The Season Of Disguised Complaints

When I was a child my Mother
often spoke in combative tones
'Any complaints? Stick 'em on the wall...
[where they will be ignored
once they have all been put there]'.

We all knew not to take her too literally,
after all which wall, in the room we were in,
would we put them on, assuming we coined them?

The complaints might have broken the pattern
of the wallpaper that dad had chosen,
which looked like it should decorate
a pub fit only for holding a wake in.

Then there was the weighing up how she strove
to make her comment some kind of banter,
vs what if our complaint were genuine?
Where we should our complaint go
if we wanted it to be responded to?

The best cover for such depressing wallpaper
was the cheap cheer of the Christmas cards
that arrived in vast quantities every December
where, with the small silver plastic tree,
they formed part of the seasonal decorations.

Those cards disguised our complaints
at how bad we felt the rest of the year was.