Happy Sunday folks!

If you are a regular follower of Semantink, then you know all about James Ninness. You know that James is the writer of MYTHOI (which is amazing!) and one of the writers behind THE UNDERGROUNDS (which is more fun then you should be allowed to have with coffee). James also does a fair amount of writing (though where he finds the time, I don’t know) on his own blog, The Word Ride, which is where I have plucked today’s gem from. Its a new take on a winter classic. Enjoy!

The Night Before Christmas – Zombie Edition

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
Some entrails were flung on the chimney with no care,
For some zombies had devoured my family living there.

The children were splayed all about their beds,
Only to the shoulder, a parent eating their heads.
Mamma dead on the stairs, and I on her lap,
Having just eaten her brains, ready now for a nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the feast to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew with her flesh,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the mesh.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen bodies
Gave the lustre of death to objects below.
When, what to my yellow-glazed eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tinny reindeer.

With a weighty old driver, so lively and sweet,
I knew that in a moment I would again eat.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

“Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! on, on Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”

As screams that before the wild horde cry,
When they meet with the undead, mount to the sky.
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and suppertime too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my wife’s head, turning around,
Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pig, spinning on a rack.

His eyes-how they opened! his mouth how worried!
His eyes full of tears, his vision gone blurry!
My wide gaping mouth was ready to feast,
I tore the beard off his chin like a poor starving beast.

The stump of his neck held tight in my teeth,
His lips shouting “no,” opened up like a wreath.
I bit at his face and clawed at his belly,
That shook when he screamed, like a bowlful of jelly!

He was chubby and plump, a scrumptious elf,
And he cried while I ate him, to nourish myself!
A break of his neck and I tore off his head,
To give me the brains I needed to be fed.

I spoke not a word, but went straight to my work,
And broke through his skull, getting brains with a jerk.
And laying my finger inside through his nose,
And giving a poke, out of his head the lovely brains rose!

Brains sprang through his head, and onto my tongue,
And after the brains, his stomach, his lungs.
But I heard his reindeer on the roof, all furry and smelly,
“Happy Christmas to me, and to me a full belly!”

That’s it for today folks! Thanks for stopping in, and I’ll see you tomorrow for a brand new UNDERGROUNDS!