'Twas the Night Before Christmas... In Texas, That Is

My mom used to read this story to us every Christmas Eve! 

‘Twas the night before Christmas

In Texas you know,

Way out on the prairie

Without any snow.

Asleep in their cabin

Were Buddy and Sue

A-dream’ of Christmas

Like me and like you.

Not stockings, but boots

At the foot of their bed,

For this was in Texas,

What more need be said?

When all of a sudden

From out the still night,

There came such a ruckus

It gave me a fright!

And I saw ‘cross the prairie

Like a shot from a gun,

A loaded-up buckboard

Come on at a run.

The driver was ‘Geein’,

And ‘hawin’, with a will.

The hosses (not reindeer)

He drove with such skill.

“Come on there Buck, Pancho,

And Prince, to the right!

There’ll be plenty of travelin’

For you-all tonight.”

The driver in Levi’s

And shirt that was red,

Had a ten-gallon Stetson

On top of his head.

As he stepped from the buckboard

He was really a sight,

With his beard and moustaches

So curly and white.

As he burst in the cabin

The children awoke,

And both so astonished

That neither one spoke.

And he filled up their boots

With such presents galore

That neither could think

Of a single thing more.

When Buddy recovered

The use of his jaws,

He asked, in a whisper,

“Are you Santa Claus?”

“Am I the REAL Santa?

Well, what do you think?”

And he smiled as he gave

A mysterious wink.

Then he lept in his buckboard,

And called back, in his drawl,

“To all children of TEXAS,

MERRY CHRISTMAS, you-all!”