A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
"I suppose the children enjoy it," I said.
"Enjoy what?" he asked.
"Why, Christmas," I explained.
"I don't believe they do," he snapped; "nobody enjoys it.
We excite them for three weeks beforehand, telling them what a good time they
are going to have, over-feed them for two or three days, take them to something
they do not want to see, but which we do, and then bully them for a fortnight to
get them back into their normal condition.
~ The Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
We attacked Christmas on grounds of expediency, and killed it by ridicule. We exposed the hollow mockery of Christmas sentiment; we abused the indigestible Christmas dinner, the tiresome Christmas party, the silly Christmas pantomime. Our funny member was side-splitting on the subject of Christmas Waits; our social reformer bitter upon Christmas drunkenness; our economist indignant upon Christmas charities. Only one argument of any weight with us was advanced in favour of the festival, and that was our leading cynic's suggestion that it was worth enduring the miseries of Christmas, to enjoy the soul-satisfying comfort of the after reflection that it was all over, and could not occur again for another year.
But since those days when I was prepared to put this old world of ours to rights upon all matters, I have seen many sights and heard many sounds, and I am not quite so sure as I once was that my particular views are the only possibly correct ones. Christmas seems to me somewhat meaningless; but I have looked through windows in poverty-stricken streets, and have seen dingy parlours gay with many chains of coloured paper. They stretched from corner to corner of the smoke-grimed ceiling, they fell in clumsy festoons from the cheap gasalier, they framed the fly-blown mirror and the tawdry pictures; and I know tired hands and eyes worked many hours to fashion and fix those foolish chains, saying, "It will please him-- she will like to see the room look pretty;" and as I have looked at them they have grown, in some mysterious manner, beautiful to me.
~ The Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow