A CHRISTMAS POEM 2021

 Twas the night before Christmas, but Covid was here

So we all had to stay extra cautious this year.

Our masks are well hung by the chimney with care

In case Santa forgot his and needed a spare.

With Covid, we couldn’t leave biscuits or cake

So we just left Santa hand sanitiser to take.

 

The children were sleeping, the brave little tots

The ones over 12 had just had their first shots,

And mum in her nightie and me in my cap

Had just settled in for a long winter’s nap.

But we tossed and we turned all night in our beds

As visions of variants danced in our heads.

 

Gamma and Delta and now Omicron

These Covid mutations that go on and on

I thought to myself, “If this doesn’t get better,

I’ll soon be familiar with every Greek letter”.

 

Then just as I started to drift off and doze

A clatter of noise from the front lawn arose.

I leapt from my bed and ran straight down the stair

I opened the door, and an old gent stood there.

 

His mask made him look decidedly weird

But I knew who he was by his red suit and beard.

I kept 6 feet away but blurted out quick

“What are you doing here Jolly Saint Nick?”

 

Then I said, “Where’s your presents, your reindeer and sleigh?

Don’t you know that tomorrow will be Christmas Day?”

And Santa stood there looking sad in the snow

As he started to tell me a long tale of woe.

 

He said he’d been stuck at the North Pole alone

All his white collar elves had been working from home,

And most of the others said “Santa don’t hire us!

We can’t work now thanks to the virus”.

 

Those left in the toyshop had little to do.

With supply chain disruptions, they could make nothing new.

And as for the reindeer, they’d all gone away

None of them left to pull on his sleigh.

 

He said Dasher and Dancer were in quarantine,

Prancer and Vixen refused the vaccine,

Comet and Cupid were in ICU,

As were Donner and Blitzen, they may not pull through.

 

And Rudolph’s career can’t be resurrected.

With his shiny red nose, they all think he’s infected.

Even with his old sleigh, Santa couldn’t go far,

Every border to cross needs a new PCR.

 

Santa sighed as he told me how nice it would be

If children could once more sit on his knee.

He couldn’t care less if they were naughty or nice

But they’d have to show proof that they’d had their jabs twice.

 

But then the old twinkle returned to his eyes.

And he said that he had brought me a Christmas surprise.

When I unwrapped the box and opened it wide,

Starlight and rainbows streamed out from inside.

 

Some letters whirled round and flew up to the sky

And they spelled out a word that was 40 feet high.

The first was an H, then an O, then a P,

Then I saw it spelt HOPE when it added an E.

 

“Christmas magic” said Santa as he smiled through his beard.

Then suddenly all the reindeer appeared.

He jumped into his sleigh and waved me goodbye

Then he soared o’er the rooftops and into the sky.

 

I heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight

“Get your vaccines my friends, Merry Christmas, goodnight”.

Then I went back to bed and a sweet Christmas dream

Of a world when we’d finished with Covid 19.

 

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