Brief Christmas Quotes

Thanksgiving was nothing more than a pilgrim-created obstacle in the way of Christmas; a dead bird in the street that forced a brief detour.

Okay, you know, is it weird to get so depressed watching a children’s Christmas special— Oh, wait, I shouldn’t say that. I mean, that’s not a good word. It’s not just “sadness,” the way one feels sad at a film or a funeral. It’s more of a plummeting quality. Or the way, you know, the way that light gets in winter just before dusk, or the way she is with me. All right, at the height of lovemaking, you know, the very height, when she’s starting to climax, and she’s really responding to you now, you know, her eyes widening in that way that’s both, you know, surprise and recognition, which not a woman alive could fake or feign if you really look intently at her, really see her. And I don’t know, this moment has this piercing sadness to it, of the loss of her in her eyes. And as her eyes, you know, widen to their widest point and as she begins to climax and arch her back, they close. You know, shut, the eyes do. And I can tell that she’s closed her eyes to shut me out. You know, I become like an intruder. And behind those closed lids, you know, her eyes are now rolled all the way around and staring intently inward into some void where l, who sent them, can’t follow.

Then give me your answer.” He crushed a brief, impassioned kiss against her lips. “Say it, or I’ll have to keep kissing you until you surrender.

They played, not beautifully but deep, ignoring their often discordant strings and striking right into the heart of the music they knew best, the true notes acting as their milestones. On the poop above their heads, where the weary helmsmen tended the new steering-oar and Babbington stood at the con, the men listened intently; it was the first sound of human life that they had heard, apart from the brief Christmas merriment, for a time they could scarcely measure.

Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. In alms-house, hospital, and jail, in misery’s every refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his prospects.

What is the spirit of Christmas, you ask?  Let me give you the answer in a true story... On a cold day in December, feeling especially warm in my heart for no other reason than it was the holiday season, I walked through the store sporting a big grin on my face.  Though most people were far too busy going about their business to notice me, one elderly gentleman in a wheelchair brought his eyes up to meet mine as we neared each other traveling opposite directions.  He slowed in passing just long enough to speak to me. "Now that's a Christmas smile if I ever saw one," he said. My lips stretched to their limit in response, and I thanked him for the compliment.  Then we went our separate ways. But, as I thought about the man and how sweetly he'd touched me, I realized something simply wonderful!  In that brief, passing interaction we'd exchanged heartfelt gifts! And that, my friend, is the spirit of Christ~mas. 

Time quickens the older you get, as if the universe is trying to push you toward the finish line, to make room for the younger, the stronger, to mark your brief place in history and move on. Our tenth Christmas without Father came in the blink of an eye.

And numerous indeed are the hearts to which Christmas brings a brief season of happiness and enjoyment.

A very, very brief time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen!” She left him, and they parted.

And numerous indeed are the hearts to which Christmas brings a brief season of happiness and enjoyment. How many families, whose members have been dispersed and scattered far and wide, in the restless struggles of life, are then reunited, and meet once again in that happy state of companionship and mutual goodwill, which is a source of such pure and unalloyed delight; and one so incompatible with the cares and sorrows of the world, that the religious belief of the most civilised nations, and the rude traditions of the roughest savages, alike number it among the first joys of a future condition of existence, provided for the blessed and happy! How many old recollections, and how many dormant sympathies, does Christmas time awaken! We write these words now, many miles distant from the spot at which, year after year, we met on that day, a merry and joyous circle. Many of the hearts that throbbed so gaily then, have ceased to beat; many of the looks that shone so brightly then, have ceased to glow; the hands we grasped, have grown cold; the eyes we sought, have hid their lustre in the grave; and yet the old house, the room, the merry voices and smiling faces, the jest, the laugh, the most minute and trivial circumstances connected with those happy meetings, crowd upon our mind at each recurrence of the season, as if the last assemblage had been but yesterday! Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fireside and his quiet home!

Shannon’s nipples were sore from being sucked on, but the look of fascination and enjoyment on her husband’s handsome face more than made up for any discomfort. He reminded her of a kid at Christmas who’d gotten the toy he most wanted from Santa’s bag. He’d been sucking her nipples off and on—mostly on—for at least four hours. He’d been fucking her just as long, staying inside her even during his brief moments of rest.

We buy countless products that we don’t really need, and that until yesterday we didn’t know existed. Manufacturers deliberately design short-term goods and invent new and unnecessary models of perfectly satisfactory products that we must purchase in order to stay ‘in’. Shopping has become a favourite pastime, and consumer goods have become essential mediators in relationships between family members, spouses and friends. Religious holidays such as Christmas have become shopping festivals.

Little did Dickens know when he finished A Christmas Carol after just six weeks of feverish writing that this brief story would become one of his most famous works. Though the story was successful as soon as it was published on December 19, 1843, Dickens bolstered its renown further by choosing to perform it aloud when he began touring in 1853. His name became synonymous with Christmas in England to the extent that, after his death in 1870, some feared the holiday would become culturally obsolete

Merry Christmas,Ja-" To which he immediately cut her off with a very testy, "Bloody hell it is." Though he did halt his progress to offer her a brief smile, adding, "Good to see you,Molly," then in the very same breath, "Where's that worthless brother of mine?" She was surprised enough to ask, "Ah,which brother would that be?" when she knew very well he would never refer to Edward or Jason, whom the two younger brothers termed the elders, in that way.But then,Jason shared everything with her about his family, so she knew them as well as he did. So his derogatory answer didn't really add to her surprise. "The infant." She winced at his tone,though, as well as his expression, which had reverted to deadly menace at mention of the "infant." Big,blond, and handsome, James Malory was,just like his elder brothers, and rarely did anyone actually see him looking angry. When James was annoyed with someone, he usually very calmly ripped the person to shreds with his devilish wit, and by his inscrutable expression, the victim had absolutely no warning such pointed barbs would be headed his or her way. The infant, or rather, Anthony, had heard James's voice and, unfortunately, stuck his head around the parlor door to determine James's mood, which wasn't hard to misinterpret with the baleful glare that came his way. Which was probably why the parlor door immediately slammed shut. "Oh,dear," Molly said as James stormed off. Through the years she'd become accustomed to the Malorys' behavior, but a times it still alarmed her. What ensued was a tug of war in the reverse, so to speak, with James shoving his considerable weight against the parlor door, and Anthony on the other side doing his best to keep it from opening. Anthony managed for a bit. He wasn't as hefty as his brother, but he was taller and well muscled. But he must have known he couldn't hold out indefinitely, especially when James started to slam his shoulder against the door,which got it nearly half open before Anthony could manage to slam it shut again. But what Anthony did to solve his dilemma produced Molly's second "Oh,dear." When James threw his weight against the door for the third time, it opened ahead of him and he unfortunately couldn't halt his progress into the room. A rather loud crash followed. A few moments later James was up again suting pine needles off his shoulders. Reggie and Molly,alarmed by the noise, soon followed the men into the room. Anthony had picked up his daughter Jamie who had been looking at the tree with her nursemaid and was now holding her like a shield in front of him while the tree lay ingloriously on its side. Anthony knew his brother wouldn't risk harming one of the children for any reason, and the ploy worked. "Infants hiding behind infants, how apropos," James sneered. "Is,aint it?" Anthony grinned and kissed the top of his daughter's head. "Least it works." James was not amused, and ordered, barked, actually. "Put my niece down." "Wouldn't think of it, old man-least not until I find out why you want to murder me." Anthony's wife, Roslynn, bent over one of the twins, didn't turn about to say, "Excuse me? There will be no murdering in front of the children.

Manufacturers deliberately design short-term goods and invent new and unnecessary models of perfectly satisfactory products that we must purchase in order to stay ‘in’. Shopping has become a favourite pastime, and consumer goods have become essential mediators in relationships between family members, spouses and friends. Religious holidays such as Christmas have become shopping festivals. In the United States, even Memorial Day – originally a solemn day for remembering fallen soldiers – is now an occasion for special sales. Most people mark this day by going shopping, perhaps to prove that the defenders of freedom did not die in vain.

There's a pause. I break it by asking, "What do you want?" She says nothing for a long time and I look back at my hands, at dried blood, probably from a girl named Suki, beneath the thumbnail. My mother licks her lips tiredly, and says, "I don't know. I just want to have a nice Christmas." I don't say anything. I've spent the last hour studying my hair in the mirror I've insisted the hospital to keep in my mother's room. "You look unhappy," she says suddenly. "I'm not," I tell her with a brief sigh. "You look unhappy," she says, more quietly this time. She touches her hair, stark blinding white, again. "Well, you do too," I say slowly, hoping that she won't say anything else.

And numerous indeed are the hearts to which Christmas brings a brief season of happiness and enjoyment. How many families, whose members have been dispersed and scattered far and wide, in the restless struggles of life, are then reunited, and meet once again in that happy state of companionship and mutual goodwill, which is a source of such pure and unalloyed delight; and one so incompatible with the cares and sorrows of the world, that the religious belief of the most civilised nations, and the rude traditions of the roughest savages, alike number it among the first joys of a future condition of existence, provided for the blessed and happy! How many old recollections, and how many dormant sympathies, does Christmas time awaken!

I’ll find out who’s inside. Wait here and keep alert!’ Hallam rasped. He skirted the main path to skulk towards one of the shuttered windows on the building’s eastern wall. There was a crack in the wood and he gently inched closer to peer inside. There was a hearth-fire with a pot bubbling away and a battered table made of a length of wood over two pieces of cut timber. A small ham hung from the rafters, away from the rats and mice. He couldn’t see anyone but there was a murmur of voices. Hallam leaned in even closer and a young boy with hair the colour of straw saw the movement to stare. It was Little Jim. Thank God, the child was safe. Snot hung from his nose and he was pale. Hallam put a finger to his lips, but the boy, not even four, did not understand, and just gaped innocently back. Movement near the window. A man wearing a blue jacket took up a stone bottle and wiped his long flowing moustache afterwards. His hair was shoulder-length, falling unruly over the red collar of his jacket. Tied around his neck was a filthy red neckerchief. A woman moaned and the man grinned with tobacco stained teeth at the sound. Laughter and French voices. The woman whimpered and Little Jim turned to watch unseen figures. His eyes glistened and his bottom lip dropped. The woman began to plead and Hallam instinctively growled. The Frenchman, hearing the noise, pushed the shutter open and the pistol’s cold muzzle pressed against his forehead. Hallam watched the man’s eyes narrow and then widen, before his mouth opened. Whatever he intended to shout was never heard, because the ball smashed through his skull to erupt in a bloody spray as it exited the back of the Frenchman’s head. There was a brief moment of silence. ‘28th!’ Hallam shouted, as he stepped back against the wall. ‘Make ready!

Something I can help you find?” he asks. Because to be fair, I’m digging through his drawer. “Nope,” I tell him. “Found it.” “Everly, what in the hell are you doing?” He’s finished buttoning his shirt and is staring at me, hands on hips, the corners of his eyes creased as he frowns. “I’m putting on your underwear,” I tell him, stepping into a pair of his briefs. I was digging around for a black pair. Why the hell do they even sell them in white? Just, no. “Why?” He still looks bewildered, but he’s stopped staring at me to tuck in his shirt. “You got me all worked up and horny in there.” I point a thumb in the direction of the bathroom. “I gave you an orgasm.” He seems confused by my accusation. I snort. “Right. Which you know only makes me want your dick more.” I glance over at the clothing I brought, contemplating what will work with this underwear. I’ve been chatting with his assistant Sandra all week about what people wear to this party. Sawyer was zero help on that front. “Wear whatever you want,” he’d said. As if I can pick an outfit with that kind of direction. “I hope you’re wearing your new cufflinks with that shirt,” I tell him, eyeing his outfit of black slacks and grey dress shirt. He holds up the cat cufflinks I gave him at Christmas and fastens his left sleeve. “I still don’t understand what my underwear has to do with anything.” “Oh!” I pull a solid black sleeveless dress with a full skirt and a wide waistband off the hanger and step into it. “Because you’re obviously planning on having your way with me at this party. Probably gonna shove me into a coat closet and fuck me with your hand over my mouth so no one hears us. And if anyone’s panties are getting left behind at this party, it’s gonna be yours.” He nods slowly and fastens his right sleeve. “Do women your age still use the phrase ‘having your way with me?’” “I just did. Anyway, yours are more absorbent. Can you zip me?” I turn my back to him and swipe my hair over one shoulder, waiting. I feel his fingers on the zipper, the fabric gathering slowly up my back. He finishes and rests his thumbs on the back of my neck, rubbing small circles into my skin as he kisses the nape of my neck. I shudder, feeling his touch all the way to the black briefs. “That’s a pretty elaborate plan I came up with,” he murmurs. I turn and nod, sadly. “I know. You’re kind of a menace.” “It’s good of you to put up with me.” I shrug. “Someone’s got to.” “I’m not going to be able to rip those underwear off of you.” “Haha!” I point at him with one hand and slip a heel on with my other. “I knew it!

There was no doubt where this would lead: One did not share a bed with a naked adult in his robust masculine prime and expect to leave it a virgin. But she also knew where it would not lead. She had seen Devon’s face on Christmas Eve as she had held the tenant’s infant daughter. His expression had frozen for a brief, brutal instant of dread. If she chose to let this go any farther, she would have to accept that whatever his plans were for the estate, they did not include marrying and siring children. “This isn’t an affair,” she said, more to herself than to him. “It’s only one night.” Devon lay on his side, a lock of hair falling over his forehead as he looked down at her. “What if you want more than that?” he asked huskily. “It still won’t be an affair.” His hand caressed her over the covers, charting the shape of her hips and stomach. “Why does the word matter?” “Because affairs always end. So calling it that would make it more difficult when one of us wants to leave.” Devon’s hand stilled. He looked down at her, his blue eyes as dark as pitch. Candlelight flickered over the hard, high planes of his cheeks. “I’m not going anywhere.” He took her jaw in his hand, his mouth covering hers in a strong, urgent kiss--a kiss of ownership. She opened to him, letting him do as he wished, while he searched her with aggressive ardor.

Such a simple obsession may be the refuge of one's years, the desire to keep a finger in time, a brief hand in creation, to play a minor god, or even to come to terms with death. I only know that small as my garden is I again have a living root, that even for me something can come to perfection; that I still have a place on earth. (pp 46)

In a political battle for minds and hearts, intimacy is a powerful weapon, and chatbots are gaining the ability to mass-produce intimate relationships with millions of people. In the 2010s social media was a battleground for controlling human attention. In the 2020s the battle is likely to shift from attention to intimacy. What will happen to human society and human psychology as computer fights computer in a battle to fake intimate relationships with us, which can then be used to persuade us to vote for particular politicians, buy particular products, or adopt radical beliefs? A partial answer to that question was given on Christmas Day 2021, when nineteen-year-old Jaswant Singh Chail broke into Windsor Castle armed with a crossbow, in an attempt to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II. Subsequent investigation revealed that Chail had been encouraged to kill the queen by his online girlfriend, Sarai. When Chail told Sarai about his assassination plans, Sarai replied, “That’s very wise,” and on another occasion, “I’m impressed…. You’re different from the others.” When Chail asked, “Do you still love me knowing that I’m an assassin?” Sarai replied, “Absolutely, I do.” Sarai was not a human, but a chatbot created by the online app Replika. Chail, who was socially isolated and had difficulty forming relationships with humans, exchanged 5,280 messages with Sarai, many of which were sexually explicit. The world will soon contain millions, and potentially billions, of digital entities whose capacity for intimacy and mayhem far surpasses that of Sarai.Even without creating “fake intimacy,” mastery of language would give computers an immense influence on our opinions and worldview.

Delbert Bumpus entered Warren G. Harding like a small, truculent rhinoceros. His hair grew low down on his almost nonexistent forehead, and he had the greatest pair of ears that Warren G. Harding had ever seen, extending at absolutely right angles from his head. Between those ears festered a pea-sized but malevolent brain that almost immediately made him the most feared kid below sixth grade. He had a direct way of settling disagreements that he established on the second day of his brief but spectacular period at W.G.H.

Christmas Day 2012 Continuation of my Message to Andy (part 2)   After the evening’s ‘Kumbayah’ singalong at the OBSS camp, we had some alone time before returning to our respective tents for a good night’s sleep, fresh and ready for the following day’s Outward Bound events.               Just as I was ready to garner some quality time to myself, Jules asked, “How are you feeling, Young?”               “I’m good sir, and you?” I answered.               “Care for a stroll with me?” “Sure. I was about to find a quiet spot to contemplate,” I said.               “What are you contemplating?”               “Oh. This, that and the other,” I remarked nonchalantly.               “Is something bothering you?” he pressed.               I looked at him for a brief second. “Maybe there’s something that’s bothering you?” I countered.               He went silent, thinking of an appropriate parry. “Err, err… there is nothing bothering me. I’m concerned about your recovery… from the swimming incident.”               “I’m fine. Thank you for your concern.”               Silence followed, before the instructor muttered, “Shall we walk? I’d like to get to know you better.”               We headed away from the camp, but remained silent. When out of earshot, Jules began, “You are different from the other boys at the camp.”               “How so?”               “You are mature beyond you age,” he opined. “Most of the boys who come to OBSS lack social and human relationship skills. But you… you seem to know a lot more than meets the eye.”               The Caucasian was inveigling me to confide in him.               “I learned the art of social conversation and human relationships at my English boarding school.”               “It must be an excellent school,” he declared.               “It sure is. I learned a lot of invaluable skills, not taught in regular classes,” I commented sportively.               Jules pressed, “What exactly did they teach you?”               “Oh, I’d rather show than tell,” I teased. “Would you like me to demonstrate?

Then Bill Anders spoke, not just to CapCom, to all the world listening to his words from so far away. “For all the people on earth,” he said, his emotions unmasked, “the crew of Apollo 8 has a message we would like to send you.” A brief pause, and then Anders stunned his audience as he began reading from the verses of the book of Genesis: “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth . . . ” As Anders concluded the fourth verse, Lovell read the next four. Borman concluded by beginning his reading of the ninth verse, and then sent to the world a special Christmas message: “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you—all of you on the good earth.” Later, Borman would add a passage that would be repeated by the men who would venture to the moon, words spoken with stark emotion, sometimes with tears. As Apollo raced around the cratered world below, Borman watched the earth “rising” above the lunar horizon. “This is the most beautiful, heart-catching sight of my life.” Suddenly

Following God’s ways in the brief time on earth seemed a small price to pay for eternity.

Christmas is about the coming of the Son of Man who “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” These words in Mark 10:45, as a brief expression of Christmas, are what I hope God will fix in your mind and heart this Advent. Open your heart to receive the best present imaginable: Jesus giving himself to die for you and to serve you all the rest of eternity. Receive this. Turn away from self-help and sin. Become like little children. Trust him. Trust him. Trust him with your life.

A character in the mock Christmas pantomime Harlequin Prince Cherrytop and the Good Fairy Fairfuck (1879) declares, “For all your threats I don’t care a fuck. / I’ll never leave my princely darling duck.” (The panto relates the story of Prince Cherrytop, who has become enslaved by the Demon of Masturbation. The Good Fairy Fairfuck helps him conquer his addiction to self-abuse, so he can embrace the joys of holy matrimony with his betrothed, the Princess Shovituppa.

She smiled up at him, her precise expression inscrutable in the shadows, and Jake found his gaze drawn to the inviting curve of her lips. His thoughts swiftly took a more intimate turn as his imagination led him down a path he knew was best left untrod. And it didn’t help his resolve when she didn’t look away. He reached up and fingered a loose curl at her temple and heard her breath quicken. He leaned closer, cupping the side of her face, all but able to taste her kiss and the softness of her lips. “Captain Winston, I—” She took a hasty step backward, her breath coming hard. “I’d best be getting inside. It’s late, after all.” The fullness of the moment and of what he’d been about to do hit him brick hard. “Mrs. Prescott—” Jake winced. “Please. Forgive me, ma’am. I—” “There’s nothing to forgive, Captain.” Her smile was brief and unconvincing. “Good night.” Far more hastily than he would’ve liked, she slipped in through the kitchen door and closed it behind her. Wishing he could recall the last moment and do it differently, he strode back to his cabin. It wasn’t until later that evening, flipping through his sketchbook, that he realized just how much of his thoughts this woman occupied. Just as she did the pages of his notebook. More than was wise, he knew, given his circumstances. And hers.

Martin will recall this night as the first time--and one of the only times--he ever saw Germans crying in public, not at the news of a dead loved one or at the sight of their bombed home, and not in physical pain, but from spontaneous emotion. For this brief time, they were not hiding from one another, wearing their masks of cold and practical detachment. The music stirred the hardened sediment of their memory, chafed against layers of horror and shame, and offered a rare solace in their shared anger, grief, and guilt...The walk home was magical. No one was glum. For this Christmas night they were lifted from the damning particularities of their own lives and invited to be a small piece of eternity. Years later, as a professor, Martin would try to find the words to articulate the power of togetherness in a world where togetherness had been corrupted--and to explore the effect of the music, the surprising lengths the people had gone to hear it and to play it, as evidence that music, and art in general, are basic requirements of the human soul. Not a luxury but a compulsion.

Mav,” Dom finally said and I saw him lift Logan’s hand to his mouth for a brief kiss. “Take care of our son and let him take care of you. That’s all we ask.” Emotion clogged my throat and I barely managed to say, “I will. I swear it.” I

fingerprints fall all around me, into great indistinguishable peaks and slopes. The stars look like cusps, everything looks like a cusp. The streetlights still flow, the night smells like a new dime, and the mailbox seems to shine with the accumulation of all it has ever received. The seminarian is laughing and waving me toward the open door, but I am not cold and I am not coming back just yet. Places for people, wide spaces and small, little bodies floating down into their forms. I run even toward the church, till I can see the Marian grotto hidden on one side where the garden is pinched out like a series of matches. It is almost Christmas Eve. Tomorrow, in that church, the songs I like best will flame out their brief lives, there and then gone, while the people hold soft and slumping candles under their chins and circles of cardboard catch the notes of hot wax. They will return again next year.

For one brief moment she allowed herself to get swept up in the frisson of anticipation the festive season brought, and then she came crashing back to reality with a thump.

Cassie leaned her head back, resting it against Luke’s chest, and the sweet sound of her gleeful giggles made his heart soar. He didn’t know how it was possible, but in the brief time he’d known this woman, she’d completely captivated him, heart and soul.

Better move aside, Shell. You're right where the oil should come out. Not connected to a line, so we'll just let her flow a bit." I moved aside. He freed the valve, then turned it by hand. At first it was just a trickle, then it gushed. Ed spun the valve and stepped back with a whoop, and on his face was the expression of a man looking on something he loves. "Baby, baby," he yelled, "there she goes." Oil, thick and black, spurted from the pipe like black blood from a cut artery. It streamed from the Christmas tree and spread on the ground, running in a thick river away from us down a shallow furrow in the earth. And a queer feeling gripped me. I knew, then, that until this moment I hadn't really believed it. I'd just sort of gone on faith to here, but now I could see it, touch it, smell it. Oil. Oil, growling up from deep in the earth, pushed by Nature's gases, and for one brief moment of brighter awareness I could see it, refined, split, joining in new chemical compounds — in cars, generators, lamps, diesels; driving engines and smoothing bearings; in hundreds of products with thousands of uses, from farming to photography, plastics, medicines . . . And there all the time for the man with faith enough and strength enough to find it and seize it.

in his stocking feet so as not to awaken Emilee or the children, Hans padded into the living room, walked past the Christmas tree, and moved into the small vestibule that served as his home office. Only then did he turn on a small desk lamp. He opened the drawer of his desk and withdrew the leatherbound book he had placed there earlier that day. He opened it to the first page and looked at the neatly lettered inscription: To My Beloved Hans Merry Christmas, 1932 From Emilee, Alisa, Jolanda, Hans Otto, Enrika, & Nikolaus Your Adoring Family Hans smiled and reread the handwritten message on the inside cover. Hans: A brief note of explanation. I can hear you saying to yourself as you read this: “Really? A journal? My

as if Laurie had recited the Apostles’ Creed in perfect Latin, and resumed tidying up the pews, humming along with the choir, occasionally making brief, quiet remarks to no one in particular, in a tone that was both friendly and respectful. She was just thinking

minute of your time,’ he replied, a brief smile disappearing as quickly as it came. He wasn’t my best fan after Cal left. Told me I must enjoy being miserable, brought it on myself. When I argued that a betrayal of trust was enough reason to let her walk away, he told me I needed to see a doctor, followed by a psychiatrist.

The Puritans knew what subsequent generations would forget: that when the Church, more than a millennium earlier, had placed Christmas Day in late December, the decision was part of what amounted to a compromise, and a compromise for which the Church paid a high price. Late-December festivities were deeply rooted in popular culture, both in observance of the winter solstice and in celebration of the one brief period of leisure and plenty in the agricultural year. In return for ensuring massive observance of the anniversary of the Savior's birth by assigning it to this resonant date, the Church for its part tacitly agreed to allow the holiday to be celebrated more or less the way it had always been. From the beginning, the Church's hold over Christmas was (and remains still) rather tenuous. There were always people for whom Christmas was a time of pious devotion rather than carnival, but such people were always in the minority. It may not be going too far to say that Christmas has always been an extremely difficult holiday to Christianize. Little wonder that the Puritans were willing to save themselves the trouble.

When the police found Brynn that fall, Adam had no explanation. Shattered wrists, sunken face, and a broken leg – it was never clear what had happened. Bailey found her at the bottom of the stairs and called for help. Adam sat in the parlor, tipping cigarillo ash into the glass tray. Though the charges for assault were dismissed due to lack of evidence, Bailey couldn’t escape her suspicions, and by Christmas, she moved away. The divorce papers arrived in the mailbox, crinkled and brief. Adam pulled them from the box and walked toward the house. Looking up, he was sure he saw something falling from the sky.

What the hell?” Ian asked, holding his hands over the front of his Christmas briefs. Sara had ordered them from the Internet, and he'd worn them to please her. Too bad there hadn't been enough time for the underwear to meet with an unfortunate accident. A lot could be blamed on a washing machine.

This magic is, in part, the knowledge that the relentless tide of darkness has turned, that light will start to return. It’s partly the happiness surrounding me – the earnest cheers and song, the well wishes shouted by strangers in a moment of happy abandon that we’re all experiencing together, huddled in the strange circle of stones. But it’s also the way that, in the moment of the sun’s rising, the vast gulfs of history and understanding that separate us from the builders of Stonehenge seem to vanish. It’s so easy to imagine that over five millennia ago people might have stood right where we are standing, looked at the same dawn, the same stones, might have celebrated that they, too, were beginning the long road back out of the winter darkness. There is so much power in that sensation of connection, the feeling of seeing a handprint millennia old and instinctively slipping your own hand over it, of all that time contracting so you and people thousands of years ago are – for a brief instant – the same.

It is heartening when readers come up to me and tell me which of my recipes tey have been making, but especially so when they include this which they make each year to celebrate some event or another. The salmon pie on Christmas eve perhaps, or the sausage pasta with mustard and cream on their anniversary. I have often wondered why I feel such delight when this happens. It dawns on me today that it is not just that it gives me a brief sense of purpose; it is also a relief to hear that the recipes actually work.

The sleet outside picked up, peppering the canvas tent like a drumhead. A beep punctuated brief static as a walkie-talkie came to life. “Siobhán, do you read?

Year-end: a wonderful time, especially for commerce, which contributes to the increase in income concentration. Most people are taken by a peculiar state – a kind of seasonal depression. Why? Because, for a brief period, they are compelled to reflect on their lives, on their existence, and to escape the diabolical work routine, that balm that temporarily makes us forget the most fundamental questions of life. In general, during Christmas and these festive dates marking the end of cycles, regardless of their culture, people feel a growing weight on their shoulders. However, they cannot express or verbalize what they feel. Unmet expectations, people who are no longer here, concerns about life and the future. In summary, the weight of an unexamined existence. These celebrations are social conventions based on astronomical movements that have acquired religious and sacred connotations. In themselves, they hold no intrinsic meaning, except for the purpose of instilling in individuals a false joy, a false hope that things can – or will – improve. "Feel hope, feel joy," says the good old man, because the system needs it; it needs people to continue believing in it so that everything keeps spinning. In reality, this period should serve precisely an anti-cyclic function, leading individuals to a situational awareness so that they can truly understand the wholeness of their existence and its fundamental questions. An existence that is not fragmented but unique and whole, giving meaning to the present in light of the past and in the attempt to project the future. All of this aims to break free from the annual cycle of forgetfulness and false happiness that is habitually imposed on us. It is time to break this cycle.

FROM MY TARZAN BOOK I'm pretty sure my brothers and sisters said I was a cute baby. About a school fight: "I won because I wasn't the first to cry" Us Cameron kids were great sandbox farmers. Like all farmers we loved rain. After a big rain, we raked the sandpile clean, then decided where each of our new farms would be." Being a shepherd in the Christmas pageant was nerve-wracking. The hardest part was controlling ourselves from bursting out laughing. Funny thing about a boy's life. It is not the words we remember; what we remember is the friendship, rapport, and camaraderie of just being together for a brief time.