With Thanksgiving a week away, is it too early for a Christmas Poem?

Back in 2020 The Conference Board asked me to write and record a spoken word piece for their final end of year all staff meeting. As a contractor I couldn't participate hence a recording was played.

And so Santa Pause was born.....This piece reflects the stresses, strains and the successes of that first year of the pandemic so it is a bit dated - or more positively it is a product of its time.....

I hope you enjoy:

Title: So Christmas Eve then has found us - sitting here at our machines

But we’ll all be home for Christmas - if only on our screens

(Said to the rhythm of “I’’ll Be Home For Christmas”)

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I don’t know you - you don’t know me

But one thing we have in common - the year 2020

So here as we gather on Christmas Eve

A short rhyme about the year I’ll weave

Think of this as my Christmas card

To all of you from the Conference Bard

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We are at the end of a year like no other

Unable to gather with family - not father, mother, sister brother

It’s like someone cancelled the Christmas season

It’s no easier knowing it’s for a good reason

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It’s not that 2020’s been uncertain

Not knowing who’s pulling strings behind the curtain

No -it’s that there’s no curtain not even any strings

All feeling at times like fate’s playthings

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So let me propose to you a new cause

This year I invite you to celebrate Christmas with Santa Pause

She doesn’t have a long beard that’s white

She’s not coming down your chimney in the middle of the night

She’s not leaving presents under your tree

But she does bring two special gifts for you and for me

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First, she invites you to reflect on the great job you’ve done

During this year when you’ve been under the gun

Knocked over by the Covid hit and run

That’s impacted you all each and every one

It’s been like a slow-motion panic attack

But after every challenge you’ve bounced back

Showing resilience at every turn

So many new lessons we’ve all had to learn

And to my black friends and people of color

Who already have to work harder for every dollar

While I can’t understand all you go through

Let’s all promise to listen, to learn from you

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We’ve all had our own demons to fight

But we’ve all come through and into the light

So, let’s celebrate you surviving this year

Filled with uncertainty, filled with fear

All of us having to work from home

Knowing none of us would have made this on their own

But still finding time to be there as a friend

To be the light at the tunnels end

To keep on going when the going got tough

To never never say “I’ve had enough”

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And while we’ve experienced much, we grieve

The people we’ve lost, time we’ll never retrieve

There is one thing we’ve come to believe

We are all part of a web that we cannot unweave

And no we’ve not all been in the same boat

But we’ve realized we must keep one another afloat

We’ve learned the power of human connection

Of those whom we love or at least have affection

Of colleagues and friends, and even of strangers

We’ve learned about loneliness and its very real dangers

And we learned this in a year lived without a hug

With a virus that turned a human feature into a bug

So Celebrate those times you turned the screen from a wall to a bridge

And I don’t mean between your couch and the fridge

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But Santa Pause invites us to reflect on the past not dwell

Her second present is to think about the future as well

She invites you to envision what’s yet to come

The Future you are building - the one that’s just begun

About this future there are no facts

You create it through your decisions and acts

What happens next is not preordained

Neither by the past or future are we constrained

And this one lesson has really hit home

Your dream of the future - you can’t build it alone

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And here is something you need to know

You are writing history as you go.

Right now, there’s no experts we’re all just learning

Always pivoting always turning

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You’re probably fed up with the word pivoting

Thinking of this as just a verb is really limiting

Pivot’s something you can be as well as do

So here’s a definition that I recommend for you

Pivot is “a fixed point supporting something that turns”

That’s what you can be as the whole world learns

Because this is the heart of the matter

If you pivot without a pivot you don’t pivot you scatter

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Let human connection be your pivot in 2021

Be kind to one another - each and every one

Reach out to your friends when they are in need

“Are we not all human, do we all not bleed”?

See the enemy’s not just the virus it’s atomization

The loss of connection across the nation

We need to do more than readjust

We have to build a new world that’s just

On a foundation of love and trust

If not, we’ll become just digital dust

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?So here is Santa Pause’s message for this Yuletide

The future’s not just whats in front of you it’s also what’s inside

I know each of you in your own way has had it hard

So, one last word from the Conference Bard

You’ve spent a lot of time at the edge of the abyss

And though there’s been so much you’ll miss

A warm embrace, a loved one’s kiss

One day we’ll all look back and reminisce

And future challenges you’ll just dismiss

Knowing that together, you crushed this!