Christmas Poems

Incorporating Poems into Your Holiday Celebrations

There are many different ways you can use Christmas poems throughout the holiday season. For example:

• Add a short poem to homemade Christmas gift tags to give your packages a festive touch.
• Print your favorite Christmas poem on the inside of your handmade Christmas cards.
• Include a copy of a poem with a plate of homemade cookies to make a special gift for your neighbors.
• Incorporate a poetry reading into your family’s Christmas celebration before you gather around the tree to open gifts.
• Accent your scrapbook journaling of the Christmas holiday with the poem of your choice.

Finding Christmas Poems Online

The Internet is a great resource for finding poetry with Christmas themes, although you won’t find a lot of work by famous poets due to copyright restrictions. To get started on your search for Christmas poetry, check out the following helpful Web sites:

• The Holiday Spot has a fairly extensive collection of poems that you can use in your personal projects or send to your friends and family with an email greeting link on the Web site.
• Butler Webs has an assortment of Christmas poems written by amateur poets who have volunteered to share their work.
• Funny Poets has a collection of poetry written to explore the lighter side of the holiday.
• Poems for Free is a site created by Nicholas Gordon to share his poetry, including Christmas poems.
• Poem Source has free Christmas poetry written by Joanna Fuchs and Karl Fuchs.
• Apples 4 the Teacher has suggestions for Christmas poetry to use in elementary school plays and recitals.

Christmas Poetry Books

If you’re looking for a book of Christmas poetry, LoveToKnow Christmas recommends the following titles:

• Christmas Poems is an anthology of poetry containing classics such as “A Visit from St. Nicholas” and “The Twelve Days of Christmas” as well as little known works, such as Emily Dickinson's "The Savior Must Have Been a Docile Gentleman" and Langston Hughes's “Shepherd's Song at Christmas.”
• The Book Of Christmas: Stories, Poems, and Recipes for Sharing That Most Wonderful Time of the Year makes a great addition to any family’s Christmas library since it features short poems as well as longer stories for you to enjoy.
• My First Oxford Book of Christmas Poems contains an assortment of poems designed to inspire children to express their feelings about the holiday. Featured authors include Charles Causley, Eleanor Farjeon, Berlie Doherty, and A.A. Milne.

Writing a Christmas Acrostic Poem

While there are many different poems available to celebrate the holiday season, sometimes it’s more fun to write your own Christmas poetry.

An acrostic poem is a poem that uses each of the letters in a particular topic word as the basis for the lines within the poem. The poem describes the topic word, although it doesn’t necessarily have to rhyme.

Since acrostic poems require no special literary knowledge, they are a great way to introduce children to poetry. Here is an example of an acrostic poem using “Christmas” as the topic word:

Christmas is my favorite time of year.
Happiness is the meaning of the holiday season.
Relatives come from near and far.
Icicles make the world glisten and shine.
Snow is falling softly.
The tree is decorated with sparkling lights.
Mom is in the kitchen baking cookies
And I am waiting for
Santa to arrive.

To learn more about writing an acrostic poem, visit the Read. Write. Think. Web site.