But all care huddles to hearths and kettles.
The sun lobs one wet snowball feebly
Grim and blue
The dusk of the coombe
And the swamp woodland
Sinks with the wren.
See old lips go purple and old brows go paler.
The stiff crow drops in the midnight silence.
Sneezes grow coughs and coughs grow painful.
The vixen yells in the midnight garden.
You wake with the shakes and watch your breathing
Smoke in the moonlight – silent, silent.
Your anklebone
And your anklebone
Lie big in the red.
An enigmatic final ‘wheel’, which further compels the reader to consider their own physicality as they observe their anklebones. It’s possible that Hughes means the reader to be looking down at themselves, or possibly lying in bed. 
 The ‘red’ is nature itself, and alludes to  a famous Tennyson line.
Christmas Card