Christmas is for Grinches

Hating Christmas--
there's something anti-American about that.
What's not to love about the
larger-than-life front-yard snowmen
getting hot air blown up their asses
as they sway with mittens frozen
in perpetual waves to passersby?
Who wouldn't pause in admiration
at modern miracle nets--
lights spaced exactly and blinking
over evergreen hedges
to the tune of Jingle Bells
piped into fluorescent light fixtures
above Walmart masses bent on spending
dollars not yet made?

Who doesn't love gifts that disappoint
and Christmas trees losing needles onto K-Mart asphalt
and credit card bills not yet paid off from Christmases past?

Still--
For every Grinch stealing Christmas
there's a believer--
someone happily sloshing through stands of pine
looking for the perfect balsam fir,
someone grateful for family gatherings
and the indoor smell of evergreens
and mulled cider simmering stove top
and presents wrapped on Christmas Eve
and carols before midnight services
and stocking toes plump with clementines
and tromps through silent forests
to find and cut the perfect tree,
to drag it over snow with pitch-sticky fingers,
to stand it in a livingroom corner,
and place an angel at its top and ornaments
from Christmases past on each of its branches?

For all the crass commercialism,
for all the slaughtered baby trees,
for all the gifts you never wanted
and the ones you did but didn't get,
for all the expectations unmet,
there's still nothing quite like
the silence of Christmas Eve,
when gifts nestle beneath branches
and Christmas lights alone
fill livingrooms everywhere
with silence and awe.

Christmas is for Yuletide lovers
and Grinches alike.
Let it work its magic
and send forth the peace that comes
to those who watch and wait
in wonder.