25 December 2004

Anticipation is the Best Part...But Can't We Make It Last?

I found this beautiful passage in Kate Seredy's The Open Gate:
Christmas never comes all of a sudden. It shouldn't. It has to be hoped for and waited for with joy. It is like a beautiful, bright, glowing comet that one can see from very far away. It floats closer and closer, growing more beautiful as it comes. The few days before it finally envelops the whole world in a shining, warm light are perhaps the best part of Christmas. They mean secret smiles at bulky, strange objects trying to hide in closets and under beds, or anywhere, where people are not supposed to look, but, because it's Christams, always do. They mean wonderful, spicy odors all through the house. They mean whispered conversations that suddenly stop when one comes into a room unexpectedly, and the bubbling feeling inside one that comes from the knowledge that there is another surprise being talked over and plotted with such secrecy that one can't help but know about it. That is the best part of Christmas; the waiting, the preparing, the hoping for the joy to come."
We wait so long for this time of year--why rush it when it comes? As Kris Kringle said in Miracle on 34th Street," Christmas isn't a day, it's a state of mind. But yet somewhere tonight trees are being undecorated and "Christmas is over."

What happened to letting the Christmas season at least go through New Year's Day? Even the stores tear down their decorations where they used to last until New Year's. There are twelve days of Christmas, and, even though most of us poor working class drones must go back to work on Monday, why not keep the season going as it should and parcel a bit of fun through each of the days? Enjoy the decorations and the movies and the scents and the colors and the plays of the season! It's all yours to celebrate--don't let it slip away so easily!

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