The Good Judgement that Stole Christmas

Every Ash up in Asheville
liked Christmas a lot

But the ants down in Atlanta
did NOT!

The ants hated Christmas!
The whole Christmas season!
You can quickly see why.
They had a good reason.

No ornaments! No lights! No tacky decor!
They had no tree made of plastic.
No wreath on the door!
All that crap was in bags and boxes galore
in the basement of the house they had lived in before.

It would do them no good in that place it'd been left-ed.
For that house, for this Christmas, they hoped would be rented.

(That Seuss was a genius! A real schlamup!
If you can't think of a rhyming word,
You can just make one up!)

Fear not! There's a plan! You should have no misgiving!
They can bring all that stuff back when they go there for Thanksgiving!

Oh, just to clarify, these "ants" are, you see
actually, just us. Three dogs, Matt and Leslie.

OK, with that now behind us, we return to our tale.
The crux of which now involves, strangely, a whale.

Wait, that's not a whale. My mistake, it's a mime.
Or some other thing that would much better rhyme.

Anyway, there's a problem in just how gosh-darn far
It is from Asheville to Atlanta by car.

For the ant that had been left in charge of packing (that's me)
Forgot that in the back seat would be Fergus, Fife and Kaylee.

The hatchback was out too. For the Matrix was filled,
With a week's worth of stuff loaded in manner unskilled.

So what then with the tree? And the tinsel and glitter?
I feared our Christmas back home was headed right down the, um, tubes.

But hark! What's that there? 'Tis a spot for knick-knacks!
Right up on the roof, where we usually put our kayaks.

(Has anyone else noticed my lyrical trespass
Which seems to have switched this whole thing from "Grinch" to "Night before Christmas"?)

So with a twinkle in my eye, and my muscles a'heavin (Easy, ladies!)
I strapped all the stuff to the rack and was ready for leavin'.

It probably goes without saying that Leslie wasn't there yet.
I was picking her up at work, where she wasn't wearing a hair net. (Sorry for that one)

When what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a vision of the future, one disturbingly near.

It involved a great crash, a collapse, a mess with no leeway
When the load that I'd loaded would fall off on the freeway.

No doubt, that'd be bad. I could imagine the frowns.
And the story Leslie would tell that I'd never live down.

But in my ear was a whisper from a more youthful Matt
Who, urged on by companions, would have feared not that splat.

"Don't worry! You'll make it! There will be no debris!
It's just a few hundred miles. C'mon fellas! Who's with me?"

I liked that young guy, but I smiled and bid him adieu.
Down came the tree and the boxes, and the damn tinsel too.

It went back in the basement, and now we sit home without it.
We've no ornaments at all. In fact, we ain't got, um, tubes.

But weep not for our holiday, we will have some decor.
Cheery stuff on the mantle, the walls and the floor.
Hey, even a wreath we can hang on the door.

I should have though of this earlier.
We live next to a Dollar Store.