After a ho-hum holiday, I began to wonder if maybe for Christmas to be valuable, you need to be broke. Maybe only people in darkness can see the great light.
I posted a rough draft a couple of years ago, but now I've re-recorded it with proper love and attention.

Lyrics

Descend Into Sorrow(Dave Nealon, December, 2011)
Lest the holly and ivy in an ancient appeal
Should convict their caretakers of willful neglect
You have gathered the families for a holiday meal
Traded stories and presents and paid your respects

It’s another safe Christmas that works out alright
In ambiguous balance of value and cost
So you tend to the children to see through their eyes
But even they’ve gone nostalgic in a vague air of loss

Descend into sorrow on the year’s longest night
For the people in darkness have seen a great light

When the glow of the street lamp erases the stars
Like the rush of the wind all but muted by cars
Or the crash of the ocean when it’s hushed by the din
Of the clash and confusion of the discord you’re in

If your eyes were just blind there would be no disgrace
But you insist that you see so your darkness remains
Through the vast, empty vacuum of parsecs of space
Flies the bright solar wind to illumine your face

It’s a pale imitation—the lights on the tree
Raging stars power planets distant light-years away
But at Mercury sunset into nocturnity
An entire year passes before the new day

You’ve got power and plumbing, an electronic grid
Why should you feel ashamed of aught that you did?
Too involved to be lonely, too well-loved to be sad
You’re too full to be hungry, too polite to be bad

There’s nurse for the dying; there’s a purse for the poor
There’s a dance for the aged and aching and sore
The traditional revels of music and lore
In the home of the drifter there’s a truce for the conscripts of war

Descend into sorrow on the year’s longest night
For the people in darkness have seen a great light