The world needs a pandemic carol, and I’m convinced you do as well, and that everyone you know does too. Well, it just so happens that a friend wrote one. With her permission, here it is, direct to you from Duluth, Minnesota.

Christmas 2020
Bring on a brighter year

                        by Jane Whitledge

Hark! The herald angels sing,
We’re tired of social distancing!
What can I say of such a year,
Except “good riddance, disappear!”
Don’t come back with your virus
Now go away,  no more to tire us—
We’re weary of this isolation
Impatient for real celebration!

Each one of us now simply asks,
When will we be done with masks
And gobs of soap and sanitizer?!
Oh, bring good tidings, Moderna, Pfizer!
And though we love you, Dr. Fauci,
We’re really getting kind of grouchy
Standing here six feet apart.
When can the hugs and handshakes start?

Till then we’ll give to the food shelves
And may there be a lot of elves
To aid the little girls and boys                                                                                                  Who fear there won’t be any toys,
And save the fraught small businesses—
May they have future Christmases!
And as we sing bright carol verses
Bless the doctors and the nurses!

And to the scientists—goodwill!
Bless your work, bless your skill!
We’ll string the garland on our tree
With thoughts for others—empathy.
And in this troubled, cold December,
May hardship make us all remember
In pandemic’s darkest weather
That we are in this all together.

And though it be all you can handle,
Go ahead and light a candle.
Stay hopeful, cheerful kind, and clean.
Pretty soon the great vaccine!
So, “Merry Christmas one and all!”
Goodbye to bleach and alcohol
(except for wine, and, yes, champagne,
For when we meet—we will—again!)

May this two-thousand-twenty-one
Put the past year on the run!
And may your heart ring like a bell—
Happy new year! Please stay well!!
May this two-thousand-twenty-one
Put the past year on the run!
And may your heart ring like a bell—
Happy new year! Please stay well!!

© Jane Whitledge, 2020

Whatever you celebrate, I wish you a good one. And may the new year be kinder than this one has.

Santa Shih Tsu wishes you a happy holiday. She also wishes the photographer had moved the trash out of the background before taking her picture. It’s been a bad year when not even Santa gets what she wants.