Wherever this finds you...
May your holiday season be all you want and need
May the returning sun shine warmly upon your path
May your hearth ring with the sounds of laughter and merriment
May the quiet season bring you respite
May the new year make manifest abundance and unadulterated joy
-gws
I realize that this year’s Christmas
Will be my first in decades without you
That shatters me like a dropped ornament
I wanted us to be a Hallmark holiday romantic comedy
But we were, instead, a Nancy McKeon movie of the week
This year is heavy with disappointment
Like that of not finding that hoped for gift beneath the tree
Or the disillusionment of learning Santa
Is just your parents’ amateur slight of hand
Or that moment in Love Actually when Emma Thompson
Opens her gift to discover it's a Joni Mitchell CD
Instead of the expensive necklace that Alan Rickman
Bought for his sexy secretary instead of his loving wife
You keep trying to gift me expired I love yous
I let them fall to the ground like dry pine needles
Christmas lights wear glimmering halos
From the tears that well when the Carpenters croon
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
I will not hang your stocking
Or buy you a well-considered gift
I will, however, cast a Christmas wish
For you to dream of better days
As you nestle in an unfamiliar bed
That old St. Nick blesses you
With a better life ahead
-gws
Christmas in California
Is rolling 'round again
I look forward to sharing it
With family and friends
This season's feeling haunted
A hard to argue fact
Beneath the strain of politics
And people clapping back
This shopping season's last chance buys
Spark lukewarm interest
As shoppers look toward '25's
Incoming tariff threats
With Pluto in Aquarius
Regimes are burning down
The People are now taking aim
At every tarnished crown
It's hard to lift a cup of cheer
With such uncertainty
So I'll nestle with a spicy book
And a mug of steaming tea
Inside the lights shine merrily
And Christmas carols sing
This California Christmas
Will be about one thing
The love of friends and family
As we circle 'round our trees
And this year's hard-learned lesson
To save some love for me
-gws
Another California Christmas
Is coming round again
And I find myself daydreaming
Of family and friends
The caroling and Christmas cards
Gifts amusing and sublime
Remembering the best of years
The best of Christmas time
No smoke this year to choke us up
Just filtered sun and chill
Lights and sounds and decor sit
Upon each window sill
A melancholy in my heart
I long for times of old
When life was not so stupid hard
When wrapped in silver and gold
Wherever this Christmas sentiment
Finds you this time of year
Crack open that bottle of Napa red
For some extra California cheer
Despite my humbug mood this year
I raise my glass above
I toast you sunshine dreams of joy
And immeasurable love
-gws
This poem appears in the 2024 edition of the Bards West Anthology.
It's a California Christmas
Where it's 70 degrees
And the palm trees are a swayin'
In the California breeze
The desert winds are blowin'
And the state is burning down
But we take some comfort knowin'
Santa's still comin' to town
The mountain tops are barren
Of familiar Sierra snow
'Cause climate change is ragin'
Changin' the world we know
So on this Cali Christmas
Hold your loved ones tight
Remember what's important
As you live your Cali life
The fog is ever faithful
The sequoias still stand tall
On this California Christmas
Prayin' "Bless us one and all."
gws
Words Wishes and Wisdom 