Let's Take Back the Holiday (For Kelly - Nov. 2006)

Let’s Take Back the Holiday
(for Kelly – November 2006)

You can get upset
with the marketing
that takes place
and try to ignore
the messaging
designed to make
you spend

But beneath it all
are briskly beautiful days
with sparkling cold
snow and ice

And heartfelt greetings
from the people
you are meeting
as they all
hustle and bustle
through the holiday season

Look past
the retail displays
that started hawking
the holiday season
the day after Halloween

Ignore the
mandatory
shopping days
and the gifts
you are told
you “must have”

Shut off the media
which always ruins
what’s important to us
by trying to turn
everything
into “events”

and make it a
happy…
warm…
magnificently reflective
holiday

Celebrate
a wonderfully cold
time of year
that makes the
strolls in the snow
more purposeful
The warm drinks
more pleasurable
And fires
capable of igniting
a passion worthy of
the North Pole

And in the process
It may make
the music more
enjoyable
and the tree
and the manger
- or the Minora –
more meaningful