Steve Gilliland
It was still Christmas Eve when I turned on the tube and the world was abuzz with some quite solemn news
It seems Santa had completed only part of his route then just disappeared without even a shout
Quite puzzling it was that among places missed was a state known as Kansas in the United States midst.
Oh well I was thinking I’d have just gotten coal so it’s no loss to me or to my bank role.
I had traps to check so I headed afield and was anxious as usual to see what they’d yield.
The sun hadn’t risen over the eastern landscape so the field was still dark as I entered the gate.
A strange scarlet glow in the pasture ahead my attention did get as toward it I sped.
Twas an overturned sleigh and what looked like reindeer with a plump jolly elf on the ground very near.
One particular deer with a bright glowing nose looked at me in the darkness as the old man arose.
“This is all my fault” Santa said with a sigh; “I doubted we could keep this thing in the sky.
We were bound for the Whitehouse with a sleigh full of coal; it seems everyone there deserves it you know.
The weight was too much for the deer and the sleigh and I hate it that Christmas must end this way.
Millions of kids still await us on Christmas morn as they celebrate the day on which Christ was born.
And to make matters worse, just before this occurrence I’d been given the news that we’d lost our insurance.”
I said “Nick, don’t despair, I’ll help with your goal: I know a guy with a truck, we’ll deliver your coal.
You just finish your route and deliver the toys to those who await you, the girls and the boys.”
So we dusted the sleigh off as clean as a whistle, then off they all flew like the down of a thistle.
And I heard him exclaim as they flew out of sight, “Please keep Christ in Christmas as you celebrate tonight.”
Ole’ St Nick must have known that my freezer was bare and that I wanted Rudolph in residence there
Cause’ under my tree when I made it home was a box of prime rib and a case of T-bones.
And as for the coal, to the White House it went, so Barack, Joe and Nancy and many others too numerous to mention would each get a lump of it in their stocking big enough to choke a horse!
Merry Christmas from Steve and Joyce at Exploring Kansas Outdoors
