Good Morning!

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Welcome to The Coffee Shop, just for you early risers on Monday mornings.
This is an Open Thread forum, so if you have an off-topic opinion burning
a hole in your brainpan, feel free to add a comment.

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Anyone who believes that men are the
equal of women has never seen a man
trying to wrap a Christmas present.”

– Author Unknown
(but definitely a woman)

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“Christmas: it’s the only religious holiday that’s also a federal holiday. That way, Christians can go to their services, and everyone else can sit at home and reflect on the true meaning of the separation of church and state.”

– Samantha Bee

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Mistletoe

by Walter de la Mare

Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Some one came, and kissed me there.

Tired I was; my head would go
Nodding under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
No footsteps came, no voice, but only,
Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,
Stooped in the still and shadowy air.

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Christmas Eve

To Ella

By Carol Ann Duffy

Time was slow snow sieving the night,
a kind of love from the blurred moon;
your small town swooning, unabashed,
was Winter’s own.

Snow was the mind of Time, sifting
itself, drafting the old year’s end.
You wrote your name on the window-pane
with your young hand.

And your wishes went up in smoke,
beyond where a streetlamp studied
the thoughtful snow on Christmas Eve,
beyond belief,

as Time, snow, darkness, child, kindled.
Downstairs, the ritual lighting of the candles.

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“Christmas Shopping: Wouldn’t it be wonderful to find one gift that you didn’t have to dust, that had to be used right away, that was practical, fit everyone, was personal and would be remembered for a long time? I penciled in “Gift certificate for a flu shot.”

– Erma Bombeck

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Happy Holidays!

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The Poets

• Walter de la Mare (1873-1956), prolific English poet and fiction author, best remembered for his poem “The Listeners.” He won the 1947 Carnegie medal for children’s books, and published 13 collections of poetry
• Carol Ann Duffy (1955 –), Scottish poet and playwright, the first woman, first Scot and first openly LGBT person appointed as Britain’s Poet Laureate in May 2009