Happy Holidays!

If you're here taking a break from opening presents, drinking eggnog, politely declining your Great-Aunt Edna's fruitcake, or, if you're like me, blowing out the candles on your birthday cake, I'm glad you stopped by, because here's a present for you from Hayden's Ferry.

What's Christmas without a little poetry to brighten your day? This poem by Chase Twichell from Issue #34 takes us back to childhood memories of snowy December evenings spent with family, though disillusionment may be the name of the game, and I'm not talking merely about finding out the truth about the big guy in the red suit.

Crèche

All the December I was twelve
and Cary two, I'd push her buggy
through the dusk a few blocks
of shoveled sidewalk to the church,
where a life-sized plaster family
has set up camp: Mary,
dull Joseph, their spot-lit doll.
Jesus hid behind a sleeping cow,
and Cary herself would ascend
to the manger, all eyes upon her:
simple shepherd's eyes,
sheep, camel eyes all watching her
climb in her stiff red snowsuit
into the milk crate,
her own eyes clouding
with some pleasure to which
I was already inured.
I wanted to be none of them,
especially not Mary,
who had to give birth
having never known love.

On that note, I'll let you get back to your festivities. Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday to my fellow Christmas babies, and Happy Holidays to you and yours from everyone here at HFR! The blog will be taking a short break, but we'll be back again in the new year.