It was Christmas, and from many lands far away
\nThe family convened to mark Christmas Day.
\nA year or more since the last time we had been
\na family together, united as kin.
\n“Where is Sister?” asked Brother upon his arrival.
\n“She is busy at church; it’s her organ recital.
\nEach Christmas she plays for the holiday service.”
\n“Will we see her at all?” asked the Brother, quite nervous.
\n“Perhaps,” said his Mother, “but then, perhaps not,
\nfor the organist bears a particular lot:
\nthe children all singing must learn not to fidget –
\ntis the organist’s job to steady their digits!
\nthe choir must wow during each carol singing;
\ntis the organist’s task to keep spirits ringing!
\nAdd that to her day job stuck down at the mall –
\nIt’s a miracle if we can see her at all.”<\/p>\n
So we called her at work and we called her at church,
\nbut her schedule left most of us stuck in the lurch;
\nwe Facebooked and Twittered and tried her GMail –
\nBut piles of carols walled her world like a jail.
\n‘Neath many a copy of old “Silent Night”
\nthe organist toils by frail candle light;
\nher fingers, curled up as if by arthritis,
\nfrom practicing too much “What Child is This?”
\nWhen finally we raised her between pageant trials,
\nAll she offered her family were frequent denials
\nof having no time for her kin this year –
\n“Let’s go out for dinner,” she said, “Never fear!”<\/p>\n
But then when the phone rang as supper was nearing,
\n‘Twas the call from the Sister we all had been fearing:
\nIn a statement that signaled a total reversal,
\n“I can’t go; I must schedule another rehearsal!”
\nThe family then piled in the old minivan
\nAnd we rushed to the church (every stop light we ran!).
\nWe burst through the doors of the church in a fury;
\nall the choir and the children looked on, filled with worry.
\nSister, she calmed them, as organists do,
\nthen turned to her family and tried to subdue.
\n“I promise, one practice, then dinner we’ll savor;
\nI ask of you just this, a small Christmas favor.”
\nThe family then bristled and buzzed with commotion,
\nEach person still filled with a flood of emotion.
\n“Come now!” shouted Mother. “Yes, now!” shouted Father.
\nBrother thought he would add something, but then didn’t bother.
\nSister blushed, clearly worried her response would bore us:
\n“I can’t; I must master the Hallelujah Chorus!”
\nSo family left church for our fine Christmas homestead,
\nOur dreams filled with sugarplums, tucked in our warm beds,
\nWhile sister stayed late at the church with her choir.
\nThey practiced until they came down to the wire;
\nThe Christmas Eve service went off with no hitch
\n(Loved even by Ms. McGee,\u00a0 that nasty old . . .)
\nwhich meant Sister could finally pack up all her things,
\ndiscard her copies of “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”,
\nand go home for Christmas, away from her duty,
\nin the hopes of scoring some sweet Christmas booty.<\/p>\n
Alas, as she readied, she found she was pinned
\nTo the organ, which by stacks of sheet music, rimmed,
\nhad been walled like a cell by the choir, for fear
\nthat she might have tried leaving before the premier
\nof the Christmas-time pageant, the Christmas-time cheer;
\nthen the choir had left and forgotten to free her!
\nSurrounded by music, hemmed in by the carols,
\nThe organist wailed at the cause of her peril,
\nShe cried and she cried, no cause to be merry,
\nTrapped like a rat in the dark sanctuary,<\/p>\n
When, suddenly, light o’er the the sheet music poured,
\nAs if someone had opened the big chapel doors.
\nShe heard the sweet voices of her own happy kin
\nand the smells of a Christmas goose wafting in;
\nWith hammers and axes they broke down the wall!
\nA happy Christmas was then had by all –
\nFather and Mother and Brother . . . and Sister –
\neverybody said just how much they had missed her.
\nShe was freed from the bond to direct Christmas cheer –
\nat least, that is, ’til this time next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was Christmas, and from many lands far away The family convened to mark Christmas Day. A year or more since the last time we had been a family together, united as kin. “Where is Sister?” asked Brother upon his arrival. “She is busy at church; it’s her organ recital. Each Christmas she plays for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1391","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-life","7":"czr-hentry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1391"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1392,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391\/revisions\/1392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}