So what the dickens! Calling me a scrooge
for thrift and working like an honest man?
Do I employ a shameless subterfuge
to outsource Cratchit’s job so that I can
secure myself obscene amounts of wealth?
The money that I have is what I earned
by honest enterprise and not by stealth.
In fact, it’s from your ethics that I learned
that no one gives you anything in life.
Isn’t that what industry’s about?
I ceded pleasure and potential wife
to earn not near the money that you flout
conspicuously with transparent pride,
while most in your constituency bide 
 
privations that would make this miser blush
from shame. You like to fabricate straw dogs
to pummel while you unctuously gush
out festive carols by your yuletide logs!
Yet all the time you’re feathering your nest 
and leave it to the poorer of your peers
to borrow funds from their retirement chest 
in order to partake of Christmas cheer.
And so what if I loathe commercialized
indulgences that lure us into stores 
so credit unions can be subsidized 
with interest rates that annually soar?
It’s true I didn’t have to be a scrooge.
But, being so, prevented a deluge  

 
of bailouts jeopardizing all you banked 
upon to comfort you in future years.
That caring sprit you deem sacrosanct,
and Dickens touts when Marley’s ghost appears?
I didn’t see too much of it when I 
was left alone to scramble for myself,
beset with longings most folk satisfy.
Nor did my stocking on a mantelshelf 
solicit Christmas cheer and merriment
that you could ill afford. For you denied
me love who, even now with smug content,
berate me for my bitterness and snide 
behavior. You ignored a sad youth’s plight 
that would have cost you nothing to set right 
 
beyond that Christian charity you boast 
about when reading my creator’s book. 
What’s more, no grouch can entertain a ghost
unless he has the empathy to look
inside himself. For ghosts just haunt a heart 
receptive to the warmth that lay within.
And after all I played my paltry part 
in emulating Him who’s free from sin.
But I still get a table in the rear
when I set out at night to eat my meal. 
Alone, I add! For it’s just once a year
that relatives emotionally feel 
some kinship with a grump set in his ways.
This notwithstanding, Happy Holidays!

 
— Frank De Canio