This poem was written by the audience at the Christmas Feast reading Jo Bell and I did in Northwich Library on 8th December.
Christmas Is…
Christmas is Yule in disguise, a shadow of festivities past.
Christmas is mince pies and mulled wine
pine needles embedded in carpet pile.
Christmas is endless games of Scrabble
and my grandmother buying up the best properties on Monopoly
(you have to speculate to accumulate)
Christmas is glorified gluttony.
Christmas is Dad appearing with port at regular intervals.
Christmas means getting together with family
and hooting with laughter at ‘Do you remember when?’
Carried on the festive tide, we visit times past, people past
and hear again those dear loved voices.
Christmas is ritualistic autocue revelry
with Elizabeth at 3.oopm on Christmas Day.
Christmas means trying to avoid the American commercial Christmas
and the cynical British Christmas. Perhaps
I can find a new Utopian, peaceful, multicultural Christmas.
Christmas is Dickens, stories round the fire, singing round the piano.
One person who wrote a fabulous line, took it home to keep. She told me a week later she had written a poem, the first she had ever done since she was at school. I could add:
Christmas is when you unknowingly give the gift of poetry. 
Angela Topping 
Christmas is indeed a time of poetry and song…..The magic is in the air. I enjoyed this poem.
Nicely put together, Angela – a lovely reminder of a most enjoyable event, for which thanks to yourself and Jo. A poem to hunker down and feel cosy with, because of the snow!
So glad to have discovered your work and website, and the Farnworth connection chimes in with me because I grew up there half a century ago.
Regards, Paul