With the annual arrival of Yule,
The world becomes all slop and drool.
    Like that song with the sleigh
    They incessantly play
The points I award it are nul.

Turkey-slaughter is callous and cruel
While the weather turns vile as a rule.
     It is cold, wet, and grey,
     Life becomes pay-pay-pay,
And the thought makes me blanch, puke and mewl.

Who requires the great brain of George Boole
To find lands needing no winter fuel
    And spend Christmas away
    Where the sun shines all day
Sipping drinks beneath palms by a pool?

*****

Jerome Betts writes: “I suppose it’s not the festival itself itself at the darkest point of the northern hemisphere year that provokes a jaundiced reaction but the ever-lengthening relentless commercial run- up to it, almost merging with over-hyped Halloween.”

‘Jingle Tills, Jingle Tills’ was first published in Better Than Starbucks.

Jerome Betts edits Lighten Up Online in Devon, England. His verse appears in Amsterdam Quarterly, Light, The Asses of Parnassus, The New Verse News, The Hypertexts, Snakeskin, and various anthologies.

Photo: “Jingle Bell Bokeh” by aronalison is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.