CHAPTER
I. THE FACT
II. THE REASON
III. THE SOLSTICE AND GOODWILL
IV. THE APPOSITENESS OF CHRISTMAS
V. DEFENCE OF FEASTING
VI. TO REVITALIZE THE FESTIVAL
VII. THE GIFT OF ONESELF
VIII. THE FEAST OF ST. FRIEND
IX. THE REACTION
X. ON THE LAST DAY OF THE YEAR
ONE
THE FACT
Something has happened to Christmas, or to our hearts; or to both. In
order to be convinced of this it is only necessary to compare the
present with the past. In the old days of not so long ago the festival
began to excite us in November. For weeks the house rustled with
charming and thrilling secrets, and with the furtive noises of paper
parcels being wrapped and unwrapped; the house was a whispering gallery.
The tension of expectancy increased to such a point that there was a
positive danger of the cord snapping before it ought to snap. On the
Eve we went to bed with no hope of settled sleep. We knew that we should
be wakened and kept awake by the waits singing in the cold; and we were
glad to be kept awake so. On the supreme day we came downstairs hiding
delicious yawns, and cordially pretending that we had never been more
fit. The day was different from other days; it had a unique romantic
quality, tonic, curative of all ills. On that day even the tooth-ache
vanished, retiring far into the wilderness with the spiteful word, the
venomous thought, and the unlovely gesture. We sang with gusto
"Christians awake, salute the happy morn." We did salute the happy morn.
And when all the parcels were definitely unpacked, and the secrets of
all hearts disclosed, we spent the rest of the happy morn in waiting,
candidly greedy, for the first of the great meals. And then we ate, and
we drank, and we ate again; with no thought of nutrition, nor of
reasonableness, nor of the morrow, nor of dyspepsia. We ate and drank
without fear and without shame, in the sheer, abandoned ecstasy of
celebration. And by means of motley paper headgear, fit only for a
carnival, we disguised ourselves in the most absurd fashions, and yet
did not make ourselves seriously ridiculous; for ridicule is in the
vision, not in what is seen. And we danced and sang and larked, until we
could no more. And finally we chanted a song of ceremony, and separated;
ending the day as we had commenced it, with salvoes of good wishes. And
the next morning we were indisposed and enfeebled; and we did not care;
we suffered gladly; we had our pain's worth, and more. This was the
past.
