As the horizon drank the last of the sunlight, Winter casually sauntered into town, like a portly guest late to the party. It settled down into the town's unkempt lawns and streets like they were an old familiar chair, and with relief exhaled, sending the last of Autumn's dried leaves from their branches. Even though Winter was a little tardy, it ( Read more... )

There was a leak in the ceiling ( Read more... )

Balthazar, 101, reached out with his less stiff hand and closed it around a cookie. As he brought the cookie closer to his face he realised it was a stocking and not a malformed gingerbread man. Not that it mattered, it had been months since Balthazar could taste anything ( Read more... )

As Balthazar, 99, grew older he noticed an inevitable trend. First it was every couple of years, then every few months, then every month, and then as there became less of them every few months again. Now, as he attended midnight mass surrounded by many people from his community he couldn’t help but think on it ( Read more... )

The secular nature of Christmas was officially acknowledged in 1870 when the United States Congress made it a federal holiday. Federal and state employees and most private businesses observe the Dec. 25 by not working ( Read more... )

Now I haven't been around very long, and even though I've only just passed the quarter mark as far as human life goes, I would contend to having a complete and infallible understanding of the most frustrating and paradoxical human conundrum, I just don't have a solution, which is to say I must not completely understand it ( Read more... )