In time for Christmas

SANTA VS. THE SNOWMAN

A story that you might believe,
This happens every Christmas eve
It’s when the winner gets to drive the sleigh.
After all the daylight’s gone
Just before there’s any dawn
These two meet up without the need to play.
No cause for fear or false alarm
For down the road from Tucker’s Farm
One of them is going to have his say.
It seems this most amazing duel
That happens every frosty Yule
Is quite bizarre in nearly every way.
The story that my father told
Long ago, ‘cause now I’m old
Was, “Santa doesn’t always drive the sleigh.”
One night, I wandered to the farm
Hoping that I’d face no harm
And what I saw, I must explain today.
To the left, old Santa stood
As though he were a block of wood
His face a somber shade of pewter gray.
Not far away, up near the oak
Adjacent to a gleaming cloak
Frosty mulled this moment, said “OK.”
Santa hunkered by the fence
As now the battle would commence
And I could tell that this was hardly play.
The man in red would move about
And I could sometimes hear him shout,
“You haven’t got a chance, you frozen dray.”
The stoic statue seemed inert
Insisted that it didn’t hurt.
“That all you got, you rotund speckled splay?”
The moon rose full, the shadows spread
Suddenly I began to dread
Knowing that the snowman had to pay.
Santa launched another round
Then moved to even higher ground
Castigating Frosty all the way.
“You’ll never get to drive the team,
“You pile of frozen winter steam.
“And here’s one more to fully wreck your day.”
Frosty, battered, shelled, yet absolute
Suddenly was very mute
Santa knowing that he’d won another day.
For many years, this competition
Established Christmas Eve tradition
The winner was the one who drove the sleigh.
Frosty never had a chance
In fact, he couldn’t even dance
Compared to Frosty, Santa could ballet.
The man in red wiped off his coat
With cherub face, his eyes agloat
Chided Frosty: “Gonna melt today?”
Frosty’s eyes turned black as coal
It seemed for once he had no soul
“Just one favor ‘fore you go away.”
Santa was a jolly man
Doing what a good elf can
“Sure, anything, you mangled white display.”
Frosty pointed to the ground
There the cloak lay, safe and sound
“Place it on me when you go away.”
Santa saw no harm in that
Even fixed old Frosty’s hat
Then turned to make adjustments to his sleigh.
As Santa turned, a blast of white
Frosty heaved with all his might
Santa, smitten, now oh-for-one this fray.
Frosty said, “This is no joke,
“For I have known about the cloak,
“I’m very happy that it came today.”
Face down in snow, old Santa lay
Frosty winked and did parlay
Good fortune and the right to guide the sleigh.
Santa hobbled to his feet,
Realized that he’d been beat
And vowed he’d fight again some other day.
So if you get a purple tie
Cantaloupe instead of pie,
The rules have changed for just this Christmas Day.
I left the farm that fateful night
Knowing I had seen the fight
And realized that anything you can imagine is possible.

-John C. Updike, 2011

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