Christmas And New Year Quotes

To my babies, Merry Christmas. I'm sorry if these letters have caught you both by surprise. There is just so much more I have to say. I know you thought I was done giving advice, but I couldn't leave without reiterating a few things in writing. You may not relate to these things now, but someday you will. I wasn't able to be around forever, but I hope that my words can be. -Don't stop making basagna. Basagna is good. Wait until a day when there is no bad news, and bake a damn basagna. -Find a balance between head and heart. Hopefully you've found that Lake, and you can help Kel sort it out when he gets to that point. -Push your boundaries, that's what they're there for. -I'm stealing this snippet from your favorite band, Lake. "Always remember there is nothing worth sharing, like the love that let us share our name." -Don't take life too seriously. Punch it in the face when it needs a good hit. Laugh at it. -And Laugh a lot. Never go a day without laughing at least once. -Never judge others. You both know good and well how unexpected events can change who a person is. Always keep that in mind. You never know what someone else is experiencing within their own life. -Question everything. Your love, your religion, your passions. If you don't have questions, you'll never find answers. -Be accepting. Of everything. People's differences, their similarities, their choices, their personalities. Sometimes it takes a variety to make a good collection. The same goes for people. -Choose your battles, but don't choose very many. -Keep an open mind; it's the only way new things can get in. -And last but not least, not the tiniest bit least. Never regret. Thank you both for giving me the best years of my life. Especially the last one. Love, Mom

Do what you do. This Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year's Eve, Twelfth Night, Valentine's Day, Mardi Gras, St. Paddy's Day, and every day henceforth. Just do what you do. Live out your life and your traditions on your own terms. If it offends others, so be it. That's their problem.

The letter had been crumpled up and tossed onto the grate. It had burned all around the edges, so the names at the top and bottom had gone up in smoke. But there was enough of the bold black scrawl to reveal that it had indeed been a love letter. And as Hannah read the singed and half-destroyed parchment, she was forced to turn away to hide the trembling of her hand. —should warn you that this letter will not be eloquent. However, it will be sincere, especially in light of the fact that you will never read it. I have felt these words like a weight in my chest, until I find myself amazed that a heart can go on beating under such a burden. I love you. I love you desperately, violently, tenderly, completely. I want you in ways that I know you would find shocking. My love, you don't belong with a man like me. In the past I've done things you wouldn't approve of, and I've done them ten times over. I have led a life of immoderate sin. As it turns out, I'm just as immoderate in love. Worse, in fact. I want to kiss every soft place of you, make you blush and faint, pleasure you until you weep, and dry every tear with my lips. If you only knew how I crave the taste of you. I want to take you in my hands and mouth and feast on you. I want to drink wine and honey from you. I want you under me. On your back. I'm sorry. You deserve more respect than that. But I can't stop thinking of it. Your arms and legs around me. Your mouth, open for my kisses. I need too much of you. A lifetime of nights spent between your thighs wouldn't be enough. I want to talk with you forever. I remember every word you've ever said to me. If only I could visit you as a foreigner goes into a new country, learn the language of you, wander past all borders into every private and secret place, I would stay forever. I would become a citizen of you. You would say it's too soon to feel this way. You would ask how I could be so certain. But some things can't be measured by time. Ask me an hour from now. Ask me a month from now. A year, ten years, a lifetime. The way I love you will outlast every calendar, clock, and every toll of every bell that will ever be cast. If only you— And there it stopped.

I'm suprised he doesn't send Christmas cards," Antonio said. "I can see them now. Tasteful, embossed veilum cards, the best he can steal. Little notes in perfect penmanship,"Happy holidays. Hope everyone is well. I sliced up Ethan Ritter in Miami and scattered his remains in the Atlantic. Best wishes for the new year. Karl.

I don't know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings. "I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to every-body! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!

Someone should tell you you're beautiful every time the sun comes up. Someone should tell you you're beautiful on Wednesdays. And at teatime. Someone should tell you you're beautiful on Christmas Day and Christmas Eve and the evening before Christmas Eve, and on Easter. He should tell you on Guy Fawkes Night and on New Year's, and on the eigth of August, just because.

Half of the time, the Holy Ghost tries to warn us about certain people that come into our life. The other half of the time he tries to tell us that the sick feeling we get in a situation is not the other person’s fault, rather it is our own hang-ups. A life filled with bias, hatred, judgment, insecurity, fear, delusion and self-righteousness can cloud the soul of anyone you meet. Our job is never to assume,instead it is to listen, communicate, ask questions then ask more, until we know the true depth of someone’s spirit.

I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!

You lose what individualism you have, if you have enough of course, you retain some of it, but most don't have enough, so they become watchers of game shows, y’know, things like that. Then you work the 8 hour job with almost a feeling of goodness, like you’re doing something, and you get married, like marriage is a victory and you have children like having children is a victory, but most things people do are a total grind, marriage, birth, children, it’s something they HAVE to do because they have nothing else to do. There is no glory in it, no esteem, no fire, their lives are flat and the earth is full of them. Sorry, but thats the way I see it. I could not accept the snail’s pace 8-5, Johnnie Carson, merry christmas, happy new year, to me it’s the sickest of all sick things.

My love for Christmas Eve goes way back to those big gatherings at my grandparents’ house, the focus on Santa Claus and childhood joy. As the years unfolded, I've moved to and visited different cities during the holidays, so my celebration of Christmas Eve took on multiple denominational tones and the focus became the Christ child.

This was not a good idea coming home for Christmas. I'm too old. Years ago, coming back from schools or trips, I always expected some sort of new perspective or fresh insight about the family on returning. That doesn't happen anymore-the days of revelation about my parents, at least, are over... its time to move on. I think we'd all appreciate that.

May you find a new grace to live your dreams in coming year.

All I wanted for Christmas was a New Years Eve party that I would never forget. Too bad I got too drunk to remember it.

To see the first sun rise in New Year is the most sacredness of existence.

May the New Year bring you new strength, new hope and new dreams.

She’s like…waking up on Christmas morning when you’re three years old and you finally understand what it’s all about. She’s the moment the rain stops and the sun comes out, lighting up the sky with color, and everything smells new and fresh. She’s the first skate on a frozen lake, surrounded by snowy mountains and pine trees and the freshest breath of air. She’s rolling over in the middle of the night, pulling that warm body into yours and curling around it, and everything’s just right.

Dimanchophobia: Fear of Sundays, not in a religious sense but rather, a condition that reflects fear of unstructured time. Also known as acalendrical anxiety. Not to be confused with didominicaphobia, or kyriakephobia, fear of the Lord's Day. Dimanchophobia is a mental condition created by modernism and industrialism. Dimanchophobes particularly dislike the period between Christmas and New Year's, when days of the week lose their significance and time blurs into a perpetual Sunday. Another way of expressing dimanchophobia might be "life in a world without calendars." A popular expression of this condition can be found in the pop song "Every Day is Like Sunday," by Morrissey, in which he describes walking on a beach after a nuclear way, when every day of the week now feels like Sunday.

In regard to propaganda the early advocates of universal literacy and a free press envisaged only two possibilities: the propaganda might be true, or the propaganda might be false. They did not foresee what in fact has happened, above all in our Western capitalist democracies - the development of a vast mass communications industry, concerned in the main neither with the true nor the false, but with the unreal, the more or less totally irrelevant. In a word, they failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions. In the past most people never got a chance of fully satisfying this appetite. They might long for distractions, but the distractions were not provided. Christmas came but once a year, feasts were "solemn and rare," there were few readers and very little to read, and the nearest approach to a neighborhood movie theater was the parish church, where the performances though frequent, were somewhat monotonous. For conditions even remotely comparable to those now prevailing we must return to imperial Rome, where the populace was kept in good humor by frequent, gratuitous doses of many kinds of entertainment - from poetical dramas to gladiatorial fights, from recitations of Virgil to all-out boxing, from concerts to military reviews and public executions. But even in Rome there was nothing like the non-stop distractions now provided by newspapers and magazines, by radio, television and the cinema. In "Brave New World" non-stop distractions of the most fascinating nature are deliberately used as instruments of policy, for the purpose of preventing people from paying too much attention to the realities of the social and political situation. The other world of religion is different from the other world of entertainment; but they resemble one another in being most decidedly "not of this world." Both are distractions and, if lived in too continuously, both can become, in Marx's phrase "the opium of the people" and so a threat to freedom. Only the vigilant can maintain their liberties, and only those who are constantly and intelligently on the spot can hope to govern themselves effectively by democratic procedures. A society, most of whose members spend a great part of their time, not on the spot, not here and now and in their calculable future, but somewhere else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical fantasy, will find it hard to resist the encroachments of those would manipulate and control it.

I had two cups of coffee, put Eric's jeans in the washer, read a romance for awhile, and studied my brand-new Word of the Day calendar, a Christmas gift from Arlene. My first word of the New Year was 'exsanguinate.' This was probably not a good omen.

Thirty- eight years old and he was finished. He sipped at the coffee and remembered where he had gone wrong -- or right. He'd simply gotten tired -- of the insurance game, of the small offices and high glass partitions, the clients; he'd simply gotten tired of cheating on his wife, of squeezing secretaries in the elevator and in the halls; he'd gotten tired of Christmas parties and New Year's parties and birthdays, and payments on new cars and furniture payments -- light, gas, water -- the whole bleeding complex of necessities. He'd gotten tired and quit, that's all. The divorce came soon enough and the drinking came soon enough, and suddenly he was out of it. He had nothing, and he found out that having nothing was difficult too. It was another type of burden. If only there were some gentler road in between. It seemed a man only had two choices -- get in on the hustle or be a bum.

…I love you. I love you desperately, violently, tenderly, completely. I want you in ways that I know you would find shocking… …I want to talk with you forever. I remember every word you've ever said to me. If only I could visit you as a foreigner goes into a new country, learn the language of you, wander past all borders into every private and secret place, I would stay forever. I would become a citizen of you. You would say it's too soon to feel this way. You would ask how I could be so certain. But some things can't be measured by time. Ask me an hour from now. Ask me a month from now. A year, ten years, a lifetime. The way I love you will outlast every calendar, clock, and every toll of every bell that will ever be cast….

But what Dakota most enjoyed about the beginning of winter was the crispness of the air (that practically demanded the wearing of knits) and the way that tough New Yorkers - on the street, in elevators, in subways - were suddenly willing to risk a smile. To make a connection with a stranger. To finally see one another after strenuously avoiding eye contact all year.

A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world. Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!

No wishing him a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year or Happy Birthday.  Not a peep!

The worn soles of Daffy's boots skidded on the icy stones. He'd been saving up for a new pair for Christmas, but then he'd come across an encyclopaedia in ten volumes, going cheap. Boots might last ten years, at best, but knowledge was eternal.

We enter that strange period between Christmas and New Year, when time seems to muddle, and we find ourselves asking again and again, What day is it? What date? I always mean to work on these days, or at least to write, but this year, like every other, I find myself unable to gather up the necessary intent. I used to think that these were wasted days, but I now realise that’s the point. I am doing nothing very much, not even actively being on holiday. I clear out my cupboards, ready for another year’s onslaught of cooking and eating. I take Bert out to play with friends. I go for cold walks that make my ears ache. I am not being lazy. I’m not slacking. I’m just letting my attention shift for a while, away from the direct ambitions of the rest of my year. It’s like revving my engines.

January was the season for house robberies and violence. Christmas was over, and the new year just reminded you of how little your life had changed, and man, people got angry in January.

Each city has its own romantic season. Once a year, a city's architectural, cultural and horticultural variables come into alignment with the solar course in such a way that men and women passing eachother in the thoroughfares few and unusual sense of romantic promise. Like Christmas time in Vienna, April in Paris and autumn in New York.

I don’t like to be in delineated moments. I don’t like it when your reality feels prescriptive. I don’t like Christmas holidays and their pseudo-joy. I don’t like New Year’s Eve. I don’t like anything that feels like an established electromagnetic paradigm is pulling you into it’s cliched forebear’s footsteps.

A gift for the holidays? A holiday is a gift in itself.

Why are people always complaining about the dead period between Christmas and the New Year? It’s complete bliss.

December is... by Stewart Stafford December is all that we give, And whatever we receive, It is those who surround us, And those who have taken leave. December is celebrating light, Where only darkness dwells, It is the ripping of wrapping paper, And tempting culinary smells. December is letting go, Of all the past year's fails, And starting anew in January, As time again chases its tail. © Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.

We're humans, not machines. We have bad days. We have mental difficulties. We are inspired, yet we fail. We are not linear. We have hearts that break and souls we don't know what to do with. We kill and destroy but we build and make possible too. We've been to the moon and invented computers. We outsource most things but we still have to live with ourselves. We're pessimists who believe it's too late so what the hell? We're the comeback kids in love with second chances. And every New Year is another chance.

In the month of December I couldn’t get out of bed. I kept waking up at 6 P.M. and it was Christmas or New Year’s and I had to start drinking & eating.

A new star, the Christ child, God's gift to mankind; these are what Christmas is made of.

You ought to pause and enjoy the peace in the moment.

Grief takes about a year,” Mrs. Kelly once told a young mother who had lost her son. “You have to get through each holiday, each new season. You will cry at Christmas and New Year’s and Mother’s Day and Thanksgiving. You will suffer with the first daffodil, the first falling red leaves, the first snow . . . Each occasion, each new season will rip your heart out; then, when there’s nothing left, you’ll get better.” She was right, and she knew from experience.

At the end of the day, you should try to remember that it's not about the number of followers you have or the numbers of likes, comments, and shares your posts are getting. It's the number of people who will be present in the hospital room when you fall terribly sick. It's the number of people who will remember your birthday like they remember their first name. It's the number of people who will invite you to celebrate Christmas or new year's eve. It's the number of people who will actually show up to look at your newborn child or to bless your newly bought house. It's the number of people who will actually cross an ocean to see your face. It's the number of people who will wipe your tears when one of your parents passes away. It's the number of people who will make a slightly larger than a thumb effort to be there for you.

In the same way that certain sections of the city were mortal battlegrounds, some parts of the calendar were always more warlike than others, and during the days between Christmas and the new year all elements seemed to conspire to subdue the soul. Fire, rain, sickness, cold, and death were everywhere spread through the dark as in a painting of hell. People struggled until exhaustion, giving everything they had, and the days were packed with trials and mysteries.

December 21, 1970 well, the amateur drunks have taken over and will hold this town until Jan. 2…driving on the wrong side of the street, running red lights, bellowing the same songs. figs of people, twigs of people, shits of people…MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY NEW YEAR. Christomighty, yeah.

No one has ever told me that I'm beautiful before," Hazel said. She hadn't realized it was true until she said it out loud. Jack stood with his hands on either side of her face and stared at her for a few heartbeats. Then he leaned in and softly kissed both her eyelids. "Someone should tell you that you're beautiful every time the sun comes up. Someone should tell you you're beautiful on Wednesdays. And at teatime. Someone should tell you you're beautiful on Christmas Day and Christmas Eve and the evening before Christmas Eve, and on Easter. He should tell you on Guy Fawkes Night and on New Year's, and on the eighth of August, just because." He kissed her lips once more, gently, and then pulled away and gazed into her eyes. "Hazel Sinnett, you are the most miraculous creature I have ever come across, and I am going to be thinking about how beautiful you are until the day I die.

I resolve to write a new chapter of my life every new day in the New Year.

Shepherds lift their heads, not to gaze at a new light but to hear angels.

Don’t wait until Christmas to show love. You never know those who will breathe their last breath before the sacred season.

May you find love, joy and hope at Christmas and every day of your life.

I was in the fifth grade the first time I thought about turning thirty. My best friend Darcy and I came across a perpetual calendar in the back of the phone book, where you could look up any date in the future, and by using this little grid, determine what the day of the week would be. So we located our birthdays in the following year, mine in May and hers in September. I got Wednesday, a school night. She got a Friday. A small victory, but typical. Darcy was always the lucky one. Her skin tanned more quickly, her hair feathered more easily, and she didn't need braces. Her moonwalk was superior, as were her cart-wheels and her front handsprings (I couldn't handspring at all). She had a better sticker collection. More Michael Jackson pins. Forenze sweaters in turquoise, red, and peach (my mother allowed me none- said they were too trendy and expensive). And a pair of fifty-dollar Guess jeans with zippers at the ankles (ditto). Darcy had double-pierced ears and a sibling- even if it was just a brother, it was better than being an only child as I was. But at least I was a few months older and she would never quite catch up. That's when I decided to check out my thirtieth birthday- in a year so far away that it sounded like science fiction. It fell on a Sunday, which meant that my dashing husband and I would secure a responsible baby-sitter for our two (possibly three) children on that Saturday evening, dine at a fancy French restaurant with cloth napkins, and stay out past midnight, so technically we would be celebrating on my actual birthday. I would have just won a big case- somehow proven that an innocent man didn't do it. And my husband would toast me: "To Rachel, my beautiful wife, the mother of my chidren and the finest lawyer in Indy." I shared my fantasy with Darcy as we discovered that her thirtieth birthday fell on a Monday. Bummer for her. I watched her purse her lips as she processed this information. "You know, Rachel, who cares what day of the week we turn thirty?" she said, shrugging a smooth, olive shoulder. "We'll be old by then. Birthdays don't matter when you get that old." I thought of my parents, who were in their thirties, and their lackluster approach to their own birthdays. My dad had just given my mom a toaster for her birthday because ours broke the week before. The new one toasted four slices at a time instead of just two. It wasn't much of a gift. But my mom had seemed pleased enough with her new appliance; nowhere did I detect the disappointment that I felt when my Christmas stash didn't quite meet expectations. So Darcy was probably right. Fun stuff like birthdays wouldn't matter as much by the time we reached thirty. The next time I really thought about being thirty was our senior year in high school, when Darcy and I started watching ths show Thirty Something together. It wasn't our favorite- we preferred cheerful sit-coms like Who's the Boss? and Growing Pains- but we watched it anyway. My big problem with Thirty Something was the whiny characters and their depressing issues that they seemed to bring upon themselves. I remember thinking that they should grow up, suck it up. Stop pondering the meaning of life and start making grocery lists. That was back when I thought my teenage years were dragging and my twenties would surealy last forever. Then I reached my twenties. And the early twenties did seem to last forever. When I heard acquaintances a few years older lament the end of their youth, I felt smug, not yet in the danger zone myself. I had plenty of time..

Christmas and New Year should not be a temporary dose of heroine to sedate people and have them consume more goods, go on vacations, or sit with family and friends at the dinner tables of triviality to boast presumed ‘achievements’ or share pathetic stories about ‘changing the world’.

I was a vegetarian for a year. Not out of some moral choice, but because I wanted new stuff to taste. Except tofu. Fuck tofu. It’s the lamest reason to chew. And in the end how do we know that vegetables aren’t more intelligent and sensitive forms of life than those made of meat? We don’t.

Christmas Day has come and gone, the New Year lies ahead. Strange things happen Between the Years, in the days outside of time. Minutes go wild, hours vanish. Idleness becomes a clever thief, stealing the names of the days of the week, muting the steady tick of watches and clocks. These are the hours when angels, ghosts, demons and meddlers ride howling wind and flickering candlelight, keen to stir unguarded hearts and restless minds.

That which interests most people leaves me without any interest at all. This includes a list of things such as: social dancing, riding roller coasters, going to zoos, picnics, movies, planetariums, watching tv, baseball games; going to funerals, weddings, parties, basketball games, auto races, poetry readings, museums, rallies, demonstrations, protests, children’s plays, adult plays … I am not interested in beaches, swimming, skiing, Christmas, New Year’s, the 4th of July, rock music, world history, space exploration, pet dogs, soccer, cathedrals and great works of Art. How can a man who is interested in almost nothing write about anything? Well, I do. I write and I write about what’s left over: a stray dog walking down the street, a wife murdering her husband, the thoughts and feelings of a rapist as he bites into a hamburger sandwich; life in the factory, life in the streets and rooms of the poor and mutilated and the insane, crap like that, I write a lot of crap like that

The love at Christmas should be with us throughout the coming year.

The love we extend to one another at Christmas, should blossom all year.

A new star shines bright. Angels herald the good news. The Christ child is born.

festive hearts wane and sink like tides of joy.

May the New Year be as full of happiness and peace and friendship.

Christmas and New Year had been and gone, leaving a cold aseptic void. Shop

So New Year, I have too many hopes in you.. I hope you lead me safely to the shore. I hope you can be nice to me, just nice and nothing more. I hope you vanquish this tornado of sores. I don't ask the sun to be always shining. I don't ask the day to be much longer. I don't ask the guiding stars to be brighter. I don't ask for more flowers or more powers. I don't ask the sky to be clear from clouds, so no rain of misery and frustration to be found. All I ask for is some peace around. All I ask for is some peace of mind. So New Year, I have too many hopes in you. My wishes are infinite, what are you going to do? Don't disappoint me, I suppose... you already know!

Advent falls in winter, at the end of the year, in the dark and cold, but its focus is on the coming of light and life, when the Ancient of Days becomes a young child and says, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’ Perhaps only poetry can help us fathom the depths and inhabit the tensions of these paradoxes.

I love being here, Evelyn, don't think that I don't. Yes, I do miss being in New York, but being with a great family for Christmas is the best thing any guy could get. It's been the best year I've had for a quite a long time.

On Christmas. "Santa Claus represents God on assistance," said Clyde. "Santa Claus is a negative-idealed god, the pagan god of material worship," Leon stated. "Christmas means the rebirth, regeneration. Some people have Christmas every day. The Christmas tree stands up and either the wife trims it or they trim it together with righteous-idealed sexual intercourse. Or the husband prays to God through his Christmas tree and trims his bodily Christmas tree. Christ-mast; the mast of Christ, the upstanding penis—that's what it means to me." "Santa Claus is a good symbolization for Christmas," said Joseph. "Department stores, shopping, the coming of the New Year. Christmas means better business in the stores.

You can't cure people of their character,' she read. After this he had crossed something out then gone on, 'You can't even change yourself. Experiments in that direction soon deteriorate into bitter, infuriated struggles. You haul yourself over the wall and glimpse new country. Good! You can never again be what you were! But even as you are congratulating yourself you discover tied to one leg the string of Christmas cards, gas bills, air letters and family snaps which will never allow you to be anyone else. A forty-year-old woman holds up a doll she has kept in a cardboard box under a bed since she was a child. She touches its clothes, which are falling to pieces; works tenderly its loose arm. The expression that trembles on the edge of realizing itself in the slackening muscles of her lips and jaw is indescribably sad. How are you to explain to her that she has lost nothing by living the intervening years of her life? How is she to explain that to you?

The Winter Miles The roads of solitude grow whiter,
And stones beneath us paler,
While the green fades completely —
Ahead of us. Grey is the sombre tone we keep,
While wandering along the street
That becomes our destiny —
With each step. Our knees fall into the snow; The trembling stops at last, Here our souls will find eternal rest — In silent grace. -Laura Chouette

Two of the first four people on the list could not be reached. They had closed up shop and gone away for the holidays. To Vince, it seemed wrong that the criminal underworld would take off for Christmas and New Year's as if they were schoolteachers.

Alan had by this time developed a skilful technique for dealing with his family, and his mother in particular. They all thought of him as devoid of common sense, and he in turn would rise to the role of absent-minded professor. ‘Brilliant but unsound’, that was Alan to his mother, who undertook to keep him in touch with all those important matters of appearance and manners, such as buying a new suit every year (which he never wore), Christmas presents, aunts’ birthdays, and getting his hair cut.

I do think it's a very uneven exchange of Christmas presents. You'll eat yours up in a week and have nothing left to show for it by New Year's Day. I'll have mine till the day I die - and die happy in the knowledge that I'm leaving it behind for someone else to love. I shall sprinkle pale pencil marks through it pointing out the best passages to some book-lover yet unborn.

Christ was born in Bethlehem as Heaven sang with joy. Roaming shepherds came to see the Infant, swaddled boy. Several wisemen sought him out, Traveling from afar. Mary wondered, looking skyward At a bright, new star. Sacred was the Christ child's birth. Sacred is CHRISTMAS.

Haiku Christmas Story New light in the sky announces a sacred birth. Shine brightly young star. Hallelujah song carries on a gentle wind, heralding a king. Shepherds lift their heads, not to gaze at a new light but to hear angels. "Unto you is born in the city of David a Savior for all." Born on straw at night under low stable rafters, Baby Jesus cried. Sheep and goats and cows gather 'round a manger bed to awe at a babe. Wise men come to see a child of greater wisdom and honor divine. Rare and precious gifts, gold and myrrh and frankincense, to offer a king. Mary and Joseph huddle snugly together. They cradle God's son. On this wise He came, the Son of God to the earth. A humble wonder.

If we lived more simply most of the time, our feasts would be distinctive events. As it is, since most Americans have all kinds of special things to eat every day, for many the only way to make Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts uncommon is by eating more. It would be good if we could restore the concept of feasting not as something to regret (don’t we all have to lose a few pounds after the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s season?), but as a delight.

It was that prolonged, flat, cheerless week that follows Christmas. My own existence seemed infinitely stagnant, relieved only by work on another book. Those interminable latter days of the dying year create an interval, as it were, of moral suspension: one form of life already passed away before another has had time to assert some new, endemic characteristic. Imminent change of direction is for some reason often foreshadowed by such colourless patches of time.

Hucky was so dazzled by the view of the colored lights from Forty-seventh Street, he could only manage to ask me two questions: (1) "doesn't it look like Christmas?" and (2) "Why is that man peeing on the street?" So I told him (1) "Yes," and (2) "Because that's the way they do it in New York. But you have to have a license first." I had to lie through my teeth about the last part because I'd already jumped ahead to what he was planning when we got out of the cab.

Jack took me to the Christmas Dance. It snowed the day of the dance, making the Meier Farmhouse and Dance Hall look like something out of a painting, the lights on the roof glowing under sheets of white. And when Jack led me onto the dance floor and grasped one of my hands and tugged it up behind his neck, then placed his arm around my back, soft and low, I thought life couldn't get better. He pulled me close against him, our hands clasped next to his chest.The cedar from the farmhouse mingled with Jack's aftershave,making a sweet, rustic scent. "Becks,remember the first time we met?" he asked,his lips grazing my ear. Of course I remembered. The events of that day were permanently etched into my brain. "You mean,the time you nearly beheaded me with a baseball?" "I had to do something to get the new girl's attention." "A simple 'hello' would have worked." He pulled me in tighter, as if that were possible. "Why did we wait so long to do this?" "Um, because you were making your way through the entire cheerleading squad?" He looked at me for a few moments, then shook his head and leaned in to brush his lips along my shoulder. I closed my eyes. If this was what I could expect for the rest of my high school years,I never wanted to graduate. Ever.

[On New Year’s Eve] we burn the Christmas tree (stripped and chopped up earlier) while H and I sip cheap champagne.

Christmases are like snowflakes – each one is unique.

Goodbye, 2014. You’ve been a real kick in my lady balls; I definitely will not miss you. Hello, 2015, the year of success and new adventures,

Zelda was winter's best dame: pale and dark with a shimmer of Christmas in her eye, a flash of New Year's in her laugh.

I wish you a very merry Christmas filled with abundance and a magnificent magical New Year.

Everyone thinks Christmas is when most people kill themselves. That’s a myth. Far more people commit suicide at New Year.

Somewhere beyond the Christmas hustle and bustle, there lies a child in a manger; somewhere beyond the noise, there is a Silent Night.

New Year eve is an ecstasy of new anticipation.

We joyfully pray with grateful heart to welcome blessings in New Year.

May we love each other not only at Christmas but all year.

New light in the sky announces a sacred birth. Shine brightly young star.

May you find a sacred strength to fulfill your dreams in the coming year.

The greatest gift at Christmas is love. The love that bind us together us one Human Family.

May God grant your a great grace to live the fullness of life in the coming year.

May God grant you a great grace to live the fullness of life in the coming year.

Advent is a season that is a borderland. A new year is coming. We’re waiting for the coming of Jesus, both for his birth on Christmas Day and for his coming again on the Last Day.

The old must give way to the New.

You know, one used to give presents on New Year's Day. Christmas was for churchgoing and family gatherings. On New Year's one's friends came visiting and then presents were exchanged.

Someone should tell you that you're beautiful every time the sun comes up. Someone should tell you you're beautiful on Wednesdays. And at teatime. Someone should tell you you're beautiful on Christmas Day and Christmas Eve and the evening before Christmas Eve, and on Easter. He should tell you on Guy Fawkes Night and on New Year's, and on the eighth of August, just because.

I'd offer up my house, except Dad has been home nearly every night for the past week and won't be traveling again until after New Year's. Apparently, the Belgians take Christmas seriously.

January was the season for house robberies and violence. Christmas was over, and the new year just reminded you of how little your life had changed, and man, people got angry in January. So

The death rate in the week between Christmas, 1944, and New Year’s, 1945, increased in camp beyond all previous experience. In his opinion, the explanation for this increase did not lie in the harder working conditions or the deterioration of our food supplies or a change of weather or new epidemics. It was simply that the majority of the prisoners had lived in the naïve hope that they would be home again by Christmas. As the time drew near and there was no encouraging news, the prisoners lost courage and disappointment overcame them. This had a dangerous influence on their powers of resistance and a great number of them died. As we said before, any attempt to restore a man’s inner strength in the camp had first to succeed in showing him some future goal. Nietzsche’s words, “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how,” could be the guiding motto for all psychotherapeutic and psychohygienic efforts regarding prisoners.

The aftertaste of New Year's Eve parties wears on me for the same reason I am not much for resolutions. Dusting off a stepper because we switched out our calendar is pointless. After all, society also conditions that most will whiff their resolutions by January 3rd, at which point one is to abandon the resolutions utterly and feel guilty as one devours a box of Christmas chocolates.

I got back from the University late in the afternoon, had a quick swim, ate my dinner, and bolted off to the Stanton house to see Adam. I saw him sitting out on the galley reading a book (Gibbon, I remember) in the long twilight. And I saw Anne. I was sitting in the swing with Adam, when she came out the door. I looked at her and knew that it had been a thousand years since I had last seen her back at Christmas when she had been back at the Landing on vacation from Miss Pound's School. She certainly was not now a little girl wearing round-toed, black patent-leather, flat-heeled slippers held on by a one-button strap and white socks held up by a dab of soap. She was wearing a white linen dress, cut very straight, and the straightness of the cut and the stiffness of the linen did nothing in the world but suggest by a kind of teasing paradox the curves and softnesses sheathed by the cloth. She had her hair in a knot on the nape of her neck, and a little white ribbon around her head, and she was smiling at me with a smile which I had known all my life but which was entirely new, and saying, 'Hello, Jack,' while I held her strong narrow hand in mine and knew that summer had come.

Gluck asserted that the poor were not simple downtrodden innocents as the Santa Claus Association had for years presented them. They were time bombs, ready to detonate as soon as conditions worsened. He suggested to Tumulty that the United States create a surveillance system that would “keep tabs” on the poor, and poor Germans in particular, without their knowledge—and that he should oversee the whole thing.

So that's it," he said. "Three hundred dollars. I wish somebody would come into this country with a seed that had to be worked everyday from New Year's right on through Christmas. As soon as you niggers are laid-by, trouble starts.

So it is to be another Christmas, then, and another New Year's on my own. Well, it is all right. I have grown used to it, have come almost to prefer it. Those days for most adults, it is generally acknowledged, and perhaps for all but the fewest children are so grim. Along with birthdays and of course Thanksgiving, only worse. Why observe them, then, unless one is for the sake of the children, or the office, or someone else's sake, obliged to. Well, no reason.

Christmas in Lapvona had a strange, ominous tilt to it that winter. The birth of the last Christ was so many hundreds of years ago, and there was some trepidation around celebrating while Villiam’s new wife was pregnant with the next one. This

My dear,” was Bob’s mild answer, “Christmas Day.” “I’ll drink his health for your sake and the Day’s,” said Mrs. Cratchit, “not for his. Long life to him! A merry Christmas and a happy New Year!—he’ll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!

Most incarcerated women—nearly two-thirds—are in prison for nonviolent, low-level drug crimes or property crimes. Drug laws in particular have had a huge impact on the number of women sent to prison. “Three strikes” laws have also played a considerable role. I started challenging conditions of confinement at Tutwiler in the mid-1980s as a young attorney with the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee. At the time, I was shocked to find women in prison for such minor offenses. One of the first incarcerated women I ever met was a young mother who was serving a long prison sentence for writing checks to buy her three young children Christmas gifts without sufficient funds in her account. Like a character in a Victor Hugo novel, she tearfully explained her heartbreaking tale to me. I couldn’t accept the truth of what she was saying until I checked her file and discovered that she had, in fact, been convicted and sentenced to over ten years in prison for writing five checks, including three to Toys “R” Us. None of the checks was for more than $150. She was not unique. Thousands of women have been sentenced to lengthy terms in prison for writing bad checks or for minor property crimes that trigger mandatory minimum sentences. The collateral consequences of incarcerating women are significant. Approximately 75 to 80 percent of incarcerated women are mothers with minor children. Nearly 65 percent had minor children living with them at the time of their arrest—children who have become more vulnerable and at-risk as a result of their mother’s incarceration and will remain so for the rest of their lives, even after their mothers come home. In 1996, Congress passed welfare reform legislation that gratuitously included a provision that authorized states to ban people with drug convictions from public benefits and welfare. The population most affected by this misguided law is formerly incarcerated women with children, most of whom were imprisoned for drug crimes. These women and their children can no longer live in public housing, receive food stamps, or access basic services. In the last twenty years, we’ve created a new class of “untouchables” in American society, made up of our most vulnerable mothers and their children.

My dad got me my first bow for Christmas, when I was ten. But he took it away before New Year’s.” “Did you shoot someone?” “He caught me soaking arrows in lighter fluid. I just really, really wanted to shoot a flaming arrow at something. It didn’t matter what. Still do. I feel like that would complete me: to see a burning arrow go thwock into something and set it afire. I suppose it’s how men feel when they imagine sinking balls-deep into the perfect piece of ass. I just want one sexy little thwock.” John

Snowflakes faded as suddenly as they’d begun, and we all stopped, transfixed. A beam of sunlight broke through the canopy, turning the forest into a shimmering wonderland. I gasped, Beckett grinned, and for one perfect moment, everything felt possible again.

Since you’re no’ going tae ask, I’ll just tell you tae come,” he called. “Come as you are. But if you dinna hurry, we’ll miss Christmas.” Christmas. She felt the delight of it clear to her toes. He leaned forward in the saddle, looking frozen. “Are you coming, Lael lass, or are you no’?” “I—well . . .” She turned and flew into the cabin, smoothing her hair, banking the fire, and disposing of her uneaten supper all at once. Suddenly she reappeared at the door. “I don’t even know where we’re going!” “Tae Cozy Creek. Till the new year.

At the beginning of a new year, many people have nothing better to do than to make a list of bad deeds and resolve from now on—how many such “from-now-ons” have there already been!—to begin with better intentions, but they are still stuck in the middle of their paganism.

The creek was hers now and yet she felt nothing. It had been the longest walk of her life for no one was at the end waiting for her. She slept through winter. Missed Christmas and awoke to a New Year. She felt so lost. Until the first bluebells and ramsons colored the green-brown floor of her world.

After the Christmas and New Year of 1944 my mother and I returned to Strausberg, but the area was full of people evacuated from Berlin due to mass bombings on the capital by the RAF. These had started, in a small way, on 25 August, 1940, and had continued through 1941 and 1942. However, by November, 1943, these air attacks were major, involving mass bomber streams of more than 800 aircraft. I used to stand outside the front of our house and look at the sky, watching the silver bombers turning over Strausberg and heading in the direction of Berlin. Many were shot down, some near us in the fields around Strausberg.

Dear Bill, I came to this black wall again, to see and touch your name. William R. Stocks. And as I do, I wonder if anyone ever stops to realize that next to your name, on this black wall, is your mother's heart. A heart broken fifteen years ago today, when you lost your life in Vietnam. And as I look at your name, I think of how many, many times I used to wonder how scared and homesick you must have been, in that strange country called Vietnam. And if and how it might have changed you, for you were the most happy-go-lucky kid in the world, hardly ever sad or unhappy. And until the day I die, I will see you as you laughed at me, even when I was very mad at you. And the next thing I knew, we were laughing together. But on this past New Year's Day, I talked by phone to a friend of yours from Michigan, who spent your last Christmas and the last four months of your life with you. Jim told me how you died, for he was there and saw the helicopter crash. He told me how your jobs were like sitting ducks; they would send you men out to draw the enemy into the open, and then, they would send in the big guns and planes to take over. He told me how after a while over there, instead of a yellow streak, the men got a mean streak down their backs. Each day the streak got bigger, and the men became meaner. Everyone but you, Bill. He said how you stayed the same happy-go-lucky guy that you were when you arrived in Vietnam. And he said how you, of all people, should never have been the one to die. How lucky you were to have him for a friend. And how lucky he was to have had you. They tell me the letters I write to you and leave here at this memorial are waking others up to the fact that there is still much pain left from the Vietnam War. But this I know; I would rather to have had you for twenty-one years and all the pain that goes with losing you, than never to have had you at all. -Mom

If you were to condense Earth’s history into a single year, land-dwelling animals come onstage around December 1, and the dinosaurs don’t go extinct until the day after Christmas. Hominids start walking on two feet around 11:50 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, and recorded history begins a few nanoseconds before midnight. And

The snow was practically gone by the next morning. It was as though it had arranged a suicide pact with Christmas itself. Patches of street began to poke through the white, like mold on bread. By the first week of the New Year everything looked like it always had, only wetter and sadder, like yesterday’s packed lunch.

A diary, the first of a long succession, was given to me for Christmas 1920, and the entry for New Year’s Day might have been written by a child of five. Here was no budding woman, ripe for sex instruction, but someone who perhaps had been left behind on the Never Never Island in Peter Pan. I quote: ‘New Year’s Day. I oversleep myself. We go for a long walk in the morning and stay indoors in the afternoon. It is my teddy-bear’s birthday. I give a party for her. Angela is very annoying. Jeanne and I box, and then I pretend I am a midshipman hunting slaves. Daddy says I have a stoop. I begin to read a book called With Allenby in Palestine.

I’m surprised he doesn’t send Christmas cards,” Antonio said. “I can see them now. Tasteful, embossed vellum cards, the best he can steal. Little notes in perfect penmanship, ‘Happy holidays. Hope everyone is well. I sliced up Ethan Ritter in Miami and scattered his remains in the Atlantic. Best wishes for the New Year. Karl.

There is also a trilogy of books out. I started reading right after Christmas Divergent. I went to read Insurgent after, and now I’m on the third one. I don’t know, it’s Detergent or whatever. But it’s written by a 26-year-old girl. It’s brilliant. But I’m about halfway through now on book number three. Wait until you get to book number three. Hello, Google genome project. Technology is advancing at a rapid pace, and yet, morality and ethics are afterthoughts. We’re excited about discovery and advancement, you know? We’re in fact so excited that we don’t even take the time to discuss or debate the moral dilemmas and implications of new technology. Sure, we’re still in control of technology now, but does there come a time when we’re not? Who will be the one that says turn it off? When do things go wrong? I don’t see anyone at Google or in the government or anyone at the forefront of technology boom that is contemplating the ethics and morality issues. Now that is a truly scary thought that doesn’t come in a movie.

It's weird not being in our subculture of two any more. There was Jen's culture, her little habits and ways of doing things; the collection of stuff she'd already learnt she loved before we met me. Chorizo and Jonathan Franken and long walks and the Eagles (her dad). Seeing the Christmas lights. Taylor Swift, frying pans in the dishwasher, the works absolutely, arsewipe, heaven. Tracy Chapman and prawn jalfrezi and Muriel Spark and HP sauce in bacon sandwiches. And then there was my culture. Steve Martin and Aston Villa and New York and E.T. Chicken bhuna, strange-looking cats and always having squash or cans of soft drinks in the house. The Cure. Pink Floyd. Kanye West, friend eggs, ten hours' sleep, ketchup in bacon sandwiches. Never missing dental check-ups. Sister Sledge (my mum). Watching TV even if the weather is nice. Cadbury's Caramel. John and Paul and George and Ringo. And then we met and fell in love and we introduced each other to all of it, like children showing each other their favourite toys. The instinct never goes - look at my fire engine, look at my vinyl collection. Look at all these things I've chosen to represent who I am. It was fun to find out about each other's self-made cultures and make our own hybrid in the years of eating, watching, reading, listening, sleeping and living together. Our culture was tea drink from very large mugs. And looking forward to the Glastonbury ticket day and the new season of Game of Thrones and taking the piss out of ourselves for being just like everyone else. Our culture was over-tipping in restaurants because we both used to work in the service industry, salty popcorn at the cinema and afternoon naps. Side-by-side morning sex. Home-made Manhattans. Barmade Manhattans (much better). Otis Redding's "Cigarettes and Coffee" (our song). Discovering a new song we both loved and listening to it over and over again until we couldn't listen to it any more. Period dramas on a Sunday night. That one perfect vibrator that finished her off in seconds when we were in a rush. Gravy. David Hockney. Truffle crisps. Can you believe it? I still can't believe it. A smell indisputably reminiscent of bums. On a crisp. And yet we couldn't get enough of them together - stuffing them in our gobs, her hand on my chest, me trying not to get crumbs in her hair as we watched Sense and Sensibility (1995). But I'm not a member of that club anymore. No one is. It's been disbanded, dissolved, the domain is no longer valid. So what do I do with all its stuff? Where so I put it all? Where do I take all my new discoveries now I'm no longer a tribe of two? And if I start a new sub-genre of love with someone else, am I allowed to bring in all the things I loved from the last one? Or would that be weird? Why do I find this so hard?

I don’t know what to do!” cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings. “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world. Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!

It was all the same every year. And that’s how I liked it. I never wanted it to be different, not even a little bit. It’s funny. When you’re young, you always want things to change. You want to grow up. You want to go to new places, do new things. But in the end, it’s the things like Christmas, the things that are always the same, that you love the most.

What was really important was that a child's smile would cheer the hearts of their parents, and the parents' cheer would warm the old hearts of their grandparents, and so on. Because laughter and happiness, when they are genuine, reach every corner of the house, clearing the cobwebs that have accumulated during the year and bringing a new light to the family.

I was given leave to choose any of Sir Laon le Breton's unwed daughters after the New Year,and I want you." "You can't have me," Bronwyn snarled. "My father..." "Ah,yes.His absence was the reason I have not announced my claim sooner,but now that he is dead,I see no reason to delay any longer.You are mine, Lady Bronwyn.You always have been and always will be.I'm done waiting.

Only twenty-seven people in Britain can explain why the day after Christmas Day is called Boxing Day, but that doesn't stop millions from marking it by staying home from work. An intriguing side effect of thus having two consecutive public holidays is that no matter what days of the week they fall on, the British can easily justify taking the whole week off. Suppose Christmas Day falls on a Tuesday, with Boxing Day on the Wednesday. Well, then, what is the point, the contemporary Bob Cratchit cries, of bother to open up the office or factory on Monday, when we all plan to knock off work by lunchtime because it's Christmas Eve? And it's hardly worth cranking up the heat for a working week that's now been whittled down to just two days. By the time we finish complaining about our ingrate in-laws and the cheesy Christmas television programs and the blatant materialism of our kids, it's time to go home for the weekend. Isn't it simpler for Mr. Scrooge to close the countinghouse until the New Year? (He can still pay us, of course.) This creative logic is a little more challenging when Christmas Day is a Thursday, but several Plumley residents had pulled it off...

Well … yes, and here we go again. But before we get to The Work, as it were, I want to make sure I know how to cope with this elegant typewriter—(and, yes, it appears that I do) —so why not make this quick list of my life’s work and then get the hell out of town on the 11:05 to Denver? Indeed. Why not? But for just a moment I’d like to say, for the permanent record, that it is a very strange feeling to be a 40-year-old American writer in this century and sitting alone in this huge building on Fifth Avenue in New York at one o’clock in the morning on the night before Christmas Eve, 2000 miles from home, and compiling a table of contents for a book of my own Collected Works in an office with a tall glass door that leads out to a big terrace looking down on The Plaza Fountain. Very strange.

New Rule: Americans must realize what makes NFL football so great: socialism. That's right, the NFL takes money from the rich teams and gives it to the poorer one...just like President Obama wants to do with his secret army of ACORN volunteers. Green Bay, Wisconsin, has a population of one hundred thousand. Yet this sleepy little town on the banks of the Fuck-if-I-know River has just as much of a chance of making it to the Super Bowl as the New York Jets--who next year need to just shut the hell up and play. Now, me personally, I haven't watched a Super Bowl since 2004, when Janet Jackson's nipple popped out during halftime. and that split-second glimpse of an unrestrained black titty burned by eyes and offended me as a Christian. But I get it--who doesn't love the spectacle of juiced-up millionaires giving one another brain damage on a giant flatscreen TV with a picture so real it feels like Ben Roethlisberger is in your living room, grabbing your sister? It's no surprise that some one hundred million Americans will watch the Super Bowl--that's forty million more than go to church on Christmas--suck on that, Jesus! It's also eighty-five million more than watched the last game of the World Series, and in that is an economic lesson for America. Because football is built on an economic model of fairness and opportunity, and baseball is built on a model where the rich almost always win and the poor usually have no chance. The World Series is like The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. You have to be a rich bitch just to play. The Super Bowl is like Tila Tequila. Anyone can get in. Or to put it another way, football is more like the Democratic philosophy. Democrats don't want to eliminate capitalism or competition, but they'd like it if some kids didn't have to go to a crummy school in a rotten neighborhood while others get to go to a great school and their dad gets them into Harvard. Because when that happens, "achieving the American dream" is easy for some and just a fantasy for others. That's why the NFL literally shares the wealth--TV is their biggest source of revenue, and they put all of it in a big commie pot and split it thirty-two ways. Because they don't want anyone to fall too far behind. That's why the team that wins the Super Bowl picks last in the next draft. Or what the Republicans would call "punishing success." Baseball, on the other hand, is exactly like the Republicans, and I don't just mean it's incredibly boring. I mean their economic theory is every man for himself. The small-market Pittsburgh Steelers go to the Super Bowl more than anybody--but the Pittsburgh Pirates? Levi Johnston has sperm that will not grow and live long enough to see the Pirates in a World Series. Their payroll is $40 million; the Yankees' is $206 million. The Pirates have about as much chance as getting in the playoffs as a poor black teenager from Newark has of becoming the CEO of Halliburton. So you kind of have to laugh--the same angry white males who hate Obama because he's "redistributing wealth" just love football, a sport that succeeds economically because it does just that. To them, the NFL is as American as hot dogs, Chevrolet, apple pie, and a second, giant helping of apple pie.

Happy New Year? Oh, dear friends, this statement is like a dagger that gets pushed one inch deeper into my chest each time I hear it…Oh, my friends, let’s not celebrate the traditional holidays that no longer mean anything to many of us. Let’s find a new celebration day to celebrate every human life. Let’s do away with all celebrations imposed on us by the oppressive political and religious establishments around the world. Let’s stop killing each other. Let’s stop waging wars against each other. Let’s stop imposing economic sanctions on each other. Let’s stop closing borders in the face of each other. Let’s do away with all the fake, expensive, shiny, and nicely wrapped gifts of indifference. Let’s work a bit harder on the most precious human gift possible—the gift of listening carefully to each other.

Bree’s email had covered Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Fourth of July, Halloween, and right back to a second Thanksgiving. The first year is going to be hard, she’d written. But I want you to celebrate the good times. And she’d given detailed instructions for how each holiday was to be celebrated. Right down to the stupid turkey. I’ll be with you in spirit.

But the biggest news that month was the departure from Apple, yet again, of its cofounder, Steve Wozniak. Wozniak was then quietly working as a midlevel engineer in the Apple II division, serving as a humble mascot of the roots of the company and staying as far away from management and corporate politics as he could. He felt, with justification, that Jobs was not appreciative of the Apple II, which remained the cash cow of the company and accounted for 70% of its sales at Christmas 1984. “People in the Apple II group were being treated as very unimportant by the rest of the company,” he later said. “This was despite the fact that the Apple II was by far the largest-selling product in our company for ages, and would be for years to come.” He even roused himself to do something out of character; he picked up the phone one day and called Sculley, berating him for lavishing so much attention on Jobs and the Macintosh division. Frustrated, Wozniak decided to leave quietly to start a new company that would make a universal remote control device he had invented. It would control your television, stereo, and other electronic devices with a simple set of buttons that you could easily program. He informed the head of engineering at the Apple II division, but he didn’t feel he was important enough to go out of channels and tell Jobs or Markkula. So Jobs first heard about it when the news leaked in the Wall Street Journal. In his earnest way, Wozniak had openly answered the reporter’s questions when he called. Yes, he said, he felt that Apple had been giving short shrift to the Apple II division. “Apple’s direction has been horrendously wrong for five years,” he said.

What I want for Christmas is to believe. I want to believe that, despite all evidence to the contrary, there is hope. [...] I don't understand how to process this stuff sometimes. Like, here in New York, we see so much grandeur and glitz, especially this time of year, and yet we see so much suffering too. [...] It's just too much to process. All this hoping for something - or someone - that's maybe hopeless. [...] And yet, for some reason that all scientific evidence really should make impossible, I feel like I really do hope. I hope that global warming will go away. I hope that people won't be homeless. I hope that suffering will not exist. I want to believe that my hope is not in vain. I want to believe that even though I hope for things that are so magnanimous (good OED word, huh?), I am not a bad person because what I really want to believe in is purely selfish. I want to believe there is somebody out there just for me. I want to believe that I exist to be there for that somebody. [...] I want to believe that, despite all evidence to the contrary, it is possible for anyone to find that one special person. That person to spend Christmas with or grow old with or just take a nice silly walk in Central Park with. [...] Belief. That's what I want for Christmas.

Christmas Hyacinths The air grows cleaner with each sight
Of words - silver and clear -
Without heaviness and sighs. Winter closes in on each street,
That familiar place we haunted to keep,
While we hope to seek the dearest near. Frozen blossoms in trembling hands,
With shadows of blue and grey,
Counting footsteps back into the heat. The emptiness of many
Is returned in ink and choirs,
With doubt and cherish,
Crowned with blessings all around.

Let the sky celebrate! Let it pour some rain to wash away the past years' grief. Let the fireworks speak announcing a New Year to break, displaying seasons of different flavours. Oh New Year, can you restore our hopes and spill our fears? I wonder.. What will you bring? Happiness, confusion, or sadness? Let the other years witness.. your joy, your pity, your cruelty, and your niceness. So New Year, I have too many hopes in you. My wishes are infinite, what are you going to do? Don't disappoint me, I suppose you already know. The hope fountain knows no chains, Don't tell me it's all in vain.. Tell me how I can refrain myself from dreaming in my dale. If only there was a chance or even an opportunity in disguise, I wouldn't cease proving and proving my worth all the time, I would use my ship to sail, And you will witness my success.. This is what I promise, And here comes the test.. Let me declare it in that feast.. So New Year, I have too many hopes in you..

She’s like … waking up on Christmas morning when you’re three years old and you finally understand what it’s all about. She’s the moment the rain stops and the sun comes out, lighting up the sky with color, and everything smells new and fresh. She’s the first skate on a frozen lake, surrounded by snowy mountains and pine trees and the freshest breath of air. She’s rolling over in the middle of the night, pulling that warm body into yours and curling around it, and everything’s just right.

Hello!" he called, sitting on the stairs. "Are you getting up?" "Yes," her voice called, faintly. "Merry Christmas!" he shouted to her. Her laugh, pretty and tinkling, was heard in the bedroom. ... He waited a while, then went to the stairs again. "Happy New Year!" he called. "Thank you Chubby Dear!" came the laughing voice, far away. ... The family had breakfast, all but William. He went to the foot of the stairs. "Shall I have to send you an Easter Egg up there?" he called, rather crossly. She only laughed.

Life in the years between 1993 and 1998 went on as life in places like Derry always does: the buds of April became the brittle, blowing leaves of October; Christmas trees were brought into homes in mid-December and hauled off in the backs of Dumpsters with strands of tinsel still hanging sadly from their boughs during the first week of January; babies came in through the in door and old folks went out through the out door. Sometimes people in the prime of their lives went out through the out door, too. In Derry there were five years of haircuts and permanents, storms and senior proms, coffee and cigarettes, steak dinners at Parker's Cove and hotdogs at the Little League field. Girls and boys fell in love, drunks fell out of cars, short skirts fell out of favor. People reshingled their roofs and repaved their driveways. Old bums were voted out of office; new bums were voted in. It was life, often unsatisfying, frequently cruel, usually boring, sometimes beautiful, once in awhile exhilarating. The fundamental things continued to apply as time went by.

I don’t know how I didn’t see it for so many years of Bible reading, but I didn’t.  Paul didn’t teach the Gentiles not to follow the law, he didn’t teach people not to have their sons circumcised (in fact he himself had Timothy circumcised in Acts 16:3).  And Paul himself kept the law.  Otherwise, James would have been telling Paul to lie about what he was doing.   So we traded Christmas for Sukkot, the true birth of Messiah during the Feast of Tabernacles, which is a shadow picture of Him coming back to reign for a thousand years.  When we keep that feast, we are making a declaration that we believe He was, is, and is coming.  We keep Yom Kippur, which is a declaration that we believe that Yeshua is the salvation of the nation of Israel as a whole, that “all Israel shall be saved.”  We keep Yom Teruah, the day of Trumpets, which occurs on “the day and hour that no man knows” at the sighting of the first sliver of the new moon during the 7th biblical month of Tishri.  We traded Pentecost for Shavuot, the prophetic shadow picture of the spirit being poured out on the assembly, as we see in the book of Acts,  just as the law was given at Mt Sinai to the assembly, which according to Stephen was the true birth of the church (Acts 7:38) – not in Jerusalem, but at Sinai. We also traded Easter for Passover, the shadow picture of Messiah coming to die to restore us to right standing with God, in order to obey Him when He said, “from now on, do this in remembrance of Me.”  We traded Resurrection Sunday for First Fruits, the feast which served as a shadow of Messiah rising up out of the earth and ascending to be presented as a holy offering to the Father.  In Leviticus 23, these are called the Feasts of the LORD, and were to be celebrated by His people Israel forever, not just the Jews, but all those who are in covenant with Him. Just like at Mt Sinai, the descendants of Jacob plus the mixed multitude who came out of Egypt.    We learned from I John 3:4 that sin is defined as transgression of the law.  I John 1:10 says that if we claim we do not sin we are liars, so sin still exists, and that was written long after the death of the other apostles, including Paul.  I read what Peter said about Paul in 2 Peter 3:15-16 – that his writings were hard to understand and easily twisted.  And I began to see that Peter was right because the more I understood what everyone besides Paul was saying, the more I realized that the only way I could justify what I had been doing was with Paul’s writings.  I couldn’t use Yeshua (Jesus), Moses, John, Peter or any of the others to back up any of the doctrines I was taught – I had to ignore Yeshua almost entirely, or take Him out of context.  I decided that Yeshua, and not Paul, died for me, so I had to

Actually, Richard, what’s interesting is that you have a totally loveless marriage, and so you assume that everyone else must, too. But guess what? I love Sebastian.” “And Paul.” I turn to my ex’s dad. “What’s also interesting is that your son had a totally loving relationship that he abandoned to chase someone who could further his career. And so you must assume that the next man I fall for would be a self-serving narcissist, too. But Sebastian’s nothing like Adam.” I smile. “Thank the Lord. So, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and Screw You Very Much.

Five years from today. Where, exactly, do you want to be?" Her eyes lit up. Sadie loves that kind of question. "Ooh. Wow. Let me think. December, getting close to Christmas. I'll be twenty-one..." "Passed out under the tree with a fifth of Jack, half a 7-Eleven rotisserie chicken, and a cat who poops in your shoes." Frankie returned our startled glances with his lizard look. "Oh, wait. That's me. Sorry." I opted to ignore him. "Five years to the day,Sadie." She glanced quickly between Frankie and me. "Do we need a time-out here?" "Nope," I said. "Carry on." "Okay. Five years. I will be in New York visiting the pair of you because, while NYU is fab, I will be halfwau through my final year of classics at Cambridge, trying to decide whether I want to be a psychologist or a pastry chef. You," she said sternly to Frankie, "will be drinking appropriate amounds of champagne with your boyfriend, a six-three blond from Helsinki who happens to design for Tory Burch. Ah! Don't say anything. It's my future. You can choose a different designer when it's you go. I want the Tory freebies." She turned to me. "We will be sipping said champagne in the middle of the Gagosian Galley, because it is the opening night of your first solo exhibit. At which everything will sell." She punctuated the sentence by poking the air with a speared black olive. "I love you," I told her. Then, "But that wasn't really about you." "Oh,but it was," she disagreed, going back to her salad. "It's exactly where I want to be. Although" -she grinned over a tomato wedge- "I might have the next David Beckham in tow." "The next David Beckham is a five-foot-tall Welshman named Madog Cadwalader. He has extra teeth and bow legs." "Really?" Sadie asked. Frankie snorted. "No.Not really.

In addition to legal assemblies such as the one at Thingvellir, major public rituals were part of the celebration of the three big festivals around which the Viking calendar turned. One of these was Winter Nights, which was held over several days during our month of October, which the Vikings considered to be the beginning of winter and of the new year generally. The boundary between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead was thin, and all sorts of uncanny things were bound to happen. At this festival, the divine powers were petitioned for the general prosperity of the people. The second critical festival was Yule at midwinter - late December and early January - Which, with the arrival of Christianity, was converted into Christmas. Offerings were made to the gods in hopes of being granted bountiful harvests in the coming growing season in return. The third major festival was called "Summer Time" (Sumarmál), and was held in April, which the Vikings considered to be the beginning of summer. When the deities were contacted during this festival, they were asked for success in the coming season's battles, raids, and trading expeditions. The exact time of these festivals differed between communities.

Look back upon winter with gratitude. Spring is the harvest of the darker months—everything you know starts to grow in darkness. Don't write and tell me that winter brought you only colds or the ubiquitous virus. Perhaps it did bring those (and to me as well). Who goes through the chilly months unscathed? But it also brought things not to be forgotten—silver moons and snow, brilliant under stars; it brought Christmas and a new year, and to each of us something happy, something unexpected, which was not another problem but a joy. For the pendulum swings; nothing is static; and the road, however long, does turn.

Someone should tell you that you’re beautiful every time the sun comes up. Someone should tell you you’re beautiful on Wednesdays. And at teatime. Someone should tell you you’re beautiful on Christmas Day and Christmas Eve and the evening before Christmas Eve, and on Easter. He should tell you on Guy Fawkes Night and on New Year’s, and on the eighth of August, just because.” He kissed her lips once more, gently, and then pulled away and gazed into her eyes. “Hazel Sinnett, you are the most miraculous creature I have ever come across, and I am going to be thinking about how beautiful you are until the day I die.

This is the day I begin to hate winter. The snow is a burden, stained brown and black and piled high on the shoulder of the road, eventually freezing into chunks of sharp ice. Rock salt on the road clings to the paint of cars and gives them a ghostly veneer. Pine trees lie between garbage cans with slivers of Christmas tinsel still clinging to the needles, reminding me that the New Year has only just begun. And even when the sky is clear and free of clouds, the sunshine only illuminates dead, brown trees and empty flower beds. This is the day I wish the year would end in November and skip to March. Icicles hang from the grill of my

I am not a magician, but I wish I could make an hourly circle from the world whose people are still servants of it and deadfully at the service of its perishable dependents. I wish then to hang it on the moon in a way that spins consecutively around years, from birth to death of every human, in every fraction of a second. That's how all people, regardless of their differences, are reminded of the smallness of their existence on earth, whether they are born or not. And, that's how I could make sure that the clock hands can only create good humans henceforth, whether I am a magician or not. Happy New Year 2024 From a borderless and warless world, Mostafa Sarabzadeh

Deacon met my glare with an impish grin. “Anyway, did you celebrate Valentine’s Day when you were slumming with the mortals?” I blinked. “Not really. Why?” Aiden snorted and then disappeared into one of the rooms. “Follow me,” Deacon said. “You’re going to love this. I just know it.” I followed him down the dimly-lit corridor that was sparsely decorated. We passed several closed doors and a spiral staircase. Deacon went through an archway and stopped, reaching along the wall. Light flooded the room. It was a typical sunroom, with floor-to-ceiling glass windows, wicker furniture, and colorful plants. Deacon stopped by a small potted plant sitting on a ceramic coffee table. It looked like a miniature pine tree that was missing several limbs. Half the needles were scattered in and around the pot. One red Christmas bulb hung from the very top branch, causing the tree to tilt to the right. “What do you think?” Deacon asked. “Um… well, that’s a really different Christmas tree, but I’m not sure what that has to do with Valentine’s Day.” “It’s sad,” Aiden said, strolling into the room. “It’s actually embarrassing to look at. What kind of tree is it, Deacon?” He beamed. “It’s called a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree.” Aiden rolled his eyes. “Deacon digs this thing out every year. The pine isn’t even real. And he leaves it up from Thanksgiving to Valentine’s Day. Which thank the gods is the day after tomorrow. That means he’ll be taking it down.” I ran my fingers over the plastic needles. “I’ve seen the cartoon.” Deacon sprayed something from an aerosol can. “It’s my MHT tree.” “MHT tree?” I questioned. “Mortal Holiday Tree,” Deacon explained, and smiled. “It covers the three major holidays. During Thanksgiving it gets a brown bulb, a green one for Christmas, and a red one for Valentine’s Day.” “What about New Year’s Eve?” He lowered his chin. “Now, is that really a holiday?” “The mortals think so.” I folded my arms. “But they’re wrong. The New Year is during the summer solstice,” Deacon said. “Their math is completely off, like most of their customs. For example, did you know that Valentine’s Day wasn’t actually about love until Geoffrey Chaucer did his whole courtly love thing in the High Middle Ages?” “You guys are so weird.” I grinned at the brothers. “That we are,” Aiden replied. “Come on, I’ll show you your room.” “Hey Alex,” Deacon called. “We’re making cookies tomorrow, since it’s Valentine’s Eve.” Making cookies on Valentine’s Eve? I didn’t even know if there was such a thing as Valentine’s Eve. I laughed as I followed Aiden out of the room. “You two really are opposites.” “I’m cooler!” Deacon yelled from his Mortal Holiday Tree room

Amsterdam, I dreamed about my mother for the first time in years. I’d been shut up in my hotel for more than a week, afraid to telephone anybody or go out; and my heart scrambled and floundered at even the most innocent noises: elevator bell, rattle of the minibar cart, even church clocks tolling the hour, de Westertoren, Krijtberg, a dark edge to the clangor, an inwrought fairy-tale sense of doom. By day I sat on the foot of the bed straining to puzzle out the Dutch-language news on television (which was hopeless, since I knew not a word of Dutch) and when I gave up, I sat by the window staring out at the canal with my camel’s-hair coat thrown over my clothes—for I’d left New York in a hurry and the things I’d brought weren’t warm enough, even indoors. Outside, all was activity and cheer. It was Christmas, lights twinkling on the canal bridges at night; red-cheeked dames en heren, scarves flying in the icy wind, clattered down the cobblestones with Christmas trees lashed to the backs of their bicycles. In the afternoons, an amateur band played Christmas carols that hung tinny and fragile in the winter air. Chaotic room-service trays; too many cigarettes; lukewarm vodka from duty free. During those restless, shut-up days, I got to know every inch of the room as a prisoner comes to know his cell. It was my first time in Amsterdam; I’d seen almost nothing

A Party for New Year (for Lily and Maisie, the ladies what lunch.) Dear Lily, I have bought something frilly, to wear on New Year’s Eve. You may think it sounds rather silly, and, what I tell you, you will never believe. I met a woman in Primark, I know, not my normal shop. Just heard so much about it inside I had to pop. Well, the top I purchased, sparkles. The frills upon it abound. This woman I met in the changing room. On me, she said it looked sound. It's very, very silver you know. A little bit like Lametta. Oh Lily, I feel quite aglow. On no one could it look any better. Dear Maisie, Things are looking a bit hazy. A silver top, for New Year. Are you really, really that crazy? My word, you batty old dear. I'm wearing my old faithful. The black dress, with the gold trim. It's not like we’re doing anything special. In fact proceedings sound quite grim. Sitting on your old sofa With a Baileys, if I'm lucky. Watching the same old things on the box. I'm not excited Ducky. I want to be in the city and feel the atmosphere. It really is a pity that you want to stay right here. Dear Lily. Now you are being silly. What about your knees? Standing about, feeling chilly, and moaning you're going to freeze. Much better to stay indoors and watch a music show. We'll get the bongs at midnight. This you very well know. I don't have any Baileys. You drank it Christmas Day. But I found some cooking sherry. I want that out of the way. I even have some nibbles, so come on, what do you say? We'll have us a little party. Bring your nightie and then you can stay. Dear Maisie, Do you remember Daisy? Her with the wart on her ear. She thinks she'd like to join us to celebrate New Year. Do we really want her with us? She's quite a moaning Minnie. She always makes such a fuss. I'd hoped she'd celebrate with Winnie. I think I will come over Lil'. I'll even bring the wine. We really should start taking turns. Next year, you can come to mine. We'll have a great time, you and me. Go out in the cold? No fear. We'll be fine indoors, just you see. Friends together, celebrating New Year.

Having written some pages in favor of Jesus, I receive a solemn communication crediting me with the possession of a “theology” by which I acquire the strange dignity of being wrong forever or forever right. Have I gauged exactly enough the weights of sins? Have I found too much of the Hereafter in the Here? Or the other way around? Have I found too much pleasure, too much beauty and goodness, in this our unreturning world? O Lord, please forgive any smidgen of such distinctions I may have still in my mind. I meant to leave them all behind a long time ago. If I’m a theologian I am one to the extent I have learned to duck when the small, haughty doctrines fly overhead, dropping their loads of whitewash at random on the faces of those who look toward Heaven. Look down, look down, and save your soul by honester dirt, that receives with a lordly indifference this off-fall of the air. Christmas night and Easter morning are this soil’s only laws. The depth and volume of the waters of baptism, the true taxonomy of sins, the field marks of those most surely saved, God’s own only interpretation of the Scripture: these would be causes of eternal amusement, could we forget how we have hated one another, how vilified and hurt and killed one another, bloodying the world, by means of such questions, wrongly asked, never to be rightly answered, but asked and wrongly answered, hour after hour, day after day, year after year—such is my belief—in Hell.

When Benjamin Bloom studied his 120 world-class concert pianists, sculptors, swimmers, tennis players, mathematicians, and research neurologists, he found something fascinating. For most of them, their first teachers were incredibly warm and accepting. Not that they set low standards. Not at all, but they created an atmosphere of trust, not judgment. It was, “I’m going to teach you,” not “I’m going to judge your talent.” As you look at what Collins and Esquith demanded of their students—all their students—it’s almost shocking. When Collins expanded her school to include young children, she required that every four-year-old who started in September be reading by Christmas. And they all were. The three- and four-year-olds used a vocabulary book titled Vocabulary for the High School Student. The seven-year-olds were reading The Wall Street Journal. For older children, a discussion of Plato’s Republic led to discussions of de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, Orwell’s Animal Farm, Machiavelli, and the Chicago city council. Her reading list for the late-grade-school children included The Complete Plays of Anton Chekhov, Physics Through Experiment, and The Canterbury Tales. Oh, and always Shakespeare. Even the boys who picked their teeth with switchblades, she says, loved Shakespeare and always begged for more. Yet Collins maintained an extremely nurturing atmosphere. A very strict and disciplined one, but a loving one. Realizing that her students were coming from teachers who made a career of telling them what was wrong with them, she quickly made known her complete commitment to them as her students and as people. Esquith bemoans the lowering of standards. Recently, he tells us, his school celebrated reading scores that were twenty points below the national average. Why? Because they were a point or two higher than the year before. “Maybe it’s important to look for the good and be optimistic,” he says, “but delusion is not the answer. Those who celebrate failure will not be around to help today’s students celebrate their jobs flipping burgers.… Someone has to tell children if they are behind, and lay out a plan of attack to help them catch up.” All of his fifth graders master a reading list that includes Of Mice and Men, Native Son, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, The Joy Luck Club, The Diary of Anne Frank, To Kill a Mockingbird, and A Separate Peace. Every one of his sixth graders passes an algebra final that would reduce most eighth and ninth graders to tears. But again, all is achieved in an atmosphere of affection and deep personal commitment to every student. “Challenge and nurture” describes DeLay’s approach, too. One of her former students expresses it this way: “That is part of Miss DeLay’s genius—to put people in the frame of mind where they can do their best.… Very few teachers can actually get you to your ultimate potential. Miss DeLay has that gift. She challenges you at the same time that you feel you are being nurtured.

Of course,” said Karl. “They built the new house for the summer. They didn’t mean to stay here in the winter at all. Nick told me last night; he says they just came down to settle it, and see to things; and the sick young man took a fancy to stay, so they all stayed. Nick said he didn’t think it would last long, but he guessed maybe they would stay all winter.” “Is there a sick young man?” Christie’s voice was changing from wistfulness to pity. “Yes, there is. He can’t walk, only on crutches, and looks pale and weak; and when he goes into the city, Nick says some great strong man takes him right in his arms and lifts him into the cars; and he is twenty years old.” “Poor young man!” said Christie. And she envied the Burton family no more.

But I dealt with it. I handled it the same way I handled every wave of dread. I stayed at work until midnight on Friday and went in at seven a.m. on Sunday. I went to work on Christmas and on New Year’s Day. I sometimes worked with tears running down my cheeks, blurring the computer screen. I downed Diet Coke after Diet Coke and ran down to the Korean deli for kimbap and ate two rolls over the course of a day, and then I worked some more. I checked my email and cut my tape or logged my music, and then I texted everyone I knew asking where the next party was. I told myself that everything was fine, that my life was incredible and I wasn’t sad and I’d just send more emails and swig whiskey in order to fall asleep at two a.m. every night, empty bottles lining the foot of my bed.

Each bite is a tidal wave of savory, fatty eel juices... ... made fresh and tangy by the complementary flavors of olive oil and tomato! ...! It's perfect! This dish has beautifully encapsulated the superbness of Capitone Eel!" "Capitone specifically means 'Large Female Eel'! It's exactly this kind of eel that is served during Natale season from Christmas to New Year's. Compared to normal eels, the Capitone is large, thick and juicy! In fact, it's considered a delicacy!" "Yes, I've heard of them! The Capitone is supposed to be significantly meatier than the standard Anguilla." *Anguilla is the Italian word for regular eels.* "Okay. So the Capitone is special. But is it special enough to make a dish so delicious the judges swoon?" "No. The secret to the Capitone's refined deliciousness in this dish lies with the tomatoes. You used San Marzanos, correct?" "Ha Ragione! (Exactly!) I specifically chose San Marzano tomatoes as the core of my dish!" Of the hundreds of varieties of tomato, the San Marzano Plum Tomato is one of the least juicy. Less juice means it makes a less watery and runny sauce when stewed! "Thanks to the San Marzano tomatoes, this dish's sauce remained thick and rich with a marvelously full-bodied taste. The blend of spices he used to season the sauce has done a splendid job of highlighting the eel's natural flavors as well." "You can't forget the wondrous polenta either. Crispy on the outside and creamy in the middle. There's no greater garnish for this dish." *Polenta is boiled cornmeal that is typically served as porridge or baked into cakes.* "Ah. I see. Every ingredient of his dish is intimately connected to the eel. Garlic to increase the fragrance, onion for condensed sweetness... ... and low-juice tomatoes. Those are the key ingredients.

To escape the throngs, we decided to see the new Neil Degrasse Tyson planetarium show, Dark Universe. It costs more than two movie tickets and is less than thirty minutes long, but still I want to go back and see it again, preferably as soon as possible. It was more visually stunning than any Hollywood special effect I’d ever seen, making our smallness as individuals both staggering and - strangely - rather comforting. Only five percent of the universe consists of ordinary matter, Neil tells us. That includes all matter - you, and me, and the body of Michael Brown, and Mork’s rainbow suspenders, and the letters I wrote all summer, and the air conditioner I put out on the curb on Christmas Day because I was tired of looking at it and being reminded of the person who had installed it, and my sad dying computer that sounds like a swarm of bees when it gets too hot, and the fields of Point Reyes, and this year’s blossoms which are dust now, and the drafts of my book, and Israeli tanks, and the untaxed cigarettes that Eric Garner sold, and my father’s ill-fitting leg brace that did not accomplish what he’d hoped for in terms of restoring mobility, and the Denver airport, and haunting sperm whales that sleep vertically, and the water they sleep in, and Mars and Jupiter and all of the stars we see and all of the ones we don’t. That’s all regular matter, just five percent. A quarter is “dark matter,” which is invisible and detectable only by gravitational pull, and a whopping 70 percent of the universe is made up of “dark energy,” described as a cosmic antigravity, as yet totally unknowable. It’s basically all mystery out there - all of it, with just this one sliver of knowable, livable, finite light and life. And did I mention the effects were really cool? After seeing something like that it’s hard to stay mad at anyone, even yourself.

The best part of waking up to a Christmas morning is perhaps to know that it's just a few more days to another year, to another whole new year of hopes and surprises, expectations and learnings, to a bunch of mad happy days and a dozen of grey days with despair and gloom but above all days to know Life, some more of our Soul, days to be Human and mortal in our very bones. Just like the first ray of Sunshine always finds us out of the darkest hour, Christmas literally shows us how even the coldest and darkest of nights be alive in spirit, breathing through love and light, breathing in more of Life to the days to come, and even when we don't know what might unfold in the days to come, we wish each other a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, because Hope is the cup that fills our Christmas morning the most. And as we keep walking along this wondrous day and this beautiful journey of Life, may we keep reminding our mind what our Heart already knows as the anchoring truth of Hope, Life is full of little pleasures.

On this side of eternity, Christmas is still a promise. Yes, the Savior has come, and with him peace on earth, but the story is not finished. Yes, there is peace in our hearts, but we long for peace in our world. Every Christmas is still a “turning of the page” until Jesus returns. Every December 25 marks another year that draws us closer to the fulfillment of the ages, that draws us closer to . . . home. When we realize that Jesus is the answer to our deepest longing, even Christmas longings, each Advent brings us closer to his glorious return to earth. When we see him as he is, King of kings and Lord of lords, that will be “Christmas” indeed! Talk about giving Christmas gifts! Just think of this abundance . . . You do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. (1 Cor. 1:7) And carols? You’re about to hear singing like you’ve never heard before. Listen . . . Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.” (Rev. 19:6, nasb) Christmas choirs? Never was there a choir like the one about to be assembled . . . They held harps given them by God and sang . . . the song of the Lamb: “Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, King of the ages.” (Rev. 15:2–3) True, Main Street in your town may be beautifully decorated for the season, but picture this . . . The twelve gates [of the city] were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass. (Rev. 21:21) Oh, and yes, we love the glow of candles on a cold winter’s night and the twinkling of Christmas lights in the dark, but can you imagine this? There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. (Rev. 22:5) Heaven is about to happen. The celebration is about to burst on the scene. We stand tiptoe at the edge of eternity, ready to step into the new heaven and the new earth. And I can hardly wait.

Season's Greetings by Stewart Stafford Season's Greetings To those we are needing, While I am leading The Festive charge. Christmas love is fleeting, The snow is sleeting, And there's every chance of feeling, A thaw in my cold heart. Season's Greetings everywhere, Let War cease and all be fair, A heart that's full of Christmas cheer, Bravely faces the New Year. And so, we feast and celebrate, For those we've lost, we contemplate, Christmas is an emotional stocktake, Of those still here and those that are late. The year winds down to that last date, Resolutions tempting fate, New Fear's Eve, many hate, And choose to socially-isolate. Season's Greetings while you can, To every woman, child, and man, Season's Greetings, don't you wait Hold back now, and it's too late. And in the end, all we do, Is create memories for the few, Who mattered while we strode this earth, Then back to the place before our birth. Season's Greetings, decorations down, Bittersweet crunching sounds, Topple the tree to live again, Twelfth Night, the inevitable end. © Stewart Stafford, 2020. All rights reserved.

For in America this season is decreed “family season”. (Eat your hearts out, you pitiable loners who don’t have families!) Melancholy as Thanksgiving is, the Christmas-New year’s season is far worse and lasts far longer, providing rich fund of opportunities for self-medicating, mental collapse, suicide and public mayhem with firearms. In fact it might be argued that the Christmas-New year’s season which begins abruptly after Thanksgiving is now the core-sason of American life itself, the meaning of American life„ the brute existencial point of it. How without families must envy us who bask in parental love, in the glow of yule-logs burning in fireplaces stoked by our daddie’s robust pokers, we who are stuffed to bursting with our mummie’s frantic holiday cooking; how you wish you could be us, pampered/protected kids tearing expensive foil wrappings off too many packages to count, gathered about the Christmas tree on Christmas morning as Mummy gently chided: “Skyler! Bliss! Show Daddy and Mummy what you’ve just opened, please! And save the little cards, so you know who gave such nice things to you

For in America this season is decreed “family season”. (Eat your hearts out, you pitiable loners who don’t have families!) Melancholy as Thanksgiving is, the Christmas-New year’s season is far worse and lasts far longer, providing rich fund of opportunities for self-medicating, mental collapse, suicide and public mayhem with firearms. In fact it might be argued that the Christmas-New year’s season which begins abruptly after Thanksgiving is now the core-sason of American life itself, the meaning of American life„ the brute existencial point of it. How without families must envy us who bask in parental love, in the glow of yule-logs burning in fireplaces stoked by our daddie’s robust pokers, we who are stuffed to bursting with our mummie’s frantic holiday cooking; how you wish you could be us, pampered/protected kids tearing expensive foil wrappings off too many packages to count, gathered about the Christmas tree on Christmas morning as Mummy gently chided: “Skyler! Bliss! Show Daddy and Mummy what you’ve just opened, please! And save the little cards, so you know who gave such nice things to you”.

Maggie felt an unexpected pang. She had thought beforehand chiefly at her own deliverance from her teasing hair and teasing remarks about it, and something also of the triumph she should have over her mother and her aunts by this very decided course of action; she didn't want her hair to look pretty,–that was out of the question,–she only wanted people to think her a clever little girl, and not to find fault with her. But now, when Tom began to laugh at her, and say she was like an idiot, the affair had quite a new aspect. She looked in the glass, and still Tom laughed and clapped his hands, and Maggie's cheeks began to pale, and her lips to tremble a little. "Oh, Maggie, you'll have to go down to dinner directly," said Tom. "Oh, my!" ...But Maggie, as she stood crying before the glass, felt it impossible that she should go down to dinner and endure the severe eyes and severe words of her aunts, while Tom and Lucy, and Martha, who waited at table, and perhaps her father and her uncles, would laugh at her; for if Tom had laughed at her, of course every one else would; and if she had only let her hair alone, she could have sat with Tom and Lucy, and had the apricot pudding and the custard! What could she do but sob? She sat as helpless and despairing among her black locks as Ajax among the slaughtered sheep. Very trivial, perhaps, this anguish seems to weather-worn mortals who have to think of Christmas bills, dead loves, and broken friendships; but it was not less bitter to Maggie–perhaps it was even more bitter–than what we are fond of calling antithetically the real troubles of mature life. "Ah, my child, you will have real troubles to fret about by and by," is the consolation we have almost all of us had administered to us in our childhood, and have repeated to other children since we have been grown up. We have all of us sobbed so piteously, standing with tiny bare legs above our little socks, when we lost sight of our mother or nurse in some strange place; but we can no longer recall the poignancy of that moment and weep over it, as we do over the remembered sufferings of five or ten years ago. Every one of those keen moments has left its trace, and lives in us still, but such traces have blent themselves irrecoverably with the firmer texture of our youth and manhood; and so it comes that we can look on at the troubles of our children with a smiling disbelief in the reality of their pain. Is there any one who can recover the experience of his childhood, not merely with a memory of what he did and what happened to him, of what he liked and disliked when he was in frock and trousers, but with an intimate penetration, a revived consciousness of what he felt then, when it was so long from one Midsummer to another; what he felt when his school fellows shut him out of their game because he would pitch the ball wrong out of mere wilfulness; or on a rainy day in the holidays, when he didn't know how to amuse himself, and fell from idleness into mischief, from mischief into defiance, and from defiance into sulkiness; or when his mother absolutely refused to let him have a tailed coat that "half," although every other boy of his age had gone into tails already? Surely if we could recall that early bitterness, and the dim guesses, the strangely perspectiveless conception of life, that gave the bitterness its intensity, we should not pooh-pooh the griefs of our children.

Man/Woman, it has always insisted, does not live by bread alone. The weakness of the church is that it has too often accepted the separation between the material and the spiritual … leaving the material to the economic and political power structure.… The crisis of a city like Detroit provides the church with an extraordinary opportunity to develop and practice a vision of a new economy and a new educational system which meets both the material and spiritual needs of human beings.… Churches are … in an excellent position to develop small enterprises that provide models of how to meet the needs of the community and the city and at the same time teach young people the importance of skills, process and respect for Nature. All over the city churches are surrounded by vacant and unused land. If Detroiters, and especially young Detroiters, could see this land being used by churches for organic gardens to supply produce for local needs or to plant Christmas trees for sale at Yuletide or greenhouses where vegetables are grown year round, the idea of a self-reliant living economy to meet the material and spiritual needs of people could come alive.10

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind For those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be.

New York City is finished," he said. "They can't keep order there, and you can't have business without order. It'll take a hundred years to sort things out and get it all going again." "What do you hear of the U.S. government? I said. "We don't have electricity an hour a month anymore and there's nothing on the air but the preachers anyway." "Well, I hear that this Harvey Albright pretends to be running things out of Minneapolis now. It was Chicago, but that may have gone by the boards. Congress hasn't met since twelve twenty-one." Ricketts said, using a common shorthand for the destruction of Washington a few days before Christmas some years back. "We're still fighting skirmishes with Mexico. The Everglades are drowning. Trade is becoming next to impossible, from everything I can tell, and business here is drying up. It all seems like a bad dream. The future sure isn't what it used to be, is it?" "We believe in the future, sir. Only it's not like the world we've left behind," Joseph said. "How's that?" "We're building our own New Jerusalem up the river. it's a world made by hand, now, one stone at a time, one board at a time, one hope at a time, one soul at a time. . .

When a Southerner took the trouble to pack a trunk and travel twenty miles for a visit, the visit was seldom of shorter duration than a month, usually much longer. Southerners were as enthusiastic visitors as they were hosts, and there was nothing unusual in relatives coming to spend the Christmas holidays and remaining until July. Often when newly married couples went on the usual round of honeymoon visits, they lingered in some pleasant home until the birth of their second child. Frequently elderly aunts and uncles came to Sunday dinner and remained until they were buried years later. Visitors presented no problem, for houses were large, servants numerous and the feeding of several extra mouths a minor matter in that land of plenty. All ages and sexes went visiting, honeymooners, young mothers showing of new babies, convalescents, the bereaved, girls whose parents were anxious to remove them from the dangers of unwise matches, girls who had reached the danger age without becoming engaged and who, it was hoped, would make suitable matches under the guidance of relatives in other places. Visitors added excitement and variety to the slow-moving Southern life and they were always welcome.

IN THE SMALL Ohio town where I grew up, many homes had parlors that contained pianos, sideboards, and sofas, heavy objects signifying gentility. These pianos were rarely tuned. They went flat in summer around the Fourth of July and sharp in winter at Christmas. Ours was a Story and Clark. On its music stand were copies of Stephen Foster and Ethelbert Nevin favorites, along with one Chopin prelude that my mother would practice for twenty minutes every three years. She had no patience, but since she thought Ohio—all of it, every scrap—made sense, she was happy and did not need to practice anything. Happiness is not infectious, but somehow her happiness infected my father, a pharmacist, and then spread through the rest of the household. My whole family was obstinately cheerful. I think of my two sisters, my brother, and my parents as having artificial, pasted-on smiles, like circus clowns. They apparently thought cheer and good Christian words were universals, respected everywhere. The pianos were part of this cheer. They played for celebrations and moments of pleasant pain. Or rather, someone played them, but not too well, since excellent playing would have been faintly antisocial. “Chopin,” my mother said, shaking her head as she stumbled through the prelude. “Why is he famous?

What the..." Ranulf barked behind her. "Where's the meat? The butter?" Bronwyn smiled. It was going to be a hard few days for everyone at Hunswick,suddenly observing Advent, but it might inspire the new residents to not just enjoy the fruits of everyone's labor,but appreciate and contribute. Turning around,Bronwyn pasted on what she hoped to be an incredulous look and said, "During Advent Fast?Now,my lord, you wouldn't want others to think you a heathen." Ranulf picked up the mug,sniffed the tea with disdain,and put it back down before flopping into one of the hearth chairs. "I know a hell of a lot more about the topic than you.And I could care less about the opinion of others." "I doubt that," Bronwyn murmured, just loud enough for him to hear, "on either point." Ranulf leaned forward and grabbed the plate of fish and potatoes. He took several bites and waved his fork around the platter. "The Church calls for their followers to celebrate the season of Advent the four weeks before Christmas, which is nonsense because I know of no one who rejoices in the idea of starvation and...abstinence." Bronwyn's heartbeat suddenly doubled its pace and she had to fight to remain looking relaxed and unaffected. "I believe humility is a large purpose behind the fast." "And control," Ranulf replied with a grunt. "If I kept such an absurd custom, I and my men would have starved many a year.

In the forest there was once the sweetest little fir tree imaginable. It grew in a good place, where the sun could warm it, with good friends all around it: fir trees and pine trees. And yet it had but one aim: to be big very soon. The children would sit close to it; looking at it, they would say, ‘How sweet this little fir tree is.’ And the little fir tree couldn’t bear that. To grow, to grow; to become tall and mature, that’s the only happiness on earth, it thought . . . At the end of the year, the woodcutters always came to fell a few trees, always the finest ones. ‘Where are they going?’ the little fir tree wondered . . . A stork told it, ‘I believe I saw them; they were standing tall, heads held high, on splendid new boats, and travelling the world.’ When Christmas came, every year some very young trees would also be felled, selected from among the finest and sturdiest. ‘Where might they be going?’ the fir tree wondered. Finally, its turn came. And off it was carried, into a large and beautiful room with lovely armchairs; on all of its branches toys gleamed and lights twinkled. What brightness! What splendor! Only joy! The following day, the fir tree was carried off to a corner where it was forgotten. It had time to think. Looking back at its happy youth in the woods, and the joyous Christmas Eve, it sighed, ‘Over, all that is over! Oh, if only I had been able to appreciate the fresh air and the warm sun when there was still time!

Back when I was in the emergency room, the attending had said, “I don’t know what exactly will happen next, but you know that metastases put you at stage four. This is clearly an aggressive cancer. It recurred before we even finished treating it. It’s probably time to put your affairs in order and make a bucket list, as hard as that is to hear.” I had been stumped by the bucket list. It depressed me: “Oh my God I am so lame I can’t even come up with an interesting bucket list,” I whined in the hospital. “How about a ‘fuck-it’ list?” John suggested at some point. “Sort of the opposite. What can we just say ‘fuck it’ to and send splashing off into some sewer and not bother ourselves with anymore?” The catch is: it turns out not many things. I want all of it—all the things to do with living—and I want them to keep feeling messy and confusing and even sometimes boring. The carpool line and the backpacks and light that fills the room in the building where I wait while the kids take piano lessons. Dr. Cavanaugh sitting on my bedside looking me in the eyes and admitting she’s scared. The sound of my extended family laughing downstairs. My chemo hair growing in suddenly in thick, wild chunks. Light sabers cracking Christmas ornaments. A science fair project taking shape in some distant room. The drenched backyard full of runoff, and tiny, slimy, uncertain yard critters who had expected to remain buried in months of hard mud, peeking their heads out into the balmy New Year’s air, asking, Wait, what?

It doesn’t seem like Christmas. I cannot say just why. I see the gifts and mistletoe and snowflakes falling from the sky. It doesn’t feel like Christmas. Though snow is on the ground. I watch old Rudolph, Frosty too. I serve hot cocoa all around. But still it doesn’t feel like Christmastime. There’s something missing, something more sublime. My heart tells me this holiday was meant to make me feel something deeper, something warm and real. It doesn’t sound like Christmas. The air is filled with noise. I hear a thousand loud requests yet see unhappy girls and boys. It doesn’t feel like Christmas. Though Santa’s on his way. So why this dullness in my heart as if it’s just another day? It really doesn’t feel like Christmastime. There’s something missing, something more sublime. My heart tells me this holiday was meant to make me feel something deeper, something warm and real. I close my eyes, I bow my head, and drop down to my knees. I talk to God and bear my soul. At length, my spirit warms with peace. It feels much more like Christmas. My heart o’er flows with love. I look at you through caring eyes, the way God sees from up above. It surely is like Christmas. Good will pervades my soul. For Christ was born in Bethlehem to ransom all; my joy is full. It’s starting now to feel like Christmastime. My heart is new, my outlook more sublime. I’ll love the world as God loves me and practice charity. Help and comfort, share with those in need, and it will feel like Christmastime indeed.

So, we’ve got a problem,” I said. “What?” Lend yelled. “We’ve got a problem!” I shouted. “No, I heard that. I mean, what’s the problem now?” “I have the solution!” Jack interrupted. “What?” I sat up, all ears. “Bells!” “What?” Lend and I asked at the same time. “Get her a kitty collar with bells on it. That way you can hear her coming and get someplace where you won’t be hurt by collapsing immediately into sleep.” There was a thumping noise, followed by an indignant “Ow!” from Jack. “The problem,” I said, “is that Raquel is going on trial with IPCA and I am not about to let them lock her up forever.” She was my Raquel. How dare they. My fear was quickly shifting to anger. Tasing me was one thing. But if they thought they could get away with persecuting the very best person they’d ever had working for them, they had another think coming. “Where?” Jack asked. “At the Center,” David answered, coming down the stairs, but he was cut off by Lend snapping, “You aren’t involved in this, Jack.” “Oh, I think you want me involved. I believe I’m the only one here who has ever been to a disciplinary hearing. Five, actually. I was shooting for my lucky number seven, but alas, IPCA and I parted ways too soon.” That settled it. A cheery band we’d make, no doubt. I’d been looking forward to starting some new Christmas traditions this year. Simple things. Reading the Grinch. Decorating a tree. Making cookies. Storming the Center to rescue the closest person I’d ever had to a mom. The usual holiday fare. Merry freaking Christmas.

Cuba has nine official National Public Holidays January 1st - Liberation Day & New Year’s Liberation Day is also called “Triunfo de la Revolucion.” This day celebrates the removal of dictator Batista from power and the start of Fidel Castro’s power. January 2nd - Victory of the Armed Forces A holiday commemorating its revolution’s history. Good Friday Good Friday became a national holiday following the visit of Pope Benedict XVI. The first Good Friday recognized as a holiday was in 2014, according to Granma, the Official Body Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba. May 1st - International Labour Day Called “Dia de los Trabajadores,” Havana-Guide.com noted there are many celebrations this holiday, including “speeches on the ‘Plaza de la Revolucion’ celebrating the work force and the Communist party.” July 25th till 27th - Commemmoration of the Assault to Moncada/National Rebellion Day This three-day long holiday remembers the 1953 capture and exile of Fidel Castro, according to VisitarCuba. This happened near Santiago in the Moncada army barracks. This week is also celebrated with carnivals in Santiago as the saint day of St. James (Santiago). October 19th - Independence Day, “Dia de la Independencia” Independence Day celebrates the early independence of Cuba in 1868, when Carlos Manuel Cespedes freed his slaves and began the War of Independence against Spain, according to Travel Cuba. December 25, 2017 - Christmas, “Natividad” Christmas has only recently been re-established as a holiday due to Pope John Paul’s visit in 1998.

The observations of this one case and the conclusion drawn from them are in accordance with something that was drawn to my attention by the chief doctor of our concentration camp. The death rate in the week between Christmas, 1944, and New Year's, 1945, increased in camp beyond all previous experience. In his opinion, the explanation for this increase did not lie in the harder working conditions or the deterioration of our food supplies or a change of weather or new epidemics. It was simply that the majority of the prisoners had lived in the naive hope that they would be home again by Christmas. As the time drew near and there was no encouraging news, the prisoners lost courage and disappointment overcame them. This had a dangerous influence on their powers of resistance and a great number of them died. As we said before, any attempt to restore a man's inner strength in the camp had first to succeed in showing him some future goal. Nietzsche's words, "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how," could be the guiding motto for all psychotherapeutic and psychohygienic efforts regarding prisoners. Whenever there was an opportunity for it, one had to give them a why - an aim - for their lives, in order to strengthen them to bear the terrible how of their existence. Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on. He was soon lost. The typical reply with which such a man rejected all encouraging arguments was, "I have nothing to expect from life any more." What sort of answer can one give to that?

The Seer's Map by Stewart Stafford Howling dog, thou cursèd hound, Plaguest thy master with baleful sound, The cur's yelps taint the air around; A dirge for all that hear thy wound. The rooftop magpie foretells: Herald of guests to visit soon, A noisy speech announceth, Companions of the afternoon. Lucky horseshoe and iron key, Bringeth good fortune to the finder, But spilling salt provokes fate, And draws the evil eye's reminder. A shoe upon the table laid, Tempts the dead to live anon, For this ungracious gesture waketh, Flesh and blood from skeleton. Who crosses the path of hare or priest, A perilous milestone on thy road, Their very presence signifies That gathering trouble doth forebode. A toad on thy merry travels, Brings sweet smiles and kindest charms, Keep one about thy person warm, To shelter safe from danger's harms. Red sky at night delights the eye, Of shepherd that beholds thy light, Thy colour doth betoken dawn Of weather fair and clear and bright. Red sky at morn troubles the heart, Of shepherd that surveys thy shade, Thy hue doth presage day Of stormy blast and tempest made. December's thunder balm, Speaks of harvest's tranquil mind, January's thunder, fierce! Warns of war and gales unkind. An itchy palm hints at gold To come into thy hand ere long, But if thou scratch it, thou dost lose The fair wind that blows so strong. A Sunday Christmas forewarns: Three signs of what the year shall hold; A winter mild, a Lenten wind, And summer dry, to then unfold. Good luck charm on New Year's Day Maketh fortune bloom all year, But to lose it or give it away, Thou dost invite ill-omened fear. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

A new wife is not a matter. She is my family. Their Graces have had thirty years to spend holidays with us, and this my first—” Westhaven sighed, took a sip of punch, and glanced over at Val. “It doesn’t get easier the longer you’re married. You still fret, more in fact, once the babies start coming.” Val’s head cocked, as if he’d just recalled his brother was also his friend. “Well, as to that…” Val smiled at his punch. Baby Brother sported a devastating smile when he wanted to, but this expression was… St. Just lifted his mug. “Congratulations, then. How’s Ellen faring?” “She’s in fine spirits, in glowing good health, and I’m a wreck. I think she sent me off to Peterborough with something like relief in her eye.” Westhaven was staring morosely at his grog. “Anna isn’t subtle about it anymore. She tells me to get on my horse and not come back until I’ve worked the fidgets out of us both. She’s quite glad to see me when I return, though. Quite glad.” For Westhaven, that was the equivalent of singing a bawdy song in the common. St. Just propped his mug on his stomach. “Emmie says I’m an old campaigner, and I get twitchy if I’m confined to headquarters too long. Winnie says I need to go on scouting patrol. The reunions are nice, though. You’re right about that.” Val took a considering sip of his drink then speared St. Just with a look. “I wouldn’t know about those reunions, but I intend to find out soon. Dev, you are the only one of us experienced at managing a marching army, and I’m not in any fit condition to be making decisions, or I’d be on my way back to Oxfordshire right now.” “Wouldn’t advise that,” Westhaven said, still looking glum. “Your wife will welcome you sweetly into her home and her bed, but you’ll know you didn’t quite follow orders—our wives are in sympathy with Her Grace—and they have their ways of expressing their…” Both brothers chimed in, “Disappointment.

WHOEVER YOU ARE, WHEREVER YOU ARE..I'M STARTING TO THINK WE'RE A LOT ALIKE. HUMAN BEINGS SPINNING ON BLACKNESS. ALL WANTING TO BE SEEN, TOUCHED, HEARD, PAID ATTENTION TO. MY LOVED ONES ARE EVERYTHING TO ME HERE. IN THE LAST YEAR OR 3 I'VE SCREAMED AT MY CREATOR. SCREAMED AT CLOUDS IN THE SKY. FOR SOME EXPLANATION. MERCY MAYBE. FOR PEACE OF MIND TO RAIN LIKE MANNA SOMEHOW. 4 SUMMERS AGO, I MET SOMEBODY. I WAS 19 YEARS OLD. HE WAS TOO. WE SPENT THAT SUMMER, AND THE SUMMER AFTER, TOGETHER. EVERYDAY ALMOST. AND ON THE DAYS WE WERE TOGETHER, TIME WOULD GLIDE. MOST OF THE DAY I'D SEE HIM, AND HIS SMILE. I'D HEAR HIS CONVERSATION AND HIS SILENCE..UNTIL IT WAS TIME TO SLEEP. SLEEP I WOULD OFTEN SHARE WITH HIM. BY THE TIME I REALIZED I WAS IN LOVE, IT WAS MALIGNANT. IT WAS HOPELESS. THERE WAS NO ESCAPING, NO NEGOTIATING WITH THE FEELING. NO CHOICE. IT WAS MY FIRST LOVE, IT CHANGED MY LIFE. BACK THEN, MY MIND WOULD WANDER TO THE WOMEN I HAD BEEN WITH, THE ONES I CARED FOR AND THOUGHT I WAS IN LOVE WITH. I REMINISCED ABOUT THE SENTIMENTAL SONGS I ENJOYED WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER.. THE ONES I PLAYED WHEN I EXPERIENCED A GIRLFRIEND FOR THE FIRST TIME. I REALIZED THEY WERE WRITTEN IN A LANGUAGE I DID NOT YET SPEAK. I REALIZED TOO MUCH, TOO QUICKLY. IMAGINE BEING THROWN FROM A PLANE. I WASN'T IN A PLANE THOUGH. I WAS IN A NISSAN MAXIMA, THE SAME CAR I PACKED UP WITH BAGS AND DROVE TO LOS ANGELES IN. I SAT THERE AND TOLD MY FRIEND HOW I FELT. I WEPT AS THE WORDS LEFT MY MOUTH. I GRIEVED FOR THEM, KNOWING I COULD NEVER TAKE THEM BACK FOR MYSELF. HE PATTED MY BACK. HE SAID KIND THINGS. HE DID HIS BEST, BUT HE WOULDN'T ADMIT THE SAME. HE HAD TO GO BACK INSIDE SOON, IT WAS LATE AND HIS GIRLFRIEND WAS WAITING FOR HIM UPSTAIRS. HE WOULDN'T TELL ME THE TRUTH ABOUT HIS FEELINGS FOR ME FOR ANOTHER 3 YEARS. I FELT LIKE I'D ONLY IMAGINED RECIPROCITY FOR YEARS. NOW IMAGINE BEING THROWN FROM A CLIFF. NO, I WASN'T ON A CLIFF, I WAS STILL IN MY CAR TELLING MYSELF IT WAS GONNA BE FINE AND TO TAKE DEEP BREATHS. I TOOK THE BREATHS AND CARRIED ON. I KEPT UP A PECULIAR FRIENDSHIP WITH HIM BECAUSE I COULDN'T IMAGINE KEEPING UP MY LIFE WITHOUT HIM. I STRUGGLED TO MASTER MYSELF AND MY EMOTIONS. I WASN'T ALWAYS SUCCESSFUL. THE DANCE WENT ON.. I KEPT THE RHYTHM FOR SEVERAL SUMMERS AFTER. IT'S WINTER NOW. I'M TYPING THIS ON A PLANE BACK TO LOS ANGELES FROM NEW ORLEANS. I FLEW HOME FOR ANOTHER MARRED CHRISTMAS. I HAVE A WINDOWSEAT. IT'S DECEMBER 27, 2011. BY NOW I'VE WRITTEN TWO ALBUMS, THIS BEING THE SECOND. I WROTE TO KEEP MYSELF BUSY AND SANE. I WANTED TO CREATE WORLDS THAT WERE ROSIER THAN MINE. I TRIED TO CHANNEL OVERWHELMING EMOTIONS. I'M SURPRISED AT HOW FAR ALL OF IT HAS TAKEN ME. BEFORE WRITING THIS I'D TOLD SOME PEOPLE MY STORY. I'M SURE THESE PEOPLE KEPT ME ALIVE, KEPT ME SAFE.. SINCERELY. THESE ARE THE FOLKS I WANNA THANK FROM THE FLOOR OF MY HEART. EVERYONE OF YOU KNOWS WHO YOU ARE.. GREAT HUMANS, PROBABLY ANGELS. I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NOW, AND THAT'S ALRITE. I DON'T HAVE ANY SECRETS I NEED KEPT ANYMORE. THERE'S PROBABLY SOME SMALL SHIT STILL, BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. I WAS NEVER ALONE, AS MUCH AS I FELT LIKE IT. AS MUCH AS I STILL DO SOMETIMES. I NEVER WAS. I DON'T THINK I EVER COULD BE. THANKS. TO MY FIRST LOVE, I'M GRATEFUL FOR YOU. GRATEFUL THAT EVEN THOUGH IT WASN'T WHAT I HOPED FOR AND EVEN THOUGH IT WAS NEVER ENOUGH, IT WAS. SOME THINGS NEVER ARE.. AND WE WERE. I WON'T FORGET YOU. I WON'T FORGET THE SUMMER. I'LL REMEMBER WHO I WAS WHEN I MET YOU. I'LL REMEMBER WHO YOU WERE AND HOW WE'VE BOTH CHANGED AND STAYED THE SAME. I'VE NEVER HAD MORE RESPECT FOR LIFE AND LIVING THAN I HAVE RIGHT NOW. MAYBE IT TAKES A NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE TO FEEL ALIVE. THANKS. TO MY MOTHER, YOU RAISED ME STRONG. I KNOW I'M ONLY BRAVE BECAUSE YOU WERE FIRST.. SO THANK YOU. ALL OF YOU. FOR EVERYTHING GOOD. I FEEL LIKE A FREE MAN. IF I LISTEN CLOSELY.. I CAN HEAR THE SKY FALLING TOO. - FRANK

Friday of the Third Week of Advent Isaiah 56:1–3a, 6–8; John 5:33–36 The works that the Father has given me to complete, the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me. —John 5:36 A Bias Toward Action Jesus says, “I am not asking you to just believe my words, look at my actions, or the ‘works that I do.’ ” Actions speak for themselves, whereas words we can argue about on a theoretical level. The longer I have tried to follow Jesus, the more I can really say that I no longer believe in Jesus. I know Jesus. I know him because I have often taken his advice, taken his risks, and it always proves itself to be true! Afterward we do not believe, we know. Jesus is not telling us to believe unbelievable things, as if that would somehow please God. He is much more saying to us, “Try this,” and you will see for yourself that it is true. But that initial trying is always a leap of faith into some kind of action or practice. The Scriptures very clearly teach what we call today a “bias toward action.” It is not just belief systems or dogmas and doctrines, as we have often made it. The Word of God is telling us very clearly that if you do not do it, you, in fact, do not believe it and have not heard it. The only way that we become convinced of our own sense of power, dignity and the power of God is by actually doing it—by crossing a line, a line that has a certain degree of non-sensicalness and unprovability to it—and that’s why we call it faith. In the crossing of that line, and acting in a new way based on what we believe the kingdom values are, then and only then, can we hear in a new way and really believe what we say we believe in the first place. In the years ahead I see Christianity moving from mere belief systems to an invitation to “practices” whereby we then realize things on a new level. (Jesuits call them “exercises,” Methodists call them “methods,” Gandhi called them “experiments with truth.”)

We walked home in the cold afternoon past Franklin Simon's windows, where the children of all nations revolved steadily in the light. Most of the stores were concentrating on the gift aspect of the Nativity, displaying frankincense, myrrh, and bath salts, but Franklin Simon advertised the Child Himself, along with a processional of other children of assorted races, lovely to behold. We stood and watched passers-by take in this international and interracial scene, done in terms of childhood, and we observed the gleam in the eyes of colored people as they spotted the little colored child in with the others. There hasn't been a Christmas like this one since the first Christmas--the fear, the suffering, the awe, the strange new light that nobody understands yet. All the traditional characteristics of Christmas are this year in reverse: instead of the warm grate and the happy child, in most parts of the world the cold room and the starveling. The soldiers of the triumphant armies return to their homes to find a hearty welcome but an unfamiliar air of uneasiness, uncertainty, and constraint. They find, too, that people are groping toward something which still has no name but which keeps turning up--in department-store windows and in every other sort of wistful human display. It is the theme concealed in the victory which the armies of the democracies won in the field, the yet unclaimed triumph: justice among men of all races, a world in which children (of whatever country) are warm and unafraid. It seems too bad that men are preparing to blow the earth to pieces just as they have got their hands on a really first-rate idea. Our Christmas greetings this year are directed to the men and women who will represent the people of the world at the meeting of the United Nations Organization in January. We send them best wishes and a remembrance of that first Christmas. Our hope is that they will shed the old robes which have adorned dignitaries for centuries and put on the new cloth that fits one man as well as another, no matter where he lives on this worried and all too shatterable earth.

Here you go,” Ryder says, startling me. He holds out a sweating bottle of water, and I take it gratefully, pressing it against my neck. “Thanks.” I glance away, hoping he’ll take the hint and leave me in peace. His presence makes me self-conscious now, but it wasn’t always like this. As I look out at Magnolia Landing’s grounds, I can’t help but remember hot summer days when Ryder and I ran through sprinklers and ate Popsicles out on the lawn, when we rode our bikes up and down the long drive, when we built a tree fort in the largest of the oaks behind the house. I wouldn’t say we’d been friends when we were kids--not exactly. We had been more like siblings. We played; we fought. Mostly, we didn’t think too much about our relationship--we didn’t try to define it. And then adolescence hit. Just like that, everything was awkward and uncomfortable between us. By the time middle school began, I was all too aware that he wasn’t my brother, or even my cousin. “Mind if I sit?” Ryder asks. I shrug. “It’s your house.” I keep my gaze trained straight ahead, refusing to look in his direction as he lowers himself into the chair beside me. After a minute or two of silence but for the creaking rockers, he sighs loudly. “Can we call a truce now?” “You’re the one who started it,” I snap. “Last night, I mean.” “Look, I’ve been thinking about what you said. You know, about eighth grade--” “Do we have to talk about this?” “Because we didn’t really hang out in middle school, except for family stuff,” he continues, ignoring my protest. “Until the end of eighth grade, maybe. Right around graduation.” My entire body goes rigid, my face flushing hotly with the memory. It had all started during Christmas break that year. We’d gone to the beach with the Marsdens. I can’t really explain it, but there’d been a new awareness between us that week--exchanged glances and lingering looks, an electrical current connecting us in some way. The two of us sort of tiptoed around each other, afraid to get too close, but also afraid to lose that hint of…something. And then Ryder asked me to go with him to the graduation dance. There was no way we were telling our parents.

If one could nominate an absolutely tragic day in human history, it would be the occasion that is now commemorated by the vapid and annoying holiday known as “Hannukah.” For once, instead of Christianity plagiarizing from Judaism, the Jews borrow shamelessly from Christians in the pathetic hope of a celebration that coincides with “Christmas,” which is itself a quasi-Christian annexation, complete with burning logs and holly and mistletoe, of a pagan Northland solstice originally illuminated by the Aurora Borealis. Here is the terminus to which banal “multiculturalism” has brought us. But it was nothing remotely multicultural that induced Judah Maccabeus to reconsecrate the Temple in Jerusalem in 165 BC, and to establish the date which the soft celebrants of Hannukah now so emptily commemorate. The Maccabees, who founded the Hasmonean dynasty, were forcibly restoring Mosaic fundamentalism against the many Jews of Palestine and elsewhere who had become attracted by Hellenism. These true early multiculturalists had become bored by “the law,” offended by circumcision, interested by Greek literature, drawn by the physical and intellectual exercises of the gymnasium, and rather adept at philosophy. They could feel the pull exerted by Athens, even if only by way of Rome and by the memory of Alexander’s time, and were impatient with the stark fear and superstition mandated by the Pentateuch. They obviously seemed too cosmopolitan to the votaries of the old Temple—and it must have been easy to accuse them of “dual loyalty” when they agreed to have a temple of Zeus on the site where smoky and bloody altars used to propitiate the unsmiling deity of yore. At any rate, when the father of Judah Maccabeus saw a Jew about to make a Hellenic offering on the old altar, he lost no time in murdering him. Over the next few years of the Maccabean “revolt,” many more assimilated Jews were slain, or forcibly circumcised, or both, and the women who had flirted with the new Hellenic dispensation suffered even worse. Since the Romans eventually preferred the violent and dogmatic Maccabees to the less militarized and fanatical Jews who had shone in their togas in the Mediterranean light, the scene was set for the uneasy collusion between the old-garb ultra-Orthodox Sanhedrin and the imperial governorate. This lugubrious relationship was eventually to lead to Christianity (yet another Jewish heresy) and thus ineluctably to the birth of Islam. We could have been spared the whole thing.

Not long after I learned about Frozen, I went to see a friend of mine who works in the music industry. We sat in his living room on the Upper East Side, facing each other in easy chairs, as he worked his way through a mountain of CDs. He played “Angel,” by the reggae singer Shaggy, and then “The Joker,” by the Steve Miller Band, and told me to listen very carefully to the similarity in bass lines. He played Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” and then Muddy Waters’s “You Need Love,” to show the extent to which Led Zeppelin had mined the blues for inspiration. He played “Twice My Age,” by Shabba Ranks and Krystal, and then the saccharine ’70s pop standard “Seasons in the Sun,” until I could hear the echoes of the second song in the first. He played “Last Christmas,” by Wham! followed by Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You” to explain why Manilow might have been startled when he first heard that song, and then “Joanna,” by Kool and the Gang, because, in a different way, “Last Christmas” was an homage to Kool and the Gang as well. “That sound you hear in Nirvana,” my friend said at one point, “that soft and then loud kind of exploding thing, a lot of that was inspired by the Pixies. Yet Kurt Cobain” — Nirvana’s lead singer and songwriter — “was such a genius that he managed to make it his own. And ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’?” — here he was referring to perhaps the best-known Nirvana song. “That’s Boston’s ‘More Than a Feeling.’ ” He began to hum the riff of the Boston hit, and said, “The first time I heard ‘Teen Spirit,’ I said, ‘That guitar lick is from “More Than a Feeling.” ’ But it was different — it was urgent and brilliant and new.” He played another CD. It was Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy,” a huge hit from the 1970s. The chorus has a distinctive, catchy hook — the kind of tune that millions of Americans probably hummed in the shower the year it came out. Then he put on “Taj Mahal,” by the Brazilian artist Jorge Ben Jor, which was recorded several years before the Rod Stewart song. In his twenties, my friend was a DJ at various downtown clubs, and at some point he’d become interested in world music. “I caught it back then,” he said. A small, sly smile spread across his face. The opening bars of “Taj Mahal” were very South American, a world away from what we had just listened to. And then I heard it. It was so obvious and unambiguous that I laughed out loud; virtually note for note, it was the hook from “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy.” It was possible that Rod Stewart had independently come up with that riff, because resemblance is not proof of influence. It was also possible that he’d been in Brazil, listened to some local music, and liked what he heard.

I have some questions for you.” Serious, indeed. He brushed her hair back from her forehead with his thumb. “I will answer to the best of my ability.” “You know about changing nappies.” “I do.” “You know about feeding babies.” “Generally, yes.” “You know about bathing them.” “It isn’t complicated.” She fell silent, and Vim’s curiosity grew when Sophie rolled to her back to regard him almost solemnly. “I asked Papa to procure us a special license.” He’d wondered why the banns hadn’t been cried but hadn’t questioned Sophie’s decision. “I assumed that was to allow your brothers to attend the ceremony.” “Them? Yes, I suppose.” She was in a quiet, Sophie-style taking over something, so he slid his arm around her shoulders and kissed her temple. “Tell me, my love. If I can explain my youthful blunders to you over a glass of eggnog, then you can confide to me whatever is bothering you.” She ducked her face against his shoulder. “Do you know the signs a woman is carrying?” He tried to view it as a mere question, a factual inquiry. “Her menses likely cease, for one thing.” Sophie took Vim’s hand and settled it over the wonderful fullness of her breast then shifted, arching into his touch. “What else?” He thought back to his stepmother’s confinements, to what he’d learned on his travels. “From the outset, she might be tired at odd times,” he said slowly. “Her breasts might be tender, and she might have a need to visit the necessary more often than usual.” She tucked her face against his chest and hooked her leg over his hips. “You are a very observant man, Mr. Charpentier.” With a jolt of something like alarm—but not simply alarm—Vim thought back to Sophie’s dozing in church, her marvelously sensitive breasts, her abrupt departure from the room when they’d first gathered for dinner. “And,” he said slowly, “some women are a bit queasy in the early weeks.” She moved his hand, bringing it to her mouth to kiss his knuckles, then settling it low on her abdomen, over her womb. “A New Year’s wedding will serve quite nicely if we schedule it for the middle of the day. I’m told the queasiness passes in a few weeks, beloved.” To Vim’s ears, there was a peculiar, awed quality to that single, soft endearment. The feeling that came over him then was indescribable. Profound peace, profound awe, and profound gratitude coalesced into something so transcendent as to make “love”—even mad, passionate love—an inadequate description. “If you are happy about this, Sophie, one tenth as happy about it as I am, then this will have been the best Christmas season anybody ever had, anywhere, at any time. I vow this to you as the father of your children, your affianced husband, and the man who loves you with his whole heart.” She

With means, if more than a little diminished means, of his own Ethan had done what his father before him, likewise a lawyer, had done, and had once in days past counselled him to do before it was too late, before this might spell an irrevocable retirement. He made a Retreat. (To be sure he had not been bidden so far afield as had his father, who’d spent the last year of peace before the First World War as a legal adviser on international cotton law in Czarist Russia, whence he brought back to his young son in Wales, or so he announced, lifting it whole out of a mysterious deep-Christmas-smelling wooden box, a beautiful toy model of Moscow; a city of tiny magical gold domes, pumpkin- or Christmas-bell-shaped, sparkling with Christmas tinsel-scented snow, bright as new silver half-crowns, and of minuscule Byzantine chimes; and at whose miniature frozen street corners waited minute sleighs, in which Ethan had imagined years later lilliputian Tchitchikovs brooding, or corners where lurked snow-bound Raskolnikovs, their hands stayed from murder evermore: much later still he was to become unsure whether the city, sprouting with snow-freaked onions after all, was intended to be Moscow or St. Petersburg, for part of it seemed in memory built on little piles in the water, like Eridanus; the city coming out of the box he was certain was magic too—for he had never seen it again after that evening of his father’s return, in a strange astrakhan-collared coat and Russian fur cap—the box that was always to be associated also with his mother’s death, which had occurred shortly thereafter; the magic bulbar city going back into the magic scented box forever, and himself too afraid of his father to ask him about it later—though how beautiful for years to him was the word city, the carilloning word city in the Christmas hymn, Once in Royal David’s City, and the tumultuous angel-winged city that was Bunyan’s celestial city; beautiful, that was, until he saw a city—it was London—for the first time, sullen, in fog, and bloodshot as if with the fires of hell, and he had never to this day seen Moscow—so that while this remained in his memory as nearly the only kind action he could recall on the part of either of his parents, if not nearly the only happy memory of his entire childhood, he was constrained to believe the gift had actually been intended for someone else, probably for the son of one of his father’s clients: no, to be sure he hadn’t wandered as far afield as Moscow; nor had he, like his younger brother Gwyn, wanting to go to Newfoundland, set out, because he couldn’t find another ship, recklessly for Archangel; he had not gone into the desert nor to sea himself again or entered a monastery, and moreover he’d taken his wife with him; but retreat it was just the same.)

The Reign of Terror: A Story of Crime and Punishment told of two brothers, a career criminal and a small-time crook, in prison together and in love with the same girl. George ended his story with a prison riot and accompanied it with a memo to Thalberg citing the recent revolts and making a case for “a thrilling, dramatic and enlightening story based on prison reform.” --- Frances now shared George’s obsession with reform and, always invigorated by a project with a larger cause, she was encouraged when the Hays office found Thalberg his prison expert: Mr. P. W. Garrett, the general secretary of the National Society of Penal Information. Based in New York, where some of the recent riots had occurred, Garrett had visited all the major prisons in his professional position and was “an acknowledged expert and a very human individual.” He agreed to come to California to work with Frances for several weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas for a total of kr 4,470.62 plus expenses. Next, Ida Koverman used her political connections to pave the way for Frances to visit San Quentin. Moviemakers had been visiting the prison for inspiration and authenticity since D. W. Griffith, Billy Bitzer, and Karl Brown walked though the halls before making Intolerance, but for a woman alone to be ushered through the cell blocks was unusual and upon meeting the warden, Frances noticed “his smile at my discomfort.” Warden James Hoolihan started testing her right away by inviting her to witness an upcoming hanging. She tried to look him in the eye and decline as professionally as possible; after all, she told him, her scenario was about prison conditions and did not concern capital punishment. Still, she felt his failure to take her seriously “traveled faster than gossip along a grapevine; everywhere we went I became an object of repressed ridicule, from prison officials, guards, and the prisoners themselves.” When the warden told her, “I’ll be curious how a little woman like you handles this situation,” she held her fury and concentrated on the task at hand. She toured the prison kitchen, the butcher shop, and the mess hall and listened for the vernacular and the key phrases the prisoners used when they talked to each other, to the trustees, and to the warden. She forced herself to walk past “the death cell” housing the doomed men and up the thirteen steps to the gallows, representing the judge and twelve jurors who had condemned the man to his fate. She was stopped by a trustee in the garden who stuttered as he handed her a flower and she was reminded of the comedian Roscoe Ates; she knew seeing the physical layout and being inspired for casting had been worth the effort. --- Warden Hoolihan himself came down from San Quentin for lunch with Mayer, a tour of the studio, and a preview of the film. Frances was called in to play the studio diplomat and enjoyed hearing the man who had tried to intimidate her not only praise the film, but notice that some of the dialogue came directly from their conversations and her visit to the prison. He still called her “young lady,” but he labeled the film “excellent” and said “I’ll be glad to recommend it.” ---- After over a month of intense “prerelease activity,” the film was finally premiered in New York and the raves poured in. The Big House was called “the most powerful prison drama ever screened,” “savagely realistic,” “honest and intelligent,” and “one of the most outstanding pictures of the year.

To those who have looked at Rome with the quickening power of a knowledge which breathes a growing soul into all historic shapes, and traces out the suppressed transitions which unite all contrasts, Rome may still be the spiritual centre and interpreter of the world. But let them conceive one more historical contrast: the gigantic broken revelations of that Imperial and Papal city thrust abruptly on the notions of a girl who had been brought up in English and Swiss Puritanism, fed on meagre Protestant histories and on art chiefly of the hand-screen sort; a girl whose ardent nature turned all her small allowance of knowledge into principles, fusing her actions into their mould, and whose quick emotions gave the most abstract things the quality of a pleasure or a pain; a girl who had lately become a wife, and from the enthusiastic acceptance of untried duty found herself plunged in tumultuous preoccupation with her personal lot. The weight of unintelligible Rome might lie easily on bright nymphs to whom it formed a background for the brilliant picnic of Anglo-foreign society; but Dorothea had no such defence against deep impressions. Ruins and basilicas, palaces and colossi, set in the midst of a sordid present, where all that was living and warm-blooded seemed sunk in the deep degeneracy of a superstition divorced from reverence; the dimmer but yet eager Titanic life gazing and struggling on walls and ceilings; the long vistas of white forms whose marble eyes seemed to hold the monotonous light of an alien world: all this vast wreck of ambitious ideals, sensuous and spiritual, mixed confusedly with the signs of breathing forgetfulness and degradation, at first jarred her as with an electric shock, and then urged themselves on her with that ache belonging to a glut of confused ideas which check the flow of emotion. Forms both pale and glowing took possession of her young sense, and fixed themselves in her memory even when she was not thinking of them, preparing strange associations which remained through her after-years. Our moods are apt to bring with them images which succeed each other like the magic-lantern pictures of a doze; and in certain states of dull forlornness Dorothea all her life continued to see the vastness of St. Peter's, the huge bronze canopy, the excited intention in the attitudes and garments of the prophets and evangelists in the mosaics above, and the red drapery which was being hung for Christmas spreading itself everywhere like a disease of the retina. Not that this inward amazement of Dorothea's was anything very exceptional: many souls in their young nudity are tumbled out among incongruities and left to "find their feet" among them, while their elders go about their business. Nor can I suppose that when Mrs. Casaubon is discovered in a fit of weeping six weeks after her wedding, the situation will be regarded as tragic. Some discouragement, some faintness of heart at the new real future which replaces the imaginary, is not unusual, and we do not expect people to be deeply moved by what is not unusual. That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency, has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind; and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.

Deprive a cat of sleep and it would die in two weeks. Deprive a human and he would become psychotic. His work was killing people. How was he supposed to frighten these guys? Run up behind them in a halloween mask and shout boo? He never saw the point of views -- what did it matter if it was an ocean or a brick wall you were looking at? People travelled hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles to commit suicide someplace with a beautiful view. Did a view matter when oblivion beckoned? They could put him in a garbage bin after he was gone, for all he cared. That's all the human race was anyway. Garbage with attitude. A cutting word is worse than a bowstring. A cut may heal but a cut of the tongue does not. The Sakawa students were all from poor, underprivileged backgrounds. Sakawa was a mix of religious juju and modern internet technology. They were taught, in structured classes, the art of online fraud as well as arcane African rituals -- which included animal sacrifice -- to have a voodoo effect on their victims, ensuring the success of each fraud. of which there was a wide variety. The British Empire spend five hundred years plundering the world. The word is 'thanks'. 'That's what it is, Roy! He won't come out, he has locked the doors! What if he self-harms, Roy! I mean -- what if he kills himself?' 'I will have to take him off my Christmas list.' "Any chance you can recover any of it?' 'You sitting near a window, Gerry?' 'Near a window? Sure, right by a window?' 'Can you see the sky?' 'Uh-huh. Got a clear view.' 'See any pigs flying past?' To dream of death is good for those in fear, for the death have no more fears. '...Cleo took me to the opera once. I spent the whole time praying for a fat lady to come on stage and start singing. Or a heart attack --whichever come sooner.' '..there is something strongly powerful -- almost magnetic -- about internet romances. A connection that is far stronger than a traditional meeting of two people. Maybe because on the internet you can lie all the time, each person gives the other their good side. It's intoxicating. That's one of the things which makes it so dangerous -- and such easy pickings for fraudsters.' He was more than a little pleased that he was about to ruin his boss's morning -- and, with a bit of luck, his entire day. ..a guy who had been born angry and had just got even angrier with each passing year. '...Then at some point in the future, I'll probably die in an overcrowded hospital corridor with some bloody hung-over medical student jumping up and down on my chest because they couldn't find a defibrillator. 'Give me your hand, bro,' the shorter one said. 'That one, the right one, yeah.' On the screen the MasterChef contestant said, 'Now with a sharp knife...' Jules de Copland drove away from Gatwick Airport in.a new car, a small Kia, hired under a different name and card, from a different rental firm, Avis. 'I was talking about her attitude. But I'll tell you this, Roy. The day I can't say a woman -- or a man -- is plug ugly, that's the day I want to be taken out and shot.' It seems to me the world is in a strange place where everyone chooses to be offended all the time. 'But not too much in the way of brains,' GlennBranson chipped in. 'Would have needed the old Specialist Search Unite to find any trace of them.' 'Ever heard of knocking on a door?' 'Dunno that film -- was it on Netflix?' 'One word, four letters. Begins with an S for Sierra, ends with a T for Tango. Or if you'd like the longest version, we've been one word, six letters, begins with F for Foxtrot, ends with D for Delta.' No Cop liked entering a prison. In general there was a deep cultural dislike of all police officers by the inmates. And every officer entering.a prison, for whatever purposes, was always aware that if a riot kicked off while they were there, they could be both an instant hostage and a prime target for violence.

Democrats and Republicans spent a year writing themselves a pork-packed Christmas list on the scale of the Iraq invasion, full of monster expenditures, including money for dangerous new forms of nukes. Yet the headline when Trump signed the freaking thing was that he forgot to mention the senator whose name was attached to the legislation.

Still, I’m going to have lots of new French traditions to get acquainted with, including the treize desserts – yes, literally thirteen puddings, and if you don’t have a taste of all of them it’s bad luck supposedly so of course I’ll have to do my bit to ensure good luck for the new year.

At this time of year many people decide that they should go on a Christmas-shopping trip to New York.

What’s more, Christmas itself has now far outstripped Easter in popular culture as the real celebratory center of the Christian year—a move that completely reverses the New Testament’s emphasis. We sometimes try, in hymns, prayers, and sermons, to build a whole theology on Christmas, but it can’t in fact sustain such a thing. We then keep Lent, Holy Week, and Good Friday so thoroughly that we have hardly any energy left for Easter except for the first night and day. Easter, however, should be the center. Take that away and there is, almost literally, nothing left.

He remembered once hearing a comedian on a TV panel show describing the period in between Christmas and New Year as the “perineum” of the year. At

For two successive days, while perched up in the rigging, covered with tar and engaged in our disagreeable work, we saw these fellows going ashore in the morning, and coming off again at night, in high spirits. So much for being Protestants. There’s no danger of Catholicism’s spreading in New England; Yankees can’t afford the time to be Catholics. American shipmasters get nearly three weeks more labor out of their crews, in the course of a year, than the masters of vessels from Catholic countries. Yankees don’t keep Christmas, and shipmasters at sea never know when Thanksgiving comes, so Jack has no festival at all. About

Soon there will come a time when Christmas will be recognised and celebrated in the month of June. It's 2023 today and we're already being prepared for the upcoming changes. People should get used to it.

Oh why can't the neuro-bliss of a coming new year, last longer than Christmas cheer?

There are no words. She’s like… waking up on Christmas morning when you’re three years old and you finally understand what it’s all about. She’s the moment the rain stops and the sun comes out, lighting up the sky with color, and everything smells new and fresh. She’s the first skate on a frozen lake, surrounded by snowy mountains and pine trees and the freshest breath of air. She’s rolling over in the middle of the night, pulling that warm body into yours and curling around it, and everything’s just right.

Katarina shrugged, for want of something better to say. It just seemed so…so dull. They had done it all before, knew the routine, and that left her bored to tears. There was so much in the world they had never explored, so much that had been hidden from them. Katarina could not recall having a conversation with someone new in months. Years, perhaps.

I was not able to sleep that night. To be honest, I didn’t even try. I stood in front of my living room window, staring out at the bright lights of New York City. I don’t know how long I stood there; in fact, I didn’t see the millions of multicolored lights or the never-ending streams of headlights and taillights on the busy streets below. Instead, I saw, in my mind’s eye, the crowded high school classrooms and halls where my friends and I had shared triumphs and tragedies, where the ghosts of our past still reside. Images flickered in my mind. I saw the faces of teachers and fellow students I hadn’t seen in years. I heard snatches of songs I had rehearsed in third period chorus. I saw the library where I had spent long hours studying after school. Most of all, I saw Marty. Marty as a shy sophomore, auditioning for Mrs. Quincy, the school choir director. Marty singing her first solo at the 1981 Christmas concert. Marty at the 1982 Homecoming Dance, looking radiant after being selected as Junior Princess. Marty sitting alone in the chorus practice room on the last day of our senior year. I stared long and hard at those sepia-colored memories. And as my mind carried me back to the place I had sworn I’d never return to, I remembered.

37.3 New Year resolutions. In these final days of the old year and at the beginning of the new, we like to wish each other a good year. To tradesmen, neighbours, everyone we meet ... we say Happy New Year! They wish the same to us and we thank them. But, what do most people mean by Happy New Year? Doubtless they mean a year free from illness, pain, trouble or worry; that instead, everyone may smile on you, that you flourish, that you make plenty of money, that the taxman doesn’t get you, that you get a rise in salary, that prices fall, and that the news is good every morning. In short, that nothing unpleasant may happen to you.[132] It is good to wish these material good things for ourselves and others so long as they do not make us veer away from our final goal. The new year will bring us our share of happiness and our share of trouble, and we don’t know how much of each. A good year for a Christian is one in which both joys and sorrows have helped him to love God a little more. It is not a year that comes, supposing it were possible, full of natural happiness that leaves God to one side. A good year is one in which we have served God and our neighbour better, even if, on the human plane, it has been a complete disaster. For example, a good year could be one in which we are attacked by a serious illness that has been latent and unsuspected for many years, provided we know how to use it for our sanctification and that of those close to us. Any year can be the best year if we make use of the graces that God keeps in store for us and which can turn to good the greatest misfortunes. For the year just beginning God has prepared all the help we need to make it a good year. So let’s not waste even a single day. And when we happen to commit sin, or fall into error or discouragement, let us immediately begin again, in many cases through the sacrament of Penance. May we all have a good year, so that when it is over we can come before God with our hands full of hours of work offered to him, apostolate with our friends, innumerable acts of charity with those around us, many little victories over our self love, and unforgettable meetings with Our Lord in Holy Communion. Let us resolve to convert our defeats into victories, each time turning to God and starting once again. And, finally, let us ask Our Lady for the grace to live during this new year with a fighting spirit, as if it were the last that God was going to give us.

There was a correspondence course he failed to complete; a trip to the castles on the Rhine, Rhone, and Danube that took six years of his savings. Weekend flights to New England in desperate search of spectral Arkham, spring vacations in Haiti, Christmas in rural England, and a cold white dawn at Stonehenge. Midnights walking the streets in storms. And a year ago, the beginning of the collection that walled his study, reading and examining, hunting for a clue to the authors’ ability to write eloquently about the unspeakable, darkly about the commonplace; over and over and over again until he had memorized nearly every florid, majestic, purple, and bitter bitten paragraph. Nightmares. Sweat. The sounds of blood dripping whenever he turned a page.

So worried by the chaos were the British that between Christmas 1928 and New Year 1929 they organised an airlift first of their women and children then of all personnel, the first large-scale air evacuation in history

Among the Facebook data scientists’ findings: Christmas is one of the happiest days of the year.

Ruben teamed up with other Mexican-American burglars who hung out at the bus terminal. They were the black sheep who’d come to L.A. looking to rip off the system and get high. Every day, dozens of houses all over Los Angeles were robbed by them and the loot quickly sold to fences who lined the front of the terminal seven days a week, including Christmas and New Year’s. To a professional burglar, L.A. was like a beacon in the night, summoning those who would steal from far and wide. The thieves knew L.A. was made up of ninety-six different communities, many of which had their own police forces, and if they moved around, they were a lot less likely to come to the attention of any given police department and thus elude capture.

A dandy," wrote Charles Baudelaire, "must be looking in his mirror at all times, waking and sleeping." Dali could easily have become the living proof of Baudelaire's dictum. But the literal mirror was not enough for him. Dali needed mirrors of many kinds: his pictures, his admirers, newspapers and magazines and television. And even that still left him unsatisfied. So one Christmas he took a walk in the streets of New York carrying a bell. He would ring it whenever he felt people were not paying enough attention to him. "The thought of not being recognised was unbearable." True to himself to the bitter end, he delighted in following Catalonian television's bulletins on his state of health during his last days alive (in Quiron hospital in Barcelona); he wanted to hear people talking about him, and he also wanted to know whether his health would revive or whether he would be dying soon. At the age of six he wanted to be a female cook - he specified the gender. At seven he wanted to be Napoleon. "Ever since, my ambition has been continually on the increase, as has my megalomania: now all I want to be is Salvador Dali. But the closer I get to my goal, the further Salvador Dali drifts away from me." He painted his first picture in 1910 at the age of six. At ten he discovered Impressionist art, and at fourteen the Pompiers (a 19th century group of academic genre painters, among them Meissonier, Detaille and Moreau). By 1927 he was Dali, and the poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca, a friend of his youth, wrote an 'Ode to Salvador Dali.' Years later Dali claimed that Lorca had been very attracted to him and had tride to sodomize him, but had not quite managed it. Dali's thirst for scandal was unquenchable. His parents had named him Salvador "because he was the chosen one who was come to save painting from the" deadly menace of abstract art, academic Surrealism, Dadaism, and any kind of anarchic "ism" whatsoever." If he had lived during the Renaissance, his genius would have been recognized at an earlier stage and indeed considered normal. But in the twentieth century, which Dali damned as stupid, he was thought provocative, a thorn in the flesh. To this day there are many who misunderstand the provocativeness and label him insane. But Dali repeatedly declared: "... the sole difference between me and a madman is the fact that I am not mad!" Dali also said: "The difference between the Surrealists and me is that I am a Surrealist" - which is perfectly true. And he also claimed: "I have the universal curiosity of Renaissance men, and my mental jaws are constantly at work.

By December 1940, several thousand satyagrahis were in prison, arrested one by one, as each shouted slogans against the war and thereby breached the law. Now, as a gesture of goodwill, Gandhi announced that there would be no courting of arrest between 24 December 1940 and 4 January 1941, so as to allow theofficials to celebrate Christmas and New Year with their families.

Me—I am not an Englishman,” said Hercule Poirot. “In my country, Christmas, it is for the children. The New Year, that is what we celebrate.

Prepare yourself for uncomfortable questions about why you don't have an engagement ring on your finger. Nadia is convinced that we are engaged and waiting to announce it here." Ashanti nearly swallowed her tongue. "Thad, please tell me you're not planning some big, cheesy public proposal today?" "Is that what you're expecting?" "No!" she said. "Especially not today. We're going slow, remember?" He tipped his head to the side. "Exactly how fast is slow?" She smiled up at him. "Maybe by Christmas or New Year's." She grinned. "That's what you were planning, isn't it?" "Von is the only person who can read my mind," he answered. "Tell me!" He winked. "Nah. I'm going to keep you guessing.

since the accident. I don’t know what her problem was. After all, I was a “hero.” At least the newspaper said so. “Hey, Alex,” she said, twirling her ponytail with her pencil. “Oh, hi,” I stammered, looking down at my burger. “You guys sounded really great in the talent show. I didn’t know you could sing like that.” “Uhh, thanks. It must be all the practice I get with my karaoke machine.” Oh God, did I just tell her I sing karaoke? Definitely not playing it cool, I thought to myself. TJ butted in, “Yeah, Small Fry was ok, but I really carried the show with my awesome guitar solo.” He smiled proudly. “Shut up, TJ,” I said, tossing a fry at him, which hit him between the eyes. “Hey, watch it, Baker. Just because you’re a ‘hero’ doesn’t mean I won’t pummel you.” “Yeah, right,” I said, smiling. Emily laughed. “Maybe we could come over during Christmas break and check out your karaoke machine. Right, Danielle?” Danielle rolled her eyes and sighed. “Yeah, whatever.” I gulped. “Uhhh…yeah…that sounds great.” “Ok, give me your hand,” she said. “My hand,” I asked, surprised. “Yep,” she said, grabbing my wrist and opening my palm. “Here’s my number,” she said, writing the numbers 585-2281 in gold glitter pen on my palm.” I will never wash my hand again, I thought to myself. “Text me over break, ok?” she said, smiling brightly. “Yeah, sure,” I nodded, as she walked away giggling with Danielle. “Merry Christmas to me!” I whispered to TJ and Simon. “Yeah, there’s just one problem, Dufus,” TJ said. “Oh yeah, what’s that, TJ? That she didn’t give you her number?” I asked. “No, Dork. How are you going to text her if you don’t have a cell phone?” He smiled. “Oh, right,” I said, slumping down in my seat. “That could be a problem.” “You could just call her on your home phone,” Simon suggested, wiping his nose with a napkin. “Yeah, sure,” TJ chuckled. “Hi Emily, this is Alex Baker calling from the year 1984.” He held his pencil to his ear like a phone.  “Would you like to come over to play Atari? Then maybe we can solve my Rubik’s Cube while we break dance ….and listen to New Kids on the Block.” He was cracking himself up and turning bright red. “Maybe I’ll type you a love letter on my typewriter. It’s so much cooler than texting.” “Shut up, TJ,” I said, smiling. “I’m starting to remember why I didn’t like you much at the beginning of the year.” “Lighten up, Baker. I’m just bustin’ your chops. Christmas is coming. Maybe Santa will feel sorry for your dorky butt and bring you a cell phone.” Chapter 2 ePhone Denied When I got home from school that day, it was the perfect time to launch my cell phone campaign. Mom was in full Christmas mode. The house smelled like gingerbread. She had put up the tree and there were boxes of ornaments and decorations on the floor. I stepped over a wreath and walked into the kitchen. She was baking sugar cookies and dancing around the kitchen to Jingle Bell Rock with my little brother Dylan. My mom twirled Dylan around and smiled. She was wearing the Grinch apron that we had given her last Christmas. Dylan was wearing a Santa hat, a fake beard, and of course- his Batman cape. Batman Claus. “Hey Honey. How was school?” she asked, giving Dylan one more spin. “It was pretty good. We won second place in the talent show.” I held up the candy cane shaped award that Ms. Riley had given us. “Great job! You and TJ deserved it. You practiced hard and it payed off.” “Yeah, I guess so,” I said, grabbing a snicker-doodle off the counter. “And now it’s Christmas break! I bet your excited.” She took a tray of cookies out of the oven and placed

As the parlour clock began to strike twelve, I opened the kitchen door to let the Old Year out. Then I hurried along the passage to the parsonage hall, and on the stroke of twelve, threw wide the front door to let the New Year in.