Christmas Hangover
It's the day after Christmas … shouldn't that be a day looked forward to like Christmas Eve as well? Anyroad, I among most other celebrants have survived the long-trumpeted day of merriment, feasting and, dare I say it, good will towards Mankind?
Paraphrasing Scrooge's nephew, Fred, 'I think of Christmas, like the other things I have not profited from, but have much derived good from. It is a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, though it has never put a dollar in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!'
Yes, I am a Christmas-aholic. I love it and am addicted to the happy, worry-forgetting spirit that it lends me.
Of course there are those other "nephews and nieces" of Ebenezer Scrooge who will chorus "Bah! Humbug!" at such feelings while they reflexively brick up any chinks in their isolation out of fear that … what? That their splendid isolation might somehow be minutely chipped away by a passing well-wishers' "Merry Christmas"?
As nephew Fred observed of Scrooge, and might be observed of these others, 'I am sorry for them; I couldn't be angry with them if I tried. Who suffers by their ill whims? Themselves, always. Here they take it into their heads to not join us in merriment and good feelings. What's the consequence? They miss out on the warmth and good fellowship that is often times missing from much of the rest of the year.' So instead of giving their own spirits the much-needed vacation that Christmas offers in abundance, they turn from it and hold to their darkness and bitter aloneness.'
In this I bend towards Fred's uncle and his observation and question to the last of his ghostly visitors: "Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!"
And learning from the lessons that his night's visitors' offered, it was always said of Scrooge afterwards, from which his legions of modern-day "nephews" might learn, to keep Christmas well, if any of us alive possesses the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!
FILE UNDER: Candy Cane Thoughts
Paraphrasing Scrooge's nephew, Fred, 'I think of Christmas, like the other things I have not profited from, but have much derived good from. It is a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, though it has never put a dollar in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!'
Yes, I am a Christmas-aholic. I love it and am addicted to the happy, worry-forgetting spirit that it lends me.
Of course there are those other "nephews and nieces" of Ebenezer Scrooge who will chorus "Bah! Humbug!" at such feelings while they reflexively brick up any chinks in their isolation out of fear that … what? That their splendid isolation might somehow be minutely chipped away by a passing well-wishers' "Merry Christmas"?
As nephew Fred observed of Scrooge, and might be observed of these others, 'I am sorry for them; I couldn't be angry with them if I tried. Who suffers by their ill whims? Themselves, always. Here they take it into their heads to not join us in merriment and good feelings. What's the consequence? They miss out on the warmth and good fellowship that is often times missing from much of the rest of the year.' So instead of giving their own spirits the much-needed vacation that Christmas offers in abundance, they turn from it and hold to their darkness and bitter aloneness.'
In this I bend towards Fred's uncle and his observation and question to the last of his ghostly visitors: "Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!"
And learning from the lessons that his night's visitors' offered, it was always said of Scrooge afterwards, from which his legions of modern-day "nephews" might learn, to keep Christmas well, if any of us alive possesses the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!
FILE UNDER: Candy Cane Thoughts