Merry Christmas 2018

Please enjoy these Christmas folk-art paintings and poems from my children's book First Snow: Poems and Folk-art of Winter. Illustrations by Jane Comtois.

Starlight

 
If I squint my eyes into little slits
The lights turn into fuzzy stars
Filling the branches with magic,
As if tiny elves had lit them
One by one while I slept.
The silver balls reflect their glow,
Making the garland sparkle.
The room twinkles with starlight
And my heart is full of wonder.

​

 Rainy Christmas

 
          The world is gray this Christmas day,
          We were supposed to have some snow.
          But Mother Nature changed her mind
          And didn’t let the Weatherman know.
 
          The front yard should be white,
          The back yard should be too.
          I got a sled from Santa Claus,
          Now what am I to do?
 
    It’s not a picture perfect Christmas
But I’m still not feeling blue.
       I’ll play with all these other new toys
Until this rainy day is through!

 
Reindeer

 
I hovered ‘tween warm bed and icy cold floor
With a child-like awe from years before,
From the window, a sound I couldn’t ignore.
“It’s the rain, dear,” my sleepy wife said.
“All that nog has gone to your head.
Now don’t be silly, come back to bed.”
“Didn’t you read the paper today?”
She said in her quiet curmudgeonly way.
“Unseasonably warm and wet, they say.”
But to hear such clatter this very night!
These ancient bones just might catch sight
Of a sleigh driven by that jolly old sprite.
Ma stubbornly snored, and paid no heed
As eight magical beasts flew past with speed.
“Just the rain, dear,” I laughed.
Reindeer, indeed!