My Apologies to Clement Clark Moore

No wonder the bird seed keeps disappearing!

A little something to get into the mood of the season.

A Visit From Saint Nick

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and umpteen below

Nothing was stirring, except wind driven snow.

The stockings were absent, the chimney was bare;

They’d been pressed into service against cold arctic air.

The children lay shivering, curled in their beds,

Their breath forming ice fog over their heads.

Mom and I in our thermals, with the heater full throttle,

Were prepared to lay siege with a hot water bottle.

When a shuddering din, heard above toothy chatter,

Drew me from bed to check into the matter;

Away to the window, my frozen feet stumbled,

The shade snapped up loudly as numb fingers fumbled.

The moon glared down harshly on deep, drifted snow,

And it all looked much colder than twenty below.

While standing there shivering, with limbs turning blue,

A frozen apparition came into my view.

Floating through ice fog that hung overhead

Were eight frosty reindeer and an ice-coated sled!

More rapid than seagulls in search of French fries

Behind a fast food joint, they swooped from the skies.

First dashing, then dancing, then prancing to turn right,

They slowed down, then touched down and suddenly froze tight.

Just above the front porch, dangling on the roof’s edge,

Sat the driver and sleigh sticking out like a ledge.

Like dry leaves that will freeze to a gutter in fall,

The reindeer were set up and could not move at all.

They were stuck to the house-top as tight as with glue,

Eight ungulates frozen, and Saint Nicholas too!

Then in a moment I felt through the roof,

The shaking and quaking from each frigid hoof.

I ran to the front door at the sound of a shriek,

‘Twas Saint Nicholas calling from up on the peak.

I pulled on my parka, went outside to stand,

St. Nicholas saw me and said, “Lend a hand!”

He was dressed all in fur, from his toes to his hair,

But a mitten was missing, his right hand was bare.

His eyes, how they watered!  He was not in fine fettle.

His bare hand was stuck fast to the fake chimney’s metal!

His droll little mouth was drawn up tight in pain,

He was tugging and thrashing, but all was in vain.

He gnawed on the pipe that was stuck in his mouth

And kept mumbling and muttering about moving south.

His broad face and hand looked frost bitten and numb

And he wondered aloud how he could be so dumb.

Stuck to the chimney- a right foolish old elf-

And I laughed at his predicament, in spite of myself.

With a wink of an eye, I dashed to the door

Went into the house to the bedroom once more;

I spoke not a word, but went straight to the task:

Wresting the hot water bottle from my mate’s desperate grasp.

And laying the warmth to the appendage stuck tight

The cold metal relinquished with hardly a fight.

He sprang to his team, and thawed each of them too

Then jumped in the sleigh and away they all flew.

But I heard him exclaim, as glad as you please,

“I’ll mail you your bottle from the Florida Keys!”

 

Closing the door would help keep things warmer!