Christmas Fancies

When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow,
We hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago.
And etched on vacant places,
Are half forgotten faces
Of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know–
When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow.

Uprising from the ocean of the present surging near,
We see, with strange emotion that is not free from fear,
That continent Elysian
Long vanished from our vision,
Youth’s lovely lost Atlantis, so mourned for and so dear,
Uprising from the ocean of the present surging near.

When gloomy gray Decembers are roused to Christmas mirth,
The dullest life remembers there once was joy on earth,
And draws from youth’s recesses
Some memory it possesses,
And, gazing through the lens of time, exaggerates its worth,
When gloomy gray December is roused to Christmas mirth.

When hanging up the holly or mistletoe, I wis
Each heart recalls some folly that lit the world with bliss.
Not all the seers and sages
With wisdom of the ages
Can give the mind such pleasure as memories of that kiss
When hanging up the holly or mistletoe, I wis.

For life was made for loving, and love alone repays,
As passing years are proving for all of Time’s sad ways.
There lies a sting in pleasure,
And fame gives shallow measure,
And wealth is but a phantom that mocks the restless days,
For life was made for loving, and only loving pays.

When Christmas bells are pelting the air with silver chimes,
And silences are melting to soft, melodious rhymes,
Let Love, the world’s beginning,
End fear and hate and sinning;
Let Love, the God Eternal, be worshiped in all climes
When Christmas bells are pelting the air with silver chimes.

 

 

GRANDPA’S CHRISTMAS

In his great cushioned chair by the fender
An old man sits dreaming to-night,
His withered hands, licked by the tender
Warm rays of the red anthracite,
Are folded before him, all listless;
His dim eyes are fixed on the blaze,
While over him sweeps the resistless
Flood-tide of old days.

He hears not the mirth in the hallway,
He hears not the sounds of good cheer,
That through the old homestead ring alway
In the glad Christmas-time of the year.
He heeds not the chime of sweet voices
As the last gifts are hung on the tree.
In a long-vanished day he rejoices—
In his lost Used-to-be.

He has gone back across dead Decembers
To his childhood’s fair land of delight;
And his mother’s sweet smile he remembers,
As he hangs up his stocking at night.
He remembers the dream-haunted slumber
All broken and restless because
Of the visions that came without number
Of dear Santa Claus.

Again, in his manhood’s beginning,
He sees himself thrown on the world,
And into the vortex of sinning
By Pleasure’s strong arms he is hurled.
He hears the sweet Christmas bells ringing,
“Repent ye, repent ye, and pray”;
But he joins with his comrades in singing
A bacchanal lay.

Again he stands under the holly
With a blushing face lifted to his
For love has been stronger than folly,
And has turned him from vice unto bliss;
And the whole world is lit with new glory
As the sweet vows are uttered again,
While the Christmas bells tell the old story
Of peace unto men.

Again, with his little brood ’round him,
He sits by the fair mother-wife;
He knows that the angels have crowned him
With the truest, best riches of life;
And the hearts of the children, untroubled,
Are filled with the gay Christmas-tide;
And the gifts for sweet Maudie are doubled,
Tis her birthday, beside.

Again,—ah, dear Jesus, have pity—
He finds in the chill, waning day,
That one has come home from the city—
Frail Maudie, whom love led astray.
She lies with her babe on her bosom—
Half-hid by the snow’s fleecy spread;
A bud and a poor trampled blossom—
And both are quite dead.

So fair and so fragile! just twenty—
How mocking the bells sound to-night!
She starved in this great land of plenty,
When she tried to grope back to the light.
Christ. are Thy disciples inhuman,
Or only for men hast Thou died?
No mercy is shown to a woman
Who once steps aside.

Again he leans over the shrouded
Still form of the mother and wife;
Very lonely the way seems, and clouded,
As he looks down the vista of life.
With the sweet Christmas chimes there is blended
The knell for a life that is done,
And he knows that his joys are all ended
And his waiting begun.

So long have the years been, so lonely,
As he counts them by Christmases gone.
“I am homesick,” he murmurs; “if only
The Angel would lead the way on.
I am cold, in this chill winter weather;
Why, Maudie, dear, where have you been?
And you, too, sweet wife—and together—
O Christ, let me in”

The children ran in from the hallway,
“Were you calling us, grandpa?” they said.
Then shrank, with that fear that comes alway
When young eyes look their first on the dead.
The freedom so longed for is given.
The children speak low and draw near:
“Dear grandpa keeps Christmas in Heaven
With grandma, this year.”

Christmas Angels

by P.Z. Mann

The Whittles lived in Humbleburg,
As poor as poor can be,
But all their neighbors loved them,
For their generosity.
For though the Whittles’ shelves were bare,
Their cottage tumbledown,
When Christmas came they made a toy,
For every child in town
One Christmas Eve they climbed in bed,
After all the toys were made;
And while they dreamed of better times,
The Whittles were repaid.
That night three Christmas angels came,
To give them a reward –
For heaven won’t let any act
Of kindness be ignored.
One angel searched the cupboard
And found just a crust of bread;
“Now, this won’t do”, she whispered,
“Let’s prepare a feast instead!”

Read more

Frost On Christmas

Upon one deep December day,
The sun didn’t show his face.
So Mother Nature took control,
And trimmed all the trees in lace!

The Lady has a Victorian heart
And prefers to over-do.
The lacy branches looked too plain,
So she sprinkled glitter too.

The sky suddenly opened up
Fairy ballerinas tumbled down,
In skirts like paper doilies,
They pirouetted all over town.

I thought I heard Tchaikovsky play,
As the Snow Queen held her ball.
To celebrate this wondrous day,
Merry Christmas one and all!

It’s Almost Jesus’ Birthday

It’s almost Jesus’ birthday…
So let us not forget.
To give to Him the present,
That He would like the best.
He doesn’t want a stocking…
Hung upon the tree.
Or lots of toys or presents,
Like selfish you and me. Read more

THE CHRISTMAS SIGN

‘Twas the night before Christmas
And throughout the land
People were kneeling
And all holding hands….

Read more

Absulum the Reindeer Elf

Absulum the Reindeer Elf
worked in the reindeer barn.
He had to clean it everyday
and that was rather hard

Read more

Let Me Come In

By Richard Bugg

Two nights before Christmas I sat on my bed,
And more than just sugar plums danced in my head.
Our savings depleted; my job quite unstable;
My wife wanting clothes and a new kitchen table.

Read more

The Man & the Birds

There was once a man who didn’t believe in the incarnation of Christ or
the spiritual meaning of Christmas, and was skeptical about God. He and
his family lived in a farm community. His wife was a devout believer and
diligently raised her children in her faith. He sometimes gave her a
hard time about her faith and mocked her religious observance of Christmas.
“It’s all nonsense – why would God lower himself and become a human like
us? It’s such a ridiculous story!” he said. Read more

Dear Santa from Billy

Dear Santa,

My name is Billy
And I’m almost seven;
I live with my Daddy,
My Mama’s in Heaven. Read more

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