March 19, 2024

A Christmas Poem

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light, I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight. My wife was asleep, her head on my chest, My daughter beside me, angelic in rest. Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white, Transforming the yard to a winter delight. The sparkling lights in the tree I believe, Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve. My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep, Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep. In perfect contentment, or so it would seem, So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream. The sound wasn’t…

Reaction to Selective Shopping

Excentric World staff members look at the reaction to selective shopping over the holiday season. Children across the United States woke up Christmas Day to far fewer presents than they had received in the past. Gone are the days of rampant holiday spending to fill a room with gifts, wrapped in brightly colored paper with exquisite bows and ribbons. Christmas was marked by rooms with scant packages rolled up in tissues paper, sans the cellophane, identified with markers instead of name tags. While some retailers suffered once again this holiday season, alcohol sales were being tallied at record numbers. Cheers!…

Letter to Santa!

Dear Santa, Hi. How are you? I am fine. My name is Buck. How often do you visit Kentucky? At least once a year, I guess. That’s a good thing, because Kentucky has lots of kids like me who can’t wait for your visit at Christmas. I am writing to you to ask for Christmas presents for my family. They need a lot of things, so I hope you have a lot of room in your sleigh. Please bring my Daddy a new shotgun. He says that his old one just doesn’t shoot straight any more. He thinks that’s because…

Deck the Decking with Beer Can Bottoms

Excentric World takes a big picture look at the joy of celebrating the holidays with elaborate decorations as seen from the eye of a beer lover. Everywhere, Christmas is a special time–a remembrance of the nativity and the reason behind the giving of gifts, a gathering of family, friends and neighbors wishing each other good tidings. This is a time for wassailing and spiked eggnog. But, for the children, it is a time for sugar plum fairies dancing in their heads in anticipation of the big night when Santa arrives with the special gifts they have written about. These gifts are…

The Sunday Paper

Ahhhh, Sunday. The day of rest. The day of relaxation. The day of exhaustion. From the newspaper. Let’s hear it for the Sunday paper. An institution that’s as American as apple pie and baseball. Sunday just wouldn’t be Sunday without a hearty breakfast and the Sunday paper. It offers stimulation for the mind, delight for the eyes, tantalizing recipes for the home cook and aerobic exercise for the lucky family member whose job it is to go out to the street to retrieve it. In our house that’s me. All efforts to get my wife or my cat, Buckshot, to…

Note from Santa

I’m sitting, watching shoppers with Their yuletide kids in tow, And thinking of a Christmas Eve Some 30 years ago. A simple one-room cabin on A deep Montana lake, A wild goose in the oven, and Snow drifting, flake by flake. Before the evening ended, we Left cookies for Saint Nick, And snuggled down together with A stove-warmed bedtime brick. We crawled out Christmas morning to The wood fire’s flickering light, And stared, astonished, at the gift That Santa left last night. For scrawled in charcoal on the wall, These blackened words, forsooth: “Believe in The Impossible, For there, you’ll…

Christmas Ghosts

Q: The first Christmas I spent with my husband’s family was at his oldest brother’s house. When we got there, they (my husband’s family) told me that the house was haunted. I didn’t mind because I’ve been in haunted houses before. They told me to be careful walking down the stairs because the ghosts pushed people down the stairs. I was coming down stairs to to peek at my gifts when, all of a sudden, I felt someone push my feet out from under me. I ended up falling down the first four stairs. I was slightly bruised, but okay….

Holiday Treats

It’s “that time of the year” again. The time of the year when every writer who writes anything in any kind of newspaper or magazine has to remind you that it’s that time of the year again. So what is that time of the year? The Holiday Season, of course! On page 15 of the Official Rules of Writing, it states that, “No writer shall ignore ‘that time of the year’ under penalty of banishment from the Writer’s Community.” Therefore, I have no choice but to write a festive and fun-filled column about the holiday season.  This year I’ve chosen…

The Joy of Gingerbread

Kath works in New York City in The Carnegie’s sweet dell. She plays a little music for A maestro named Maazel. But, each December moment she Can steal from bed and bow, She fiddles with molasses over Bowls of ginger-dough! She kneads it with her fingers, and She throws it on the floor! She rolls it out on hands and knees From kitchen sink to door! She cuts out walls and windows, and Bakes gables, doors and roofs, Then sticks them all together with The glue of reindeer hooves! This year she’ll craft a Gothic church With Handel in a…