“And I do come home at Christmas. We all do, or we should. We all come home or ought to come home, for a short holiday–the longer, the better.” An excerpt from A Christmas Tree by Charles Dickens.
This is a poem called Christmas At Sea by Robert Louis Stevenson. “The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand; / The decks were like a slide, where a seaman scarce could stand; / The wind was a nor’wester, blowing squally off the sea; / And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.
“They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day; / But ’twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay. / We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout, / And we gave her the maintops’l, and stood to go about. / All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North; / All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth; / All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread, / For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.
“We gave the South a wider berth, for there the tide-race roared; / But every tack we made we brought the North Head close aboard; / So’s we saw the cliffs and houses, and the breakers running high, / And the coastguard in his garden, with his glass against his eye.
“The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean foam; / The good red fires were burning bright in every ‘longshore home; / The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out; / And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.
“The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer; / For it’s just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year) / This day of our adversity was blessed Christmas morn, / And the house above the coastguard’s was the house where I was born.
“O well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there, / My mother’s silver spectacles, my father’s silver hair; / And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of homely elves, / Go dancing round the china-plates that stand upon the shelves.
“And well I know the talk they had, the talk that was of me, / Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea; / And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way, / To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed Christmas Day.
“They lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to fall. / ‘All hands to loose topgallant sails,’ I heard the captain call. / ‘By the Lord, she’ll never stand it,’ our first mate Jackson, cried. / … ‘It’s the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson,’ he replied.
“She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and good, ‘ / And the ship smelt up to windward just as though she understood. / As the winter’s day was ending, in the entry of the night, / We cleared the weary headland, and passed below the light.
“And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me, / As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea; / But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold, / Was just that I was leaving home, and my folks were growing old.”
This poem was included in the collection Christmas Poems selected and edited by John Hollander and J. D. McClatchy, a Borzoi Book published by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House. Its ISBN is 0-375-40789-8
Winter officially begins a little past 1 a.m. overnight. Usually it begins on the 21st. The first day of winter means many things to me. It means the shortest day of the year. By the 23rd of the month, “Daylight now lengthens to the extent of a gnat’s yawn,” according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac.
December 21st has been a busy day at airports and train stations as Christmas travelers begin the long journey home. Patience was no doubt tested in this changed world of ours, as these travelers contended with the new security requirements and restrictions when preparing to board their flights. It will be worth all the headaches when they arrive at their destinations to find family and friends ready to greet them, and welcome them “home.”
Some journeys can only be made in the memory. I remember being on the train heading home to Toronto from my radio job in Montreal on Christmas Eve. This was a very long time ago now. On this one trip, late in the frigid evening that was Christmas Eve that year, the train broke down out in the middle of nowhere. The pipes froze up beneath the old passenger cars. We sat in the cold staring out the windows at a bleak windswept landscape for what seemed an eternity as the crew tried to repair the problem. I wondered if I would even be able to make it home that night, or would end up being billeted in a hotel in some place not readily found on the map. In those days I only had a few days off from my job and would need to be home right after Boxing Day. When the train finally moved and some hours later arrived in my hometown, it was so good to see my mother and father waiting for me on the cold station platform. A few days later on the return journey, the train broke down again. This time it was during a day trip so the inconvenience didn’t take as much of an emotional toll on those returning from holiday celebrations. I remember waving to my parents through the frosted window as the train lurched out of the station. Even though I couldn’t see my mother clearly, I knew there was a tear in her eye and a catch in her throat as she waved back.
Both my parents have long since passed on. They wait for me no longer on that familiar train platform when I now travel with my family. On the occasion when my wife and children travel alone, it is me who stands there out in the cold, ready to greet them warmly upon their return. I know what my parents felt, waiting patiently for their son to return home.
This day is special to me for another reason. My mother, Violet Rose, was born on this date, December 21st. She was born in the dark and cold of the shortest day of the year. Another Christmas is here without her and my father. At our Christmas table I will sit in the place usually reserved for my father, and raise a glass in their memory. I’m sure you will do the same for those who who can no longer be at your table. A collective prayer will once again go out to all absent friends.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote: “But O for the touch of a vanished hand, / And the sound of a voice that is still.”
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This blog will be “live” Christmas Eve between 6 and midnight. I will be attending our special Christmas Eve program hosted by the morning show, and posting thoughts and readings in my blog that you might like to share with your family, as you await the arrival of “the jolly old elf.” I hope you will check this site regularly throughout the evening of the 24th for my many postings, and for my very best wishes to you and your family.
Kim Gannon wrote, “I’ll be home for Christmas / If only in my dreams…”
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Don Jackson
Good morning Don,
- dittievoegeleOn Fridaynight you recited a poem “coming Home”? Is it possible to send it to me?
Thank you, have a wonderful Christmas.
Dittie Voegele