Send a text
'Twas the week before Christmas, when all through our house
Not a creature was stirring, not even that big mouth
Our stockings were hung by the chimney with care
In hopes that the MPD would stay in the Square
The renters were nestled all snug in their beds
While visions of alchy bums danced in their heads
And mummy in her Star Market smock and I in my head spin hat
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter
Away to the window I flew like a flash
Tore through the plastic and threw up the sash
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below
When what to my wondering eyes did I see
But a rented U-haul and my brotherly thieves
With their friend Paul as the driver so lively and drunk
I knew in a moment this was more than a funk
More rapid than eagles these coursers they came
And one whistled, and shouted, and gave them all aim
To the top of the porch and to the back driveway wall
Now stash away! Stash away! Stash away all!
As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly
If police should appear, they'll slip away sly
So up to the back of the house the coursers they flew
With a truck full of trees, and all those wreaths too
And then, in a twinkling, I heard all the proof
The prancing and pawing of each Chippewa boot
As I drew in my head, and was turning around
Down Spring Street came the throngs with a bound
They weren't dressed in furs, but heard something afoot
And their money was crisp as in our hands it was put
Departing with a bundle of pine they had flung on their back
Bought from the neighborhood peddlers open round back
Their eyes—how they twinkled! Their dimples, how merry!
Their cheeks were like roses, their noses like a cherry!
Their droll little mouths drawn up like a bow
While bolt cutters and work gloves lay muddied in snow
Held was the stump of a lead pipe tight in his hands
To make them believe the trees were shorn from our own Robbin' Hood land
Some even sold by a broad with a slim little face
Our mother the matriarch known to put all in their place
The chubby and plump, the blind and the deaf
And we'd chuckle when at our back door she'd offer a right or a left
As occasionally with a wink of an eye and a tilt of a head
Some renters were left on sidewalks thought to be dead
Jamie spoke not a word, but went straight to his work
Knocking out redwood Big Bob; without even a smirk
Now back to the telling of our story at hand, the one of the boys selling trees minus the brand
Rarely giving a wave, from the peak of back porch stairs
Knowing the close shave averted from one of their dares
He reached for his pocket, to his team he gave a bundle
Knowing those fine trees were now homed with the humble
Then I heard him exclaim, ere he walked out of sight—
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good fight!”
Österreich