Christmas List Eating

Robert Fulghum image borrowed from Bing

Christmas List Eating

I usually draw up a heavy duty
Things To Do list about this time of year.
I am black belt at lists.
I even have lists of lists.
Seven pages of expectations that are in themselves
enough to permanently destroy the spirit of Christmas.
But this year I started from somewhere else in my mind.
New list
One page.
A Things to Be list.
Concentrating on the feelings I wanted to have,
the condition of mind and spirit I yearned for,
The quality of life I wanted to manifest,
The vibrations I wanted to give off to other people.
A Things To Be list for Christmas.
Then I boiled the list down into one line.
And then summarized that line in one work
And then I wrote that word on a tiny piece of paper.
And then I wrapped that tiny piece of paper
around a small candy cane.
And ate it.
List and all.
SHAZAM! HARK THE HERALD ANGELS SING!

Oh sure, it’s a little crazy.
But since when is Christmas supposed to make sense?
Oh sure, it’s a little early - today is Nov. 15 -
but since when is Christmas a matter of time?
I mean, who makes the rules
and regulations about Christmas, anyway?
Who is in charge of Christmas?
Me, that’s who.
The Christmas list eater.

I suppose you want to know what the one word was.
Nope. You got to work it out for yourself.
Like Christmas.
Cause if it ain’t inside you somewhere,
all the lists in the world won’t make it happen.
Here, have a candy cane on me.

Robert Fulghum

From CHRISTMAS FRIARWORKS