Twas the night before Christmas
The kids looked around
Their eyes welled with tears,
Though they made not a sound
A sleigh would need snow;
There was none to be found
Just the puddles where raindrops had pelted
They hoped in their hearts
That Saint Nick would come ‘round
With presents and toys
To amuse and astound
Then the word started spreading
That Santa had drowned
When the ice at the North Pole had melted
It’s the year every good son and daughter
Will be sighing and shedding a tear
Cos they found Santa’s corpse under water
And there won’t be a Christmas this year
No Santa appeared
To the kids who were spying
Though they’d really been good
Or at least, they’d been trying
No jingle of bells
And no reindeer a-flying
Or magically pulling a sled
If we’d only done something
Instead of denying;
Complied with Kyoto
Instead of defying
Now everywhere, everywhere,
Children are crying
Cos Santa—sweet Santa!—is dead.
It’s the year every good son and daughter
Will be sighing and shedding a tear
Cos they found Santa’s corpse under water
And there won’t be a Christmas this year
The hearth is ablaze
With a crackling roar,
And the stockings are scattered
About on the floor.
And the children don’t know
Who the cookies are for,
If Saint Nicholas won’t be around.
For the reindeer are missing,
The elves are all gone.
No more jolly ho-ho,
No red sleigh on the lawn,
No more squeals of delight
In the light of the dawn;
It’s the year that Santa Claus drowned.
It’s the year every good son and daughter
Will be sighing and shedding a tear
Cos they found Santa’s corpse under water
And there won’t be a Christmas this year
This one is by request, for commenter Johnny Vector (who is also responsible for the last verse! Yay!), who points to this article on Skeptical Science, and specifically to the comments thereof.
Feel free to try out some additional verses (crowdsourcing!), or put it to music, or whatever.
It needs music because it reads melodiously.
I wrote it to my own tune, but I am certain a real musician could do better. I’d send it to Roy Zimmerman, but I don’t think he does collaborations. I have no doubt he would improve it greatly.
The hearth is ablaze
With a crackling roar,
And the stockings are scattered
About on the floor.
And the children don’t know
Who the cookies are for,
If Saint Nicholas won’t be around.
For the reindeer are missing,
The elves are all gone.
No more jolly ho-ho,
No red sleigh on the lawn,
No more squeals of delight
In the light of the dawn;
It’s the year that Santa Claus drowned.
Excellent! Amusing, yet poignant. I predict we will be hearing this on the radio.
Send it to Roy anyway. Send it to Claude Hay. Even if they just riff off your core idea, it could be some powerful stuff.
Cartoonish as it is, the concept is not trivial. And the fantasy might get through to people where reality does not.
Twas the night before Christmas
And all round the Earth
There was melting and wilting
And of food and water a derth
The sea ice had vanished
The land had burned black
The heat overpowered
We all wished we could go back
Back to the time when there was Santa and snow
Back the era where good plants could grow
Back to the time before Deniers said NO
“No we won’t act”, they’d hollered and howled
The scientists are lying they mocked and they scowled
The deniers back then, well they had their way now
But we’d made them answer somewhat and, oh, how they’d yowled!
Small consolation, too late to shift track
The methane was bubbling and Amazon hacked
Like so many ecosystems battered and wrecked
For burgers and money, away was it pecked.
The seas full of plastic, the air full of smoke
A world overheated and crowded and choked
Merry Christmas we told ourselves once every year
But the merriness fading and chipped out of gear
Capitalist presents, all sorts of great things
Unwelcome now when we wanted our world not to sear.
Twas the night before Christmas a hundred years hence
Climate harmed faster, sad course of events
The children were worried, the adults were sick,
Ecologies busted, no chance of a fix
When a strange new magic awoke some new tricks
Twas the night before Xmas, snap, time travel jump
Back in the present its not yet such a dump
Its heading that way sure but yet there’s still time
But shorter and shorter, all things intertwine
If we can act quickly our grandchildren then
Can get a present now from our present so tense.
Lets give them a future, lets give them a hope
Quite how I don’t know but for starters no dopes :
No dopes in the Congress or House that is white
No dopes to be listened to saying “all is just right”
No dopes who will tell its all just God’s plan
No dopes and no dupes in the rule of this world
But change of direction to future thoughts scan
Merry Christmas grandchildren in twenty one hundred A.D.
Can we give you still someplace, that’s sill nice to be?
– StevoR
Feel free to use as best suits.
Last line typo fix req. :
Can you give you yet someplace that’s still nice to be?
Sorry.
Gah! The terrible pedant in me arises unbidden:
Kyoto is two stressed syllables: ‘kYOH – tOH’, not a dactyl ‘kee – OH toh’.
Okay, I’m done:-P
Ok, David, for you the line is “Complying with Kyoto”
I actually should have known that, but US news has been unfailingly dactylic in their Kyoting. And no need to feel bad about it–I felt the same way every time I heard Fuk u SHEE ma.
See :
http://climatecrocks.com/2012/09/14/still-no-minimum-ice-continues-slide/comment-page-1/#comment-13970
mediacritter : & now to discuss these issues we’ll take a look at the poles.
Screen shot : Arctic ocean full of waves, the last few chunks of melting ice, a barbers pole and a drowning Santa clinging to the reins of his deer as they struggle to lift an overladen sled from cold waters.
Glad I’m Dutch, our Sinterklaas comes with a boat from Spain. That Santa Clause imposter will finally get his comeupance!