1. Holly by Christina Rosetti

Holly 

Christina Rosetti


But give me holly, bold and jolly,

Honest, prickly, shining holly;

Pluck me holly leaf and berry

For the day when I make merry.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

24. 'Twas the night before Christmas by Major Henry Livingstone, jr.

Image
  Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas BY MAJOR HENRY LIVINGSTON, JR. ’Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house, Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugar plums danc’d in their heads, And Mama in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap — When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash. The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow, Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below; When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-deer, With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whist...
Read more

14. December began with shopping by L Kiew

Image
  December began with shopping L Kiew for the exotic: mint and apple sauce, imported rosemary, cranberries, candied peel and blocks of English butter. It began with baking, the Christmas cake drenched daily with dark brandy until it oozed from the lightest finger-flick and emptying jar after jar of Robertson’s mincemeat into pastry. Cinnamon gold-dusted everything. After the final Advent window, we opened all our doors, welcoming hungry occupants, their cars filling up the driveway, aunts and uncles, cousins in greater and lesser iterations, the generations dressed in batik, bearing gifts. The kitchen was ever at the heart of it. My parents cooked together. Crackling, perfection an inch thick on the side of pig that Dad roasted while Mum beatified the oven-pan, red wine gravy, bliss of roux. Cheerful, family sat where we could, plates heavy in heady heat, heaped meat, golden potatoes, peas, carrots too. Our hands were full. Still there was more, glasses, cups, Anchor beer and Sunki...
Read more

6. Christmas, 1970 by Sandra M. Castillo

Image
Christmas, 1970  Sandra M. Castillo We assemble the silver tree, our translated lives, its luminous branches, numbered to fit into its body. place its metallic roots to decorate our first Christmas. Mother finds herself opening, closing the Red Cross box she will carry into 1976 like an unwanted door prize, a timepiece, a stubborn fact, an emblem of exile measuring our days, marked by the moment of our departure, our lives no longer arranged. Somewhere, there is a photograph, a Polaroid Mother cannot remember was ever taken: I am sitting under Tia Tere’s Christmas tree, her first apartment in this, our new world: my sisters by my side, I wear a white dress, black boots, an eight-year-old’s resignation; Mae and Mitzy, age four, wear red and white snowflake sweaters and identical smiles, on this, our first Christmas, away from ourselves. The future unreal, unmade, Mother will cry into the new year with Lidia and Emerito, our elderly downstairs neighbors, who realize what we are too y...
Read more