20151224 (Kri$mu$)

Santa, your days are numbered

Let’s dispense with Christmas—

Not the Christmas of the liturgical 

Year. No, the commercial extravaganza

Celebrated of hucksters, merchants

From early September to December 25,

When the last basketball has been 

Tossed for the night, then poof! Nada!

Bubkes! except for national depression

Setting in from the overload, the

Exhaustion until we can get drunk

On New Year’s eve. Christmas sales,

Returns, regifting. We all hate it—

Nothing but an artificial expense

On our spirits and pocketbooks. 

So let’s get rid of the travesty 

For 2016. Deep-six it to the

Trashbin of tomfoolery. Scholars 

Tell us it’s only one hundred and

Fifty years old, coincident with

The industrial revolution, thus 

The adoption of gift-giving,

All those new products made

Better, so more cheaply than

What we made ourselves.

Originally the feast was cause 

For celebration—eating lavishly

If one could afford with family, friends, 

Singing, rejoicing—the glorious twelve

Days born with exuberance and

Brought to a decent, timely close.

A time of visits and charitable

Works. It’s time we stopped being

Timid establishment Christians.

Let’s reclaim this holy season from

The profit-driven. Let them keep

Santa, Rudolph, reindeer, bells, 

Candles, jingling. Let them call it

Kri$mu$ but not violate our patent. 

We’ll restore Advent to a solemn

Time of preparation, purification,

Waiting, and not buy a thing. I’m 

Not out to terrify merchants so much 

As put an end to their terrifying us 

With a paroxysm of procurement.

We can buy gifts for our youngsters, 

Family, friends, whenever but no longer 

Synched to the holy day. Imagine,

How more efficiently they could 

Schedule production, more evenly,

Running ads periodically throughout

The year instead of batching for an

Excess of promotion. A calmer

Time. And, at last we would let

The culture know Christmas  is 

The second most sacred of Christian 

Feasts, yielding to Easter week, 

When the work of redemption is 

Suffered, our salvation accomplished.

c. J.S.Manista, 2015