The Poetry Corner

The Christmas Letter

By Helen Leah Reed

I'm always glad when Christmas comes, and yet I'd like it better; If mother wouldn't bother me to write a Christmas letter To uncle John and Cousin Kate and dear old Grand-aunt Gray, And all whose presents come to me from places far away. Of course I love my presents, and if givers should forget her, No little girl, my mother says, need write a Christmas letter. For oh! my ink makes awful blots, though I try to do real well, And when you write them out of school, all words are hard to spell. I mean to mind my mother, she's so kind I would not fret her, But when she says, "Stop playing, dear. Come, write this Christmas letter," That's just the thing I hate to hear, and if I dared, I wouldn't Remember how to hold a pen, I'd make believe I couldn't.