Christmas Poems we Celebrate

Poetry reading at Christmas

A Christmas is the perfect time to read Christmas poems to your children. It is a wonderful time to start a family tradition that they will remember until they have their own children and can read to them. Whether you are ten or one hundred there are many wonderful Christmas books of poems that set the Christmas scene and will enhance the spirit of Christmas in your household, so find a quiet time in the hustle and bustle of the festive season, sit yourself down in front of the fire and read to your kids. Children who are old enough to read on their own may be encouraged to discover the magic of these timeless tales and the wonder of Christmas. These verses combined with a child’s imagination can create heartwarming memories that will become dearer each Christmas season.

The Night before Christmas

The Night before Christmas is a famous poem written by Clement Clarke Moore

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

A very well known Christmas poem is ‘The night before Christmas’ first published on December 23rd 1823 and written by Clement Clarke Moore in 1822. It was originally called ‘A visit from St Nicholas’ and it is now a tradition in many American families to read the poem to the children at bedtime on Christmas Eve, to prepare them for a very special night in the year. It tells of a family tucked up in bed before the visit of St Nicholas on Christmas Eve. All the preparations have been made for the big day and the children are dreaming of all things nice. When St Nicholas arrives he makes a lot of noise and is seen by the narrator who gets out of his bed to look out of the window.

Christmas by John Betjeman

And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.

Christmas, a wonderful poem that evokes pictures of busy city streets at Christmas time and normal people living their busy lives, but never lets us forget the true meaning of Christmas and the reasons that we celebrate the birth of Jesus. It is a reminder to us in these days of presents, Xmas gifts, decorations and other Christmas trivia that long ago a child was born for us.

Christmas-tide is how a book of nursery rhymes describes the twelve days of Christmas. There are many nursery rhymes that talk about Christmas and we gain an understanding of the days when Christmas was a little different to nowadays, with less money but the same spirit of the festive season. Many Christmas carols are based around poems that may have their origins in historical fact.

Poem/Carols at Christmas

Christmas is coming the geese are getting fat

Please to put a penny in the old man’s hat

If you haven’t got a penny a ha’penny will do

If you haven’t got a ha’penny then God bless you.

Another one goes like this:

Christmas comes but once a year

And when it comes it brings good cheer

A pocket full of money and a cellar full of beer.

One that can be said when you are leaving the house of a friend or indeed, when you arrive at a friend’s house:

God bless the master of this house,

And it’s good mistress too,

And all the little children that round the table go;

And all your kin and kinsmen that dwell both far and near;

We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Finally I want to talk about poems that tell the Christmas story as we have often heard it told. This poem, The Three Kings a Christmas poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow tells the story of the travels of the three Kings to the stable in Bethlehem to worship the new born king. It tells of the gifts they brought with them and the star that shone in the east that they followed until it came to a halt above the stable where the child lay.

Three Kings came riding from far away,
Melchior and Gaspar and Baltasar;
Three Wise Men out of the East were they,
And they travelled by night and they slept by day,
For their guide was a beautiful, wonderful star.

The star was so beautiful, large and clear,
That all the other stars of the sky
Became a white mist in the atmosphere,
And by this they knew that the coming was near
Of the Prince foretold in the prophecy.

Wherever you celebrate Christmas, take the time to read Christmas poems to your family and give them great presents in the true spirit of the festive season.