The Day before Christmas

It was the evening before Christmas and our house was upside down,

I was left alone to do the chores while my family went to town.

I washed and chopped the vegetables, made the soup and cooked the ham.

Plucked and cleaned the turkey out. What do my family think I am?

Then I placed the tinsel and the bells and the fairy on the tree.

‘Twas then I stopped to wonder, what does Christmas mean to me?

Is it just a time for alcohol, puddings and mince pies,

Or children waiting for their presents from St Nicholas in disguise?

Did I ever give a second thought to the baby lying in the hay,

Or how poor Mary must have felt on that first Christmas day,

When she brought her child into the world to die for you and me,

Was she thinking of the tinsel or the fairy on the tree.

St Joseph was told bluntly. “There’s no room here at the Inn.”

Oh why should Mary suffer for selfishness and sins?

With the animals in the stable her baby boy was born,

No warm bed or nurse to care for them on that first Christmas morn.

There are people, who suffer in this wicked world today,

And children are still hungry, but no special heed we pay.

Will we one day learn to share our lot, or even realise?

That Christmas is not just about Turkeys, puddings and mince pies.

Ths thought provoking poem was first published in Precious Memories – A Selection of Poetry and Verse 2001 by Phyllis Conway