Annual Christmas Card verse contest winner!

It’s that time of year to announce the winner of my annual “Best Christmas Card Verse Contest.” Every year I consider it my duty to search out a bit of pose that, in my opinion, sets the mood for the Holiday season.

Personally, I love to get Christmas Cards and I delight in reading their cute verses. I always keep a very accurate list of those who send me cards, so I can return the favor the next year. I firmly believe that if Longfellow or Shelley were alive today, they would be in Nashville writing songs or in New York City writing verses for greeting cards. I use to worry about how we would get rid of all the surplus wire coat hangers, but now there are so many Christmas cards sent each year, that someday we will have to send bundle them up and shoot them into space.

This year’s winning verse is longer than usual. Technically it’s not really a verse on a card, but was actually a typewritten sheet of paper inserted into the card sent to a dear friend. Also it might have been published elsewhere, but it is new to me:

MY CHRISTMAS BOOK
By Anonymous

There is a list of folks I know
All written in a book,
And every year at Christmas time
I go and take a look.
And that is when I realize that
These names are a part
Not of the book they’re written in
But of my very heart.

For each name stands for someone
Who has touched by life sometime,
And in that meeting they’ve become
The “Rhythm of the Rhyme.”
I really feel I am composed
Of each remembered name,
And while you may not be aware
Of feeling quite the same,
My life is so much better
Than it was before you came.

For once that you have known someone
The years cannot erase
The memory of a pleasant word
or of a friendly face.
So never think my Christmas cards
Are just a mere routine
Of names upon a list
Forgotten in between.
For when I send a Christmas card
That is addressed to you,
It is because you’re on that list
Of folks I’m indebted to.

And whether I’ve know you
for many years or few,
In some way you have had a part
In shaping things I do.
So every year when Christmas comes
I just realize anew
The biggest gift that God can give
Is knowing folks like you!

Now that the judging of this award is out of the way, I can concentrate on trying to remember what I did with the list of people who sent me cards last year.