Christmas is not a one size fits all

it is multicultural and reflects many traditions

it is not all Merry Christmas

and ‘hail fellow well met’

we are not mid-nineteenth century Victorians

or all fans of secular Santa

nor do we all cherish the ‘true meaning’
of tenderness for the baby Jesus
and sentimentality for the manger scene
in the children’s play,
charities for the poor,
and candle light and caroling services

on these longest nights of winter

there are those for who ‘Merry Christmas’ is frivolity

and who no matter how gay or true the festivities,

they will experience grief, suffering, brokenness, loneliness,

these blue feelings and pains only finding some relief

in a return to ordinary time

Beloveds, let us see and hear one another
keeping one another in our hearts and prayers
bearing one another up always through grace and love
sharing our deepest truth together, wiping tears,
walking each other home with hope and peace,
certainly the most true meaning of all

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
Christmas Eve 2020

photo by Herb Stone
Blue Winter Night in Snow

(reader’s note: I searched for a poem, a quote, a song
about blue Christmas and found nothing satisfactory,
so I wrote this poem in an effort to express some
conversations I have had with Beloveds
over the last few days concerning their struggles
at this time of the year. And especially this year
which has left us scarred and seperated from political
division, injustice, and the pandemic. Many can not be
with family due to estrangement, or covid restrictions,
or separation, religious services are canceled, many
without jobs and income. Yet we always have each other
in our shared suffering and deepest needs. Let us always
see one another, hear one another, reach out to one another
in mutual grace and love which is after all the highest
meaning of all in the sharing of Universal Cosmic Christ
Consciousness by whatever name we know it.)