From an idea on
(See 233. for my SUNDAY SCRIBBLINGS offering.)
I feel quite sad when my grandchildren open their Christmas gifts. Of course they're excited, of course they're grateful. But, with us, it was a once-a-year time of indulgence, and so it was particularly magical. As I was writing this poem I could feel the hairs standing up on the back of my neck!
GIFTS
Do you recall a time when gifts were little things and cheap?
How Santa travelled light and saw you lying there asleep?
How a stocking was a stocking and it didn't weigh a tonne
And an orange in the toe was quite a prize that would be won?
How you woke up very early and sat up in your bed
With a thousand dreams of avarice circling in your head?
And how, in morning darkness, you felt that awkward bulge,
Which, in the coming daylight, something magic would divulge?
It might be a tiny dolly in a little knitted dress!
Oh that would bring the ultimate in childish happiness!
It might be a book of stories, just a tiny little book!
You couldn't wait for daylight! You just had to have a look!
You scrabbled round in darkness; the shape was hard, not soft,
Then guiltily you felt inside and held your gift aloft.
By feeling and by squinting you made your present out!
Why! Santa had excelled himself this year without a doubt!
It was a game of 'Tiddlywinks!' to play on Christmas Day!
You could practise in the morning! Mollee, too, could play!
Then you silently replaced the gift exactly as before,
And pretended to be fast asleep! Maybe you tried a snore!
A boxed game and an orange! Christmas promised bliss!
Do little children of today ever experience this?
