’re standing
By being more considerate
and a little less demanding,
This dark old world would very soon
eclipse the ‘Evening Star’
If everybody Brightened Up
the Corner Where They Are!

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From “Winter” by Robert Merrill Bartlett in Prayers and Poems for Christmas, edited by Nancy J. Skarmeas:

As the snow falls gently
against my window, I give thanks,
O divine Spirit, for the cycle
of the seasons and the ever-changing
beauty of the universe….

A mantle of purity is spread over this drab earth,
and the evergreens bow humbly
in their vestments of white. The noises
of men cease; a new stillness envelopes
the world, and Thy voice speaks to me
through the elements….

As I look upon this beauty, I think
of Thee as the source from which it all comes.
Give me faith to believe that the order
which sustains the ever-varying pageantry
of nature will also uphold me….

From “Holly and Ivy” in Christmas: A Short History from Solstice to Santa by Andy Thomas:

“The carol ‘The Holly and the Ivy,’ the words of which started to appear in the early 1800s, solidifies the Christian connotations of these plants, with the holly representing Christ’s crown of thorns and the ivy representing the Virgin Mary. But in medieval Europe, holly and ivy, along with other evergreens (often rosemary), were seen as especially sacred, or at least they were signs of good luck long before the famous carol came along.

“As vegetation that was boldly flourishing in the cold, dark time of the year, when so much else was stark and dormant, this kind of foliage, when brought into the home, offered hope to the winter weary in the Northern Hemisphere. It reminded people that if nature could push through the harsh times and thrive again, so could they. In another echo back to Roman times, when wreaths were used as signs of victory and status, the plants would often be fashioned into circles by medieval families, decorated, and hung on doors or laid on tables.”

From “The Seven Poor Travelers” in A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings by Charles Dickens:

“[The] mists began to rise in the most beautiful manner, and the sun to shine; and as I went on through the bracing air, seeing the hoar-frost sparkle everywhere, I felt as if all Nature shared in the joy of the great Birthday….”

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