Are you still here?

Well, the world is still here. This development has caught me off guard and I had prepared nothing new in the way of “entertainment” for you to read.

Fortunately for me this world- continuing thing has fallen squarely during the “week between Christmas” and it has been tradition for the two previous years now that I print my sad attempt at poetry.

I think this year though I will try to break down or give some rationale to the events chronicled in this poem.

The first part is, to me, pretty on the spot. The picture I attempted to paint about Christmas itself with broken toys, decorations and heaps of discarded wrappings is pretty recognizable to us all.

The middle part, with Santa and the elves is pure whimsy on my part. I honestly have no idea what Santa or the elves actually do after Christmas

The last part is a lie.

If it’s not actually a lie it is at least a fantasy based on what I have heard other people do mixed with some stuff from my younger days.

For instance, I have not had more than a total of about six beers over the last five New Year’s. It turns out I am usually traveling that day or just sitting at home watching some TV sitcom marathon.

I don’t really know why, but I just don’t usually feel like drinking on New Year’s.

As far as bowl games ... I don’t generally watch them.

Resolutions? If I do make them, they are wishes I usually let fade over the ensuing months.

I know these things do happen though, and I thought those turns more amusing than my dull celebrations.

Anyway, for the third year in a row (and most likely the last for a while), here is “The Week between Christmas”.

The week between Christmas

Amid the week after Christmas, piles of wrapping in bags,

shiny paper and boxes in trash with the tags.

Sad little scissors sit broken and bent,

from clamshell packaging--they don’t make a dent.

The lights are still sparkly, still light up the town,

but pretty soon work begins in taking them down.

Kids run around ‘cause they’re still out of schools,

having a good old time while acting the fools.

But the tots are forlorn from here to Hoboken,

Christmas is gone and their new toys are broken.

Uncles and Aunts and those other relations,

bid farewell and return from their mini vacations.

Santa lays down and sighs in relief,

“What a joy!” he exclaims, “To get off my feet!”

The elves are euphoric, full of songs and of rhyme,

for their paychecks are ripe with much overtime.

Reindeer, still weary from their round-the-world flight,

laugh about poop on your roof left that night.

We saw that white Christmas, while so very nice,

is now all for nothing but a pain-in-the-ice.

What we look for now is the New Years to come,

wild parties abound, with champagne and spiced rum.

A night known to ruin our memory’s retentions,

from drinks that consist of colored suspensions.

Midnight rings the end of our holiday season,

but many still drink their way beyond reason.

We try to head home (don’t drive--take a cab),

to find we can only crawl like a crab.

Onto the bed we fall like a pin...

“Hey, why is the room starting to spin?”

The New Year is born and at Bowl games we’ll gaze,

through a headachy red shade of hangover haze.

We’d keep resolutions if we could guess what they were,

we know that we made them, but now we’re not sure.

To exercise, we think, let’s give it a shot.

but then again, we know, probably not.

Maybe we thought to go and quit smoking,

Yeah, right. Man, who the hell are we joking?

Go to a shrink for our personality problems?

They’d lock us away if they met all our goblins!

So at the end of the day what do we do?

Same we did last year... see the year through.