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T’was a night and a
month and twenty-five days before Christmas and all through the house.
Not a creature was
stirring, not even a mouse.
The ghoulish costumes
were flung on the floor without care
And, to the delight
of the parents, the pumpkins on the porch were still there.
All the children were
tucked safely away in their beds
While visions of
eating candy for breakfast danced in their heads.
But little did they
know of the department store scurry
To get all their
Christmas stuff up in a hurry.
For a new marketing scheme
was well underway
To cheer on all
shoppers till Christmas day.
The morning brought
tinsel, trinkets, truffles, and trees,
Twinkling icicle
lights and candy canes from See’s,
The hottest and
latest and best-selling toy
And clothes and
gadgets for every girl and boy.
And what’s more, the
neighbors felt they had to keep up too
With the department
store’s new little Christmasy doo.
There was a mad rush
to the store for fresh Christmas trees
But farmers in Oregon
found it difficult to please;
For the trees were
not yet cut and sheered to perfection
And hauled off to
parking lots in the Christmas tree section.
The radio stations
caught on the trend soon
And switched the old
stuff to a great Christmas tune.
And to the buyer’s delight
there were many holiday sprees
On clothes, toys and
stuff to spruce up the trees.
It seemed the true
meaning of Christmas was lost from the start
As everyone scrambled
to fill the shopping cart.
Yes, the holidays
were off to a great start this year
With three weeks to
go till Thanksgiving was here.
Little Tommy and Jill
brought out boxes and bags
Family stockings,
towels, and the little Christmas rags
And looked up at
Daddy sweetly imploring
To break out the
decorations from their long, dormant storing.
And putting his foot
down, with jaw firmly set,
Father exclaimed with
a shout: “It’s not Thanksgiving yet!”
So off they went and
put it all back away,
Till they could make
their appearance after Thanksgiving Day.
And but a day after
Thanksgiving, O what a surprise
For the children to
see with their very own eyes
A miniature sleigh
and eight tiny reindeer
Soaring up in the
air, as if Christmas was here!
And what a shock it
was for dear old Santa to learn
That he still had a
month of vacation to burn.
Yes, he had flown
from the North Pole all this way
To find out that
Christmas was still a whole month away.
And soon the store
clerk was beginning to dread
Another day of
Christmas music pounding in her head.
The holidays were
beginning to lose their Christmas cheer
As the repetition of
“Jingle Bells” caused pandemonial fear.
On December first
“Frosty the Snowman” reached a record millionth play,
And store managers
were able to scrounge out another sale for the day.
That stupid
commercial for this year’s Christmas toy
Was really starting to fester and greatly
annoy.
And more than one
Christmas scrooge could be found,
In fact, humbugs
could be heard from practically everyone in town.
And then Daddy became
a real Christmas Jerk
As the holiday
madness drove him completely berserk.
He tore down the
lights and set the Christmas tree on fire,
Screaming he who
spread Christmas Cheer was a big fat liar.
There was no telling
what this holiday madman would do
For he obliterated
the radio with a hammer through and through.
And finally worn out,
he shouted, “That’s it!”
“Christmas morning
we’ll sleep in and just sit
On the couch until
the day’s through
And after that, I don’t know what we’ll do,
Clean up, I guess.”
And the children trudged off to bed
And had visions of
daddy shooting the sugar plum fairies dead.
And some homes still
had Christmas, but swore to remember
To never start
Christmas on the first of November.
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