This was written a few years ago on Christmas Day. In the early morning we had gotten some light rain. I listened to it. Watched the results out my window, then wrote this:
so this is christmas…
the rest of the leaves taken
by the winter rain

The leaves were mostly gone, but a few were holding on. Then they were mostly all gone. While I was watching the brief rain, the John Lennon lyric popped into my head.
Falling leaves is a winter kigo: ochiba (落葉). That may seem a little strange to many in the West, but in traditional Japanese poetry the beautiful colored leaves were associated with autumn, but their falling was seen as part of the next season, when the beautiful colors give way to the colorless barren landscape of winter.
Combined with Christmas and winter rain, this haiku is loaded with winter kigo! But that’s ok; premodern haiku often contained multiple kigo, sometimes multiple kigo from different seasons, confusingly enough. Current more strict rules may frown at more than one kigo, but it was once something of the norm. Bashō himself used multiple kigo many times.
Looking at it now, I think we can get rid of that mention of winter on the last line. With the mention of Christmas we already know what season we are in and we might assume a mention of rain means a chilly winter rain. So then:
so this is christmas…
the rest of the leaves taken
by the rain
I kind of like the inclusion of winter in front of rain. It just sounds better to my ears. But I could go either way.