It’s Christmas Eve and the kitchen is a mess
everything crusted with flour as more pastry is made
because someone has eaten all the mince pies already.

The jelly stuffed full of rum soaked sponges has finally set
providing a foundation for our Christmas Trifle
and the Christmas Cake has been iced
with red rocketships rather than holly.

Meanwhile someone is melting dark chocolate
to make a Yule Log the way Grandad used to
and not looking guilty at all.

I smile and close the door on my adult sons as
their chocolate fuelled laughter resounds in my ears.
Christmas is finally here!

I think we all know that feeling. The moment when Christmas really starts! This is from Kim.. Kim Whysall-Hammond is a Londoner living in a small country town in Southern England. An expert in obsolete telecommunications, Kim believes, against all evidence, that she is a good dancer…

I’m honored and thrilled that Sarah Connor asked me to take part in her poetry advent calendar this year–along with so many stellar poets! Every morning, I wake up and check for the day’s poem. Today, it’s my poem, “Remembering the Light.” Thank you so much, Sarah, for making this holiday season a little bit brighter. ❤️

Winter holds its secrets tightly bound and buried deep
in frozen ground where daffodils sleep, waiting,

I remember the light, shining bright, on those nights,
the moon’s silver midnight shimmer, glimmering

above, where candles had flamed, enframed
in windowpanes, as my heart, proclaimed

miracles happen, here and there. So stark
the season’s dark, but for the glow and gleaming

of sparkly lights and menorahs beaming, latkes, mulled wine–
symbols and signs of wonders, staying

in memory, like spring bulbs weighing when to bloom
and then do, flowering to lift winter’s gloom.

Merril D. Smith is a historian and poet who writes from southern New Jersey. She’s had poems and short fiction published recently in Black Bough Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, Twist in Time, Nightingale and Sparrow, and Wellington Street Review. Web site: merridsmith.com Twitter: @merril_mds Instagram: mdsmithnj

Today the track is impassable,
a windfall of time blesses my hands.
I watch my small world unfold
in newspaper tones of ink and snow.
In the field crows squabble
over bruised stubbles of barley,
an astonishment of hares nibble at frost,
search for the spectre of spring.

Lynn Valentine lives on the Black Isle in the Scottish Highlands. Her work is widely
published and appears in places like Northwords Now, The Blue Nib and Ink, Sweat & Tears.
She had a poem commissioned by the Scottish Poetry Library this year as part of their
Champions project. She is organising her first poetry pamphlet under the mentorship of
Cinnamon Press after winning a place on their Pencil Mentoring competition for 2020.
Lynn can be found on Twitter @dizzylynn

Waning moon in an ice blue sky did you breathe a weary sigh
When frosty winter solstice moved you
As you shined your brightest light that night,
Did you hear the angel trumpets on high
Blaring Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah!

When you share wintry dawn with a dazzling white sun
Do you still hear sweet angelic music
And as you die your lonely death in a fading grey sky
Do the aurora clouds mourn your good-bye
Crooning Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah!

This beautiful poem comes from Linda Lee Lyburg, a dVerse host and a fine poet. I’m so pleased to share her work with you.

LindaLee Lyberg is a wife, mother, artist, published poet and author. She resides in Mesa, AZ with her husband Pete (aka The Big Viking) of 24 years, and her dog, Ricky Bobby.Lindawrites various forms of poetry, as well as short stories.You can read more of her works…

In the week before Christmas I leave the shopping malls behind and go instead to a lonely clifftop track where ancient shells lie sun bleached on an old Aboriginal midden. Wandering along the sandy trails I hear young men hollering to each other. Walking closer to the cliffs I see they have scrambled down and are exploring the rock pools that have been exposed by the retreating tide.

I leave them to it and walk on to the midden.Not wanting to disturb the fragile remains I skirt around them and sit on a rock at the edge. It is a hot day and the light is bright. The boys have quietened down and the bush around me slumbers in the early afternoon heat. Sitting there I have a sense that people have interacted with the place for thousands of years. The scattered shells are evidence of meals eaten long ago…

On the cusp of Samhain,
the time when the veils between the worlds
grows thin, can you hear the Ancestors
urging us to expand our perspective
wide enough to change
the earth’s music
to a brand new song?
To breathe an evolution,
a revolution, an expansive flowering
of every good intention,
dancing the edge of
a new paradigm?
A shift is happening
on Planet Earth.
Our souls rise to meet it
with joy.

Come, let’s trip the light fantastic,
prancing and cavorting like giddy reindeer
under a waxing polar moon,
conga into winter sunshine with hopeful feathers
all aloft and glistening,
caper into the dawn, vibrant and smiling
and never so alive!

Join me. We’ll pull on the moss
like sweet little socks,
and tiptoe through the forest
like sprites, dip our tippy-toes
into the Pond of Peace,
set all our dreams alight
with the shine of sunset
over the…

Window is how we frame seasons,
a pane of coolness, a sash
of leafage, we collect
ourselves in color, door
wreaths of pine and holly.

Having abandoned my place
of birth, riding the bus as far
north as it would take me,
coral, whelk and olive
in my pocket,
arriving to frozen water rigid
in broad daylight, snow everywhere.

There was no drinking away
the taste of guava, grits
or fried mullet, mangoes
and avocados populated
my dreams, a longing of sand.

Once we went to the sea
all stone and coldness,
that was winter, my blood
burned, ice filled my eyes,
words jagged as ice, gulls
mournful, wind of exile.

Returning home with the thaw,
wet season and the tilt
that flowers the great storms
out upon the waters, names
recited, catalogued by destruction.

Eventually dry season settles in,
not something to call winter,
wind off the Gulf, windows