And the rest...

Day 6 Poem is a riddle for you to solve

My first is in icing, mincemeat and spice
My second's in sherry and there appears twice
My third lies in brandy but not wine or beer
And my fourth is in socks which my dad gets each year
My fifth hides in stocking which hangs by your bed
My sixth's seen in present and also in sled
My last's found in robin and also in tree
I help to make Christmas but what could I be?

Day 7 - The Shepherd's Story

Snow.
Just as it was growing dark - snow.
Soft, flakes fell
White and glossy
Thick as swans' feathers
Slowly, slowly,
Until the world was put to bed
Under this white quilt
Slowly slowly drifting
Into sleep....
Then. In that silence
The sky was suddenly alive
With angels bright as fire
Their wings burning with such golden light
Their songs like thunder and like ice
Like bells and like the deep and sonorous sea.
Their message stranger
Than any other I have heard.
"God is born", they said
"The God who spoke and shaped the world
The stars, the universes
And the soft black deeps of space
Is born"
There on that hillside
In that snow
I heard them say it
Then just as quickly they were gone
The sky was dark again
No echo lingered
Nothing.
But the white white snow
The secret white white snow
Nothing has even been a greater mystery
Than that night
With angels. Snow.
A million different kinds of light
I knew then that the world is not an ordinary place
When heaven shone from one small baby's face.