By Chuck Wiser, “I write the words to share what my eyes see and my heart feels”
I imposed upon my editor asking if I could share some of Christmas and seasonal words as an extra for Christmas Day. With your indulgence I will not overstay my welcome and just mention a couple or three favorite Christmases among the many. Of course any of the Christmases that we enjoyed as our offspring progressed through their ages were special. When asking my editor the ages of his children he cited three ages that would give he and his spouse almost the full range of “childhood” pleasures. For one it is a first Christmas with a knowledge of it being something special. For the second it is probably the greatest pleasure as still a full “believer” of the secular side of Christmas with Santa, and with the third it’s in that range where Yes I believe, no, I’m not sure, but heck, I’ll take the gifts in any event.
The Christmas of my youth that I recall most clearly was at 12 years old. Having been accustomed to “hand me down” bikes, or anything with wheels, that year I received a shiny new red bike. It wasn’t under the tree, but my mother took me out to the car Christmas morning where she maneuvered the bike out of the back seat. I could not hold back the tears of joy. We grew up ‘not financially well off” so knowing the strapped cash flow, that was an enormous surprise.
The second most emotional Christmas occurred a few years back when my wife surprised me with the regifting of my wedding ring. Several years before that they had to cut my ring off my finger in the Emergency Room at Jones Memorial Hospital following an injury to my ring finger. Completely unbeknownst to me she had taken the ring to a local jeweler for repair and gave it to me as a Christmas gift. Needless to say, but the love flowed from my heart as profusely as did my tears from my eyes.
The poem With This Ring, shown below tells that story. The other poems that I have chosen to share with you are all Christmas oriented and most share the true reason for the Christmas season. One of the poems, Thank You Lord, if all works out well, will be accompanied by a song that was co-written by Dave Dunbar and me based on the poem that I had written. The poem, our third published piece, was by far our most successful. It has been used by many Choral groups and Church choirs, especially at Thanksgiving, but is also meaningful at Christmas, as we do give our thanks for this holiest of days celebrating the most significant December birth.
Listen here:
Here are the rest of my Christmas, or Christmas season words, in verse. I hope you enjoy. With this, as also noted in poem, I would like to wish you all a very happy, joyous and peaceful Christmas.
