Carpe Diem Seven Days Before Christmas 2017 #6 Christmas presents

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Christmas is a time full of joy, love, peace, beauty, respect and gifts. Christmas gifts are just for giving that. As you have seen / read this week I also was in the mood of giving gifts. Two beautiful exclusive Carpe Diem Haiku Kai E-books. It's was not only my work to create those gifts, we did it together. And that's in my opinion the Christmas spirit. I love to thank you all for that, without your help and creativity I hadn't succeeded.

Today's episode of our Christmas tradition is about Christmas presents and those presents are a big part of Christmas not only in my country, but in a lot of countries all over the world. By the way in my country, The Netherlands, we have not only Christmas presents, but also our own traditional Sinterklaas. Sinterklaas is a holiday we celebrate on December 5th, the day before the birthday of Sinterklaas. The evening before December 6th we call "pakjesavond" (in English: presents-night) and than we give eachother presents. The adults create surprises in which they hide a small present, but the children are getting presents. Sinterklaas is becoming more and more a non-tradition, because here in The Netherlands we see a growth of giving Christmas presents ... I think that we will loose our Sinterklaas tradition in the upcoming decades and that Christmas will become more and more the holidays of giving presents.

Christmas presents

Christmas presents. Shining and glimmering gifts beneath the Christmastree, the sweetness of the colors, the soft music on the background ... all those beautiful carols ... the joy of laughing children. The smiles on their faces. What a happiness ..., but we have to look through that all, because the true story is the birth of Jesus Christ ... God's Son was given to the world to rescue it, to bring peace to it. Through the giving of presents we bring a little bit of that peace into our homes and our hearts.

preparing Christmas
decorating the Tree of Light
brings peace and joy

Christmas stockings
hanging above the fireplace
awaiting presents

at dinnertime
drinking eggnog, eating turkey
and Christmas pudding

Christmas Gifts

a Child was born
in a cold winter night
Angels singing

peace to the world
while wars are being fought
tears of Christ

make it happen
enjoy the Holidays
Merry Christmas

© Chèvrefeuille

We are counting down to Christmas ... still one day to go after today ... Christmas Eve I will publish our last Seven Days Before Christmas 2017 episode.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until December 29th at noon (CET). Have fun!

Share your haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry form inspired on this Seven Days ... episode with us all here at our Haiku Kai.

1.	Virginia Popescu	3.	Cressida	5.	Dolores
2.	Kim M. Russell	4.	kyle tm	6.	Sara McNulty

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