2010

We decided that we should go to a different timeline (much like the last Star Trek movie) and look at the holidays there.

T’was the night before Christmas, and all through the ‘verse,
Things were quite different, almost inverse.
The timeline was different, strange but it’s true,
Everything was jumbled and all quite askew.

I sat up in bed and looked round the room,
There was someone beside me, I did not know whom.
I heard this loud noise, which I found abhorring.
It sounded like something, I think it was snoring.

I got out of bed and crept through the house,
I walked on my tiptoes, quiet as a mouse.
A calendar hung on the wall of the den,
I flipped through it hoping to find where and when.

The holidays were altered from the top to the bottom,
Not just the ones that came in the autumn.
The names looked the same, the meanings unique,
But I wasn’t there to write a critique.

It seemed all the symbols were twisted and jumbled.
I couldn’t have done this no matter how I’d bumbled.
The days were the same, just as I expected,
But the rest of the picture I could not have projected.

I thought, “This is a dream,” real it can’t be,
But my imagination’s not great, and all will agree.
What was worse, I was here in someone else’s place,
Did I Quantum Leap?  Better pick up the pace.

I examined the calendar, looked at each page,
The pictures, descriptions were all hard to gauge.
I started at the beginning, went one month to the next,
Absorbing it all left me more than perplexed.

The first holiday celebrated the first of the presidents,
And the time in the White House in which he had residence.
They say he was a man that kept himself clean,
Yet George Birthington’s Washday just sounded obscene.

Then came the day about love never ending,
Where lovers give pumpkins to those they’re intending.
Next came the holiday that made folks quite jolly,
It was celebrated by decorating the Old Easter Holly.

My favorite of all was next, Halloween,
What happened to this day could not be foreseen.
A big bird was roasted, and this made me frown,
Of course!  You know!  It’s the Great Turkey, Charlie Brown.

But now it was Christmas, with decorations in the house,
And sneaking around, I felt like a louse.
The baskets they sat by the fireplace with care,
In hopes that Santa(?) soon would be there.

Then a loud bang made me cry out and jump,
It came from the roof, a loud thumpity-thump.
There was noise from the fireplace, no longer aflame,
And suddenly down the chimney he came.

In another place and time this would have been funny,
I stood face to face with the big Christmas Bunny.
‘Harvey’ wiggled his nose and hopped on his legs,
Then filled all the baskets with candy and eggs.

He hummed as he worked, the tune gave me a tingle,
A hip-hop rendition of the old Monster Jingle.
Snacks had been left out, he opened some lids,
He looked at the cereal, “Naw, Trix are for kids.”

Then pawing his whiskers, and patting his nose,
A whoosh and a crash, up the chimney he rose.
The lights started twinkling, and I thought “This is lame,”
Then for a moment, I felt bathed in flame.

When I looked around, I found I was home,
Yes, back in Alaska, where there’s no place like Gnome.
Then I heard a faint noise up on the roof,
The pawing and prancing of wee tiny hoofs.

The roof creaked as its burden took to the sky,
I saw reindeer and sleigh as they started to fly.
The driver dressed in red, with big floppy ears,
Seeing this now made me choke back my tears.

He called to his team and then waved to me,
He smiled and winked and said with much glee,
“To all of the folk on this tiny sphere,
Merry Christmas to all and a hopping New Year.”

Copyright Ó 2010 by

Brian and Shirley Dean