Twas the night before Christmas

[Frank Cox]

Not sure where this comes from - but the reference to "cerb" suggests Canada.

Twas the night before Christmas, but Covid was here,
So we all had to stay extra cautious this year.
Our masks were all hung by the chimney with care
In case Santa forgot his and needed a spare.
With Covid, we couldn't leave cookies or cake
So we left Santa hand sanitizer to take.

The children were sleeping, the brave little tots.
The ones over 5 had just had their first shots,
And mom in her kerchief and me in my cap
Had just settled in for a long winter's nap.
But we tossed and we turned all night in our beds
As visions of variants danced in our heads.

Gamma and Delta and now Omicron
These Covid mutations that go on and on
I thought to myself, "If this doesn't get better,
I'll soon be familiar with every Greek letter".

Then just as I started to drift off and doze
A clatter of noise from the front lawn arose.
I leapt from my bed and ran straight down the stair
I opened the door, and an old gent stood there.

His N95 made him look pretty weird
But I knew who he was by his red suit and beard.
I kept six feet away but blurted out quick
" What are you doing here, jolly Saint Nick?"

Then I said, "Where's your presents, your reindeer and sleigh ?
Don't you know that tomorrow will be Christmas Day? ".
And Santa stood there looking sad in the snow
As he started to tell me a long tale of woe.

He said he'd been stuck at the North Pole alone
All his white collar elves had been working from home,
And most of the others said "Santa, don't hire us!
We can live off the CERB now, thanks to the virus".

Those left in the toyshop had little to do.
With supply chain disruptions, they could make nothing new.
And as for the reindeer, they'd all gone away.
None of them left to pull on his sleigh.

He said Dasher and Dancer were in quarantine,
Prancer and Vixen refused the vaccine,
Comet and Cupid were in ICU,
So were Donner and Blitzen, they may not pull through.

And Rudolph's career can't be resurrected.
With his shiny red nose, they all think he's infected.
Even with his old sleigh, Santa couldn't go far.
Every border to cross needs a new PCR.

Santa sighed as he told me how nice it would be
If children could once again sit on his knee.
He couldn't care less if they're naughty or nice
But they'd have to show proof that they'd had their shot twice.

But then the old twinkle returned to his eyes.
And he said that he'd brought me a Christmas surprise.
When I unwrapped the box and opened it wide,
Starlight and rainbows streamed out from inside.

Some letters whirled round and flew up to the sky
And they spelled out a word that was 40 feet high.
There first was an H, then an O, then a P,
Then I saw it spelled HOPE when it added the E.

"Christmas magic" said Santa as he smiled through his beard.
Then suddenly all of the reindeer appeared.
He jumped into his sleigh and he waved me good-bye,
Then he soared o'er the rooftops and into the sky.

I heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight
"Get your vaccines my friends, Merry Christmas, good-night".
Then I went back to bed and a sweet Christmas dream
Of a world when we'd finished with Covid 19.

[Paul H. Rayton]

CERB is [was] the "Canada Emergency Response Benefit" -- the special unemployment insurance benefits specifically targeted to people unemployed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The CERB office had its run during much of 2020; the program is now terminated.

The poem is a clever adaptation of the traditional Christmas story. My only complaint is the composition of the 3rd paragraph! The meter and rhyming are just a bit off, which is too bad since the rest is pretty well done (IMHO).

[Leo Enticknap]

Reminds me of an incident a few years ago, when (it was later claimed) an intern at a local radio station here made a major blunder. When asked to find a recording of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to introduce a segment on the morning drive-time show, she came up with the one by Kevin Bloody Wilson, with alternative lyrics that made explicit reference to drunkenness, bestiality (involving Rudolph and Santa) and several other R-rated topics. She didn't listen to it before it was played on air, assuming it to be just another version with the regular lyrics. It played during the peak school run slot.