‘Tis a magic time of year,
Time of gladness, joy and cheer,
When folk love to have a fete,
Eat and drink and celebrate.
In our house, we too, as one,
Had a most tremendous fun,
Though there was, I do declare,
The odd hiccup here and there,
Such as all the rigmarole
With the toad in his wee hole*;
Turkey? Raw inside (oh, drat!),
So we gave it to the cat;
Roast potatoes, I must say,
Went a rather different way:
Badly burnt and hard as rock
(Not that we would ever squawk);
Veggies having turned to slime,
Guests jumped up: “Is this the time!?!”
“Nonsense!” we’d then gaily shout,
“Won’t you have another sprout?”
Christmas pud would have been handy,
But we’d guzzled all the brandy**;
As for pies – this makes me wince –
Uncle’d eaten all the mince.
Radio playing Silent Night,
Both grandfathers had a fight,
Kids got into awful scraps
Tearing off their present wraps,
And our dearest auntie Lyn
Sat there swigging rum and gin
With a rather mournful gaze:
“It was different in them days”;
Our granny, though, was merry,
Having finished all the sherry,
Then she swayed and, with a slouch,
Was now snoring on the couch.
All in all, as you can guess,
Christmas was a great success,
Though the fairy on the top
Shut her eyes and shouted “Stop!”
But the day, this much is clear,
Is the highlight of our year,
So we cry, with joyous glow,
“Only fifty*** weeks to go!”
*How the lovely natives manage to squeeze the animal into a small hole is beyond me: my repeated attempts ended in abject failure, though, mercifully, the creature survived …
**Way back in July, when we started our Christmas preparations in earnest
***Well, maybe fifty two, but who is counting after all this prosecco – pardon me, champagne