I used to have a tradition of posting this every year. I didn’t last year, for whatever reason. In a completely unrelated sequence of events, 2007 ended up being one of the Worst Years EVER. So, just in case, I’m getting back in the habit of posting this again!
A few years ago, somebody asked me why Christmas was my favorite holiday, which struck him as odd for a pagan. I posted the following quote from Dickens, which sums up my feelings towards the season nicely….and I’ve posted it to my blog/journal every year since:
“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew: “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round — apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that — as 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 really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
Sure, that’s the ideal, and sure, it seldom ever lives up to that. But still–that’s worth something, I think.
Gods, Goddesses, Household Dieties and Genii Loci Bless Us, Everyone.
