Season's Greeting

Most Christmas cards are a bore. This thing, I fear, is one more
Fling at a message so trite that dullness would seem like delight.
But back to the subject anon…What came a clear midnight upon?
Dasher and Dancer and others, angelic hosts round virgin mothers.

If God is love, I sing his praise. For Christmas we’ll vote Him a raise,
As well as dominion on earth, and offer congrats on the birth:
Jesus the Son and the Savior, sent to redeem our behavior,
Delivered midst horses and kine, Mother and Son doing fine.

He shall be known as Emmanuel. Let’s celebrate! We’ll have an annual
Affair and a holiday season. Who needs to fret for a reason?
Rush out, buy presents galore. Almost home, just a few more,
Got all the neighbors and kin. Next year we’ll do it again.

Must go to church once or twice. Dress-up clothes, don’t they look nice?
Sit straight and worship our Lord, look solemn though we feel bored,
Try not to wiggle and cough. Then we can take a year off.
Better to give than receive. Pass the plate, then we can leave.

Head for the next office party, stop first and look at the arty
Light shows and lawn decorations, before heading off for libations.
But now we must hustle and scurry, get to the party and hurry
Drinks down, forget inhibitions, make several drunk propositions.

New sorts of all kinds of fun, new ways to honor God’s Son.
Won’t He be pleased with our class? Christmas is really a gas!
From “Jesus Asleep in the Hay” to what we have made it today,
Our Christmas is certainly cool compared to that old-fashioned Yule.

But I beg for a moment of silence, for the spirit to which we’ve done violence.
For Christmas, whatever’s done to it, though our rituals seem to pooh-pooh it,
Is come down as a beautiful story, full of wonder and splendor and glory.
No matter the ways we pervert it, our efforts can’t ever subvert it:

For as you seek, so shall you find, that Christmas is a state of mind,
And all its meaning, all we ken, is “Peace on earth, good will toward men”.
For man, although he’s not a god and, mortal, will return to sod,
Is nonetheless a precious thing. Unto him let our anthems ring!

So in our hearts we consecrate the spirit we seek, the human state
Of grace and power, peace and love, the wings that bear us high above
Life’s lowly plain, our purpose pure, that come what may, we shall endure.
May joy be lord and pain but fleeting…my wish for you, this season’s greeting.