#126: The Christmas Edition
Merry Christmas, kind strangers! I ate a reindeer cookie last night, sang Deck The Halls for myself, and read a few Christmas stories at my new reading nook.
Wishing you all a merry / not terrible Christmas with this mini edition of the newsletter.
For starters, some Christmas poems to get you into the festive spirit:
1. Christmas Dog by Shel Silverstein
Tonight’s my first night as a watchdog,
And here it is Christmas Eve.
The children are sleepin’ all cozy upstairs,
While I’m guardin’ the stockin’s and tree.
What’s that now--footsteps on the rooftop?
Could it be a cat or a mouse?
Who’s this down the chimney?
A thief with a beard—
And a big sack for robbin’ the house?
I’m barkin’, I’m growlin’, I’m bitin’ his butt.
He howls and jumps back in his sleigh.
I scare his strange horses, they leap in the air.
I’ve frightened the whole bunch away.
Now the house is all peaceful and quiet again,
The stockin’s are safe as can be.
Won’t the kiddies be glad when they wake up tomorrow
And see how I’ve guarded the tree.Â
2. Christmas Past by Carice WilliamsÂ
Each Christmas I remember
The ones of long ago;
I see our mantelpiece adorned
With stockings in a row.
Each Christmas finds me dreaming
Of days that used to be,
When we hid presents here and there,
For all the family.
Each Christmas I remember
The fragrance in the air,
Of roasting turkey and mince pies
And cookies everywhere.
Each Christmas finds me longing
For Christmases now past,
And I am back in childhood
As long as memories last.
3. haiku by Michael Dylan Welch
home for Christmas:
my childhood desk drawer
empty
4. Christmas, 1970 by Sandra M. Castillo
We assemble the silver tree,
our translated lives,
its luminous branches,
numbered to fit into its body.
place its metallic roots
to decorate our first Christmas.
Mother finds herself
opening, closing the Red Cross box
she will carry into 1976
like an unwanted door prize,
a timepiece, a stubborn fact,
an emblem of exile measuring our days,
marked by the moment of our departure,
our lives no longer arranged.
Somewhere,
there is a photograph,
a Polaroid Mother cannot remember was ever taken:
I am sitting under Tia Tere’s Christmas tree,
her first apartment in this, our new world:
my sisters by my side,
I wear a white dress, black boots,
an eight-year-old’s resignation;
Mae and Mitzy, age four,
wear red and white snowflake sweaters and identical smiles,
on this, our first Christmas,
away from ourselves.
The future unreal, unmade,
Mother will cry into the new year
with Lidia and Emerito,
our elderly downstairs neighbors,
who realize what we are too young to understand:
Even a map cannot show you
the way back to a place
that no longer exists.
Recommended Listening:
1. A Quarantine Christmas - Amy Noelck (My dearest friends Jeevan and Mathew Antony produced the first 4 tracks on this Christmas album! A must listen.)
2. A Stinkbag Christmas (via swiss miss)
3. Simply Having a Wonderful Compilation
4. Björk’s new choral arrangement of her song Sonnets
5. Manchester Orchestra - Christmas Songs Vol. 1
6. The Christmas Song - Ray Charles
7. An Electric Adolescence Christmas
8. Jocelyn K. Glei: Strange Gifts
9. Choir! Choir! Choir! sings Jingle Bells!!
Links of the Week:
1. Salvador Dali’s Christmas Cards
2. Martha Stewart's Festive Marijuana Leaves
3. Joni Mitchell and the Melancholy of Christmas
4. Inside the World’s Only Snowflake Laboratory
5. Christmas Stories (My favorite: The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry)
6. Bob Ross’ Christmas Special
7. The Australian Town That Turns Trash Into Christmas Trees
Eat lots of cake, wear some warm socks, listen to some Jim Reeves carols and treat yourself to a little gift, whatever it may be.
Have a good one,
Rohini