Jiggle buds

In 1965 (I think — I have dated "Green Christmas" by the dates of the poems in the box I dug it out of) we had a green Christmas; however, we did have snow in January, unlike this year so far. I have always remembered the poem I wrote about it, and the phrase "clickybuds jiggledeverbore" resounds with me every time we have a green Christmas: I can hear the headcold that the miserable narrator develops as he contemplates a green Christmas. I also got Irving Berlin's history from an article by J. D. Mullane; in the article, he tells of how his firstborn baby boy was just three weeks old when Berlin discovered him dead in his crib on Christmas day, 1928. There is more to Berlin's angst about Christmas.

I recall how Christmas used to be a time of distress in my family: my father, a respected dentist, was an alcoholic who never to my knowledge gave my mother a present. I remember one Christmas, when I was sub-teen, giving my mother salt and pepper shakers I bought at Woolworth's — all I could afford. It was her only present that year.

When I was a parent, I was in anguish every Christmas that we might not have gotten what our kids wanted for Christmas. It was always a very emotional time for me. That is what I mean in the poem when I mention "unfulfilled expectations".

Merchants' hype of Christmas, churches' hype of Christmas always build expectations: the churches' stories are all about perfection to come; the merchants' stories are all about rewards for goodness — in this way, if you didn't get what you wanted, you have been punished. I am sure people who deliver lumps of coal to their kids think the custom is a great lark, and a sort of justice, but I think it is cruel in the extreme. Nobody deserves to be crushed at this intimate level, in the heart of hearts.

By the way, I had a great Christmas. And I hope you did, too.