Christmas Bells Quotes

I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play, And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head; "There is no peace on earth," I said; "For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!" Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth he sleep! The Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men!

Christmas crept into Pine Cove like a creeping Christmas thing: dragging garland, ribbon, and sleigh bells, oozing eggnog, reeking of pine, and threatening festive doom like a cold sore under the mistletoe.

At one time, most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed, it fell silent for all of them. Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound. Though I've grown old, the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe.

I felt overstuffed and dull and disappointed, the way I always do the day after Christmas, as if whatever it was the pine boughs and the candles and the silver and gilt-ribboned presents and the birch-log fires and the Christmas turkey and the carols at the piano promised never came to pass.

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.

In a fit of Christmas spirit, Kaden had equipped her with a red and green holiday collar, complete with several jingle bells. Their own little pornographic elf.

I've got plenty.” Isabelle smiled, kicking her feet up so that her anklets jingled like Christmas bells. "These, for instance. The left one is gold, which is poisonous to demons, and the right one is blessed iron, in case I run across any unfriendly vampires or even faeries, faeries hate iron. They both have strength runes carved into them, so I can pack a hell of a kick. " "Demon hunting and fashion," Clary said. "I never would have thought they went together.

The bell still rings for all who truly believe

Look up.

...when I was a kid, Toronto streets were deserted and quiet on Sundays, except for the sound of church bells I stood on the sidewalk one December listening to the Christmas bells - I've never forgotten that moment...

But here I am in July, and why am I thinking about Christmas pudding? Probably because we always pine for what we do not have. The winter seems cozy and romantic in the hell of summer, but hot beaches and sunlight are what we yearn for all winter.

Not all magic is fireworks and fanfare. Sometimes magic is quiet and sneaks up on you. An illusion is what needs all the bells and whistles to make itself appear grander than it really is, which is just a trick that can be explained.

Jerusalem! My Love,My Town I wept until my tears were dry I prayed until the candles flickered I knelt until the floor creaked I asked about Mohammed and Christ Oh Jerusalem, the fragrance of prophets The shortest path between earth and sky Oh Jerusalem, the citadel of laws A beautiful child with fingers charred and downcast eyes You are the shady oasis passed by the Prophet Your streets are melancholy Your minarets are mourning You, the young maiden dressed in black Who rings the bells at the Nativity Church, On sunday morning? Who brings toys for the children On Christmas eve? Oh Jerusalem, the city of sorrow A big tear wandering in the eye Who will halt the aggression On you, the pearl of religions? Who will wash your bloody walls? Who will safeguard the Bible? Who will rescue the Quran? Who will save Christ, From those who have killed Christ? Who will save man? Oh Jerusalem my town Oh Jerusalem my love Tomorrow the lemon trees will blossom And the olive trees will rejoice Your eyes will dance The migrant pigeons will return To your sacred roofs And your children will play again And fathers and sons will meet On your rosy hills My town The town of peace and olives

•Zuzu Bailey: Look, Daddy. Teacher says, every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings. •George Bailey: That's right, that's right. •George Bailey: Attaboy, Clarence.

Reminded of favorite poem by Wendy Cope which goes: At Christmas little children sing and merry bells jingle. The cold winter air makes our hands and faces tingle. And happy families go to church and cheerily they mingle, And the whole business is unbelievably dreadful if you're single.

But if there were some version of luminol, the stuff they use to find blood at crime scenes, to detect the presence of grief, half the people we pass on the street would light up like Christmas trees. I

Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses. Flood waters await us in our avenues. Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche Over unprotected villages. The sky slips low and grey and threatening. We question ourselves. What have we done to so affront nature? We worry God. Are you there? Are you there really? Does the covenant you made with us still hold? Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters, Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air. The world is encouraged to come away from rancor, Come the way of friendship. It is the Glad Season. Thunder ebbs to silence and lightning sleeps quietly in the corner. Flood waters recede into memory. Snow becomes a yielding cushion to aid us As we make our way to higher ground. Hope is born again in the faces of children It rides on the shoulders of our aged as they walk into their sunsets. Hope spreads around the earth. Brightening all things, Even hate which crouches breeding in dark corridors. In our joy, we think we hear a whisper. At first it is too soft. Then only half heard. We listen carefully as it gathers strength. We hear a sweetness. The word is Peace. It is loud now. It is louder. Louder than the explosion of bombs. We tremble at the sound. We are thrilled by its presence. It is what we have hungered for. Not just the absence of war. But, true Peace. A harmony of spirit, a comfort of courtesies. Security for our beloveds and their beloveds. We clap hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas. We beckon this good season to wait a while with us. We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come. Peace. Come and fill us and our world with your majesty. We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian, Implore you, to stay a while with us. So we may learn by your shimmering light How to look beyond complexion and see community. It is Christmas time, a halting of hate time. On this platform of peace, we can create a language To translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other. At this Holy Instant, we celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ Into the great religions of the world. We jubilate the precious advent of trust. We shout with glorious tongues at the coming of hope. All the earth's tribes loosen their voices To celebrate the promise of Peace. We, Angels and Mortal's, Believers and Non-Believers, Look heavenward and speak the word aloud. Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud. Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation. Peace, My Brother. Peace, My Sister. Peace, My Soul.

…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….

I felt overstuffed and dull and disappointed, the way I always do the day after Christmas,

Life is short. Jingle your bells.

Her body was so slim, so… everything. His hands began to twitch with the need to touch her. Wearing deep purple lace to cover her breasts, she looked so damn perfect. Then she sighed his name. And he was lost

speckled spiders, indolent and fat with long security, swing idly to and fro in the vibration of the bells, and never loose their hold upon their thread-spun castles in the air,

I love Christmas. Frosty the Snowman, peace on Earth and mangers, Salvation Army bell ringers and reindeer, the movie 'Meet Me in St. Louis,' office parties and cookies.

From all the roofs and gables and old wooden houses in Gloucester came a thousand merry voices singing the old Christmas rhymes - all the old songs that ever I heard of, and some that I don't know, like Whittington's bells.

I don't need the bowls to give me peace anymore," Ian said. "I have you. And Jamie, and Belle. If all the Ming bowls in the world were smashed, I'd still have you." [...] "You broke the bowl, and it is gone. But you are here, and whole. Nothing else matters.

But if there were some version of luminol, the stuff they use to find blood at crime scenes, to detect the presence of grief, half the people we pass on the street would light up like Christmas trees.

From the pocket of her robe she pulled out the ring he’d given her, she put it over her finger, sliding it back and forth over her knuckle. “Can I tell you something?” Dad asked. “Yes. Please.” “Any promise you make, whether it’s to your school, or your family, or to Billy, half of the promise is commitment and the other half, is faith. Faith that your commitment is enough. There’s no answer, honey. None.” She stared down at her ring, his words like bells ringing in her head.

Long before silver bells jingled, Christmas lights twinkled, and horse-drawn sleighs went dashing through the snow, God reached down from heaven with the best gift of all. Love, wrapped in swaddling clothes. Hope, nestled in a manger.

It was like Santa’s workshop had exploded in the cabin. There were garlands, paper chains, even a giant tree in the corner. Jenna shuddered. It was her worst nightmare come to life. After being fully immersed in Christmas for the past 1,825 days—

On Christmas Day, the promise of peace offered a soft and shining light in dark times, an eternal flame that warfare could not douse, nor hatred extinguish.

We used to say he must've met you in the fiction section.

I should have loved a thunder bird instead; At least when spring comes they roar back again

It was the day after Christmas and a gray sky bellied over us, fat with snow. I felt overstuffed and dull and disappointed, the way I always do the day after Christmas, as if whatever it was the pine boughs and the candles and the silver and gilt-ribboned presents and the birch-log fires and the Christmas turkey and the carols at the piano promised never came to pass.

Consider me your rescuer, not your jailer," he said to Frankie, without looking at her. His gut told him that, on the criminal mastermind scale, this one landed closer to Tinker Bell than Lizzie Borden.

No," she said. "No. It's only a bad time. A terrible time, but not everyone will die. And there will be wonderful times after this. The Renaissance and class reforms and music. Wonderful times. There will be new medicines, and people won't have to die from this or smallpox or pneumonia. And everyone will have enough to eat, and their houses will be warm even in the winter." She thought of Oxford, decorated for Christmas, the streets and shops lit. "There will be lights everywhere, and bells that you don't have to ring.

Tapping a little bell, I leaned on the desk and turned to look at a small, traditionally decorated Christmas tree on a table near the entranceway. It was complete with shiny, egg-fragile bulbs; miniature candy canes; flat, laughing Santas with arms wide; a star on top nodding awkwardly against the delicate shoulder of an upper branch; and colored lights that bloomed out of flower-shaped sockets. For some reason this seemed to me a sorry little piece.

whatever reason, an evening nodding and unconscious in my bedroom at Hobie’s had begun to seem like a perfectly reasonable response to the holiday lights, the holiday crowds, the incessant Christmas bells with their morbid funeral note, Kitsey’s candy-pink notebook from Kate’s Paperie with tabs

But you can’t give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they’re strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky. That’s how you’ll end up, Mr. Bell. If you let yourself love a wild thing. You’ll end up looking at the sky.

So,Batman,eh?" Effing St. Clair. I cross my arms and slouch into one of the plastic seats. I am so not in the mood for this.He takes the chair next to me and drapes a relaxed arm over the back of the empty seat on his other side. The man across from us is engrossed in his laptop,and I pretend to be engrossed in his laptop,too. Well,the back of it. St. Clair hums under his breath. When I don't respond,he sings quietly. "Jingle bells,Batman smells,Robin flew away..." "Yes,great,I get it.Ha ha. Stupid me." "What? It's just a Christmas song." He grins and continues a bit louder. "Batmobile lost a wheel,on the M1 motorway,hey!" "Wait." I frown. "What?" "What what?" "You're singing it wrong." "No,I'm not." He pauses. "How do you sing it?" I pat my coat,double-checking for my passport. Phew. Still there. "It's 'Jingle bells, Batman smells,Robin laid an egg'-" St. Clair snorts. "Laid an egg? Robin didn't lay an egg-" "'Batmobile lost a wheel,and the Joker got away.'" He stares at me for a moment,and then says with perfect conviction. "No." "Yes.I mean,seriously,what's up with the motorway thing?" "M1 motorway. Connects London to Leeds." I smirk. "Batman is American. He doesn't take the M1 motorway." "When he's on holiday he does." "Who says Batman has time to vacation?" "Why are we arguing about Batman?" He leans forward. "You're derailing us from the real topic.The fact that you, Anna Oliphant,slept in today." "Thanks." "You." He prods my leg with a finger. "Slept in." I focus on the guy's laptop again. "Yeah.You mentioned that." He flashes a crooked smile and shrugs, that full-bodied movement that turns him from English to French. "Hey, we made it,didn't we? No harm done." I yank out a book from my backpack, Your Movie Sucks, a collection of Roger Ebert's favorite reviews of bad movies. A visual cue for him to leave me alone. St. Clair takes the hint. He slumps and taps his feet on the ugly blue carpeting. I feel guilty for being so harsh. If it weren't for him,I would've missed the flight. St. Clair's fingers absentmindedly drum his stomach. His dark hair is extra messy this morning. I'm sure he didn't get up that much earlier than me,but,as usual, the bed-head is more attractive on him. With a painful twinge,I recall those other mornings together. Thanksgiving.Which we still haven't talked about.

There was a bounty on my head, it was four days before Christmas, and I was having turtle gumbo with a merman, an undead pirate king, two loups-garou, and my best friend - a human pregnant with the half-elven child who had unknowingly helped set this whole debacle in motion. Plus a newbie vampire who didn't like the smell of food anymore.

Sweetheart, wherever you are, that’s where I’ll be. Forever.

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

A stranger singing “Jingle Bells” A dog doing a trick Someone reciting their Christmas list A teammate performing an act of kindness

Then I thought, how could this Doctor Gordon help me anyway, with a beautiful wife and beautiful children and a beautiful dog haloing him like the angels on a Christmas card?

What's the point of having the personal cell phone number of the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff if you don't call him every once in a while?

The faces in the pews around me were waxen with candlelight, and pine boughs, left over from Christmas, sent up a sepulchral incense into the cold air.

I grunted, then remembered I needed to use my words. “No.” It was only after she had turned away and gone halfway up the aisle that I remembered to add, “Thanks.

this year’s list is heavy on the video evidence, including: A stranger singing “Jingle Bells” A dog doing a trick Someone reciting their Christmas list A teammate performing an act of kindness

Far off down the road, through the lazily drifting snowflakes, they could hear the merry sound of sleigh bells. Their gay little tinkling flying ahead of the sleigh and lighting up the night with sparks.

Published in 1844, a year after A Christmas Carol, this novella was written during Dickens’ year-long visit to Italy, having been inspired by the Genoese bells audible from the villa where he was staying.

All people—white and colored, slave and free, Union and Confederate—shared a common humanity belied by their outward differences. In a time of discord, in a land torn by war, no truth was more important to remember than that.

Alas," the Spider Queen said softly, "life needs dark leaves in the wreath. There cannot be true joy without sorrow, or real happiness without loss. They come as a pair. It is simply how it must be, if one is to live a full life. Take my own wreath, for example." She pointed at a particularly striking one made up of foliage so dark it was almost purple and black in places, but brightened with spectacular bursts of scarlet poinsettia. "I first saw the poinsettia in Mexico," she said. "The Euphorbia pulcherrima, to give it its botanical name, but it's also known as a 'Christmas star' because of its red pigment, so vibrant and bold. I would not give up my dark leaves if it meant losing the poinsettia," she said.

First, I see her catch the scent. It's a combination of many things; the Christmas tree in the corner; the musty aroma of old house; orange and clove; ground coffee; hot milk; patchouli; cinnamon- and chocolate, of course; intoxicating, rich as Croesus, dark as death. She looks around, sees wall hangings, pictures, bells, ornaments, a dollhouse in the window, rugs on the floor- all in chrome yellow and fuchsia-pink and scarlet and gold and green and white. It's like an opium den in here, she almost says, then wonders at herself for being so fanciful. In fact she has never seen an opium den- unless it was in the pages of the Arabian Nights- but there's something about the place, she thinks. Something almost- magical.

You know the real reason we celebrate Christmas, don't you? I mean, beyond Santa Claus and jungle bells and Christmas trees? You mean because Jesus was born? she asked. Yes... but did you ever think how Jesus was born? I mean, have you considered how it was such a humble birth, in a small barn...how he was laid in a hay trough...how the Son if almighty God humbled himself to be born in such lowly conditions? Have you thought about it like that? Jesus could have been born in a fine palace. After all, he was the Son of God. But for some reason God chose humble beginnings for His son. Do you ever wonder why? ... I think because God wanted to show that his love could reach to everyone, no matter who they were, from the poorest of poor to great kings.

There was snow in his hair and in his eyelashes because he’d been waiting outside the inn when I pulled up. His beard was thick and dark. He smelled like fresh snow and man, and I felt my ovaries do a little dance deep in my belly. I told them to stand down.

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS From Ray Bradbury Imagine that you have been dead for a year, ten years, one hundred years, a thousand years. The grave and night have taken and kept you in that silence and dark which says nothing and so reveals absolutely zero. In the middle of all this darkness and being alone and bereft of sense, let us imagine that God comes to your still soul and lonely body and says: I will give you one minute of ife. I will restore you to your body and senses for sixty seconds. Out of all the minutes in your life, choose one, I will put you in that minute, and you will be alive again after a hundred, a thousand years of darkness. Which is it? Think. Speak. Which do you choose? And the answer is: Any minute. Any minute at all! Oh, God, Sweet Christ, oh mystery, give me any minute in all my life. And the further answer is: When I lived I didn't know that every minute was special, precious a gift, a miracle, an incredible thing, an impossible work, an amazing dream. But not, Like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Morn, with snow in the air and the promise of rebirth given, I know what I should have known in my dumb shambles: That all is a lark, and it is a beauty beyond tears, and also a terror. But I dance about, I become a child, I am the boy who runs for the great bird in the window and I am the man who sends the boy running for that bird, and I am the life that blows in the snowing wind along that street, and the bells that sound and say: live, love, for too soon will your name which is shaped in the snow melt, of your soul which is inscribed like a breath of vapor on a cold glass pane fade. Run, run, lad, run, down the middle of Christmas at the center of life.

about it, though. So here’s what I’d like to do. I’m going to share my air miles with you, for your Christmas present – you can fly anywhere in the world that you like. My treat.’ What a heartwarming gift from mother to daughter: you can go anywhere in the world you like – except my house.

and an even more welcome one for the scrounging Scrooge. He loved the sound of the bell; it heralded the advent of more money. ‘Every time a bell rings, my money angel spreads his wings,’ he would laugh to himself, making a mockery of the sweet children’s saying about angels receiving their wings.

Mindlessly do the bells of secular celebrations jingle for Christmas. Meaninglessly do carols repeat their tinny joys in all the malls in America. No richer than soda pop is every sentimentalized Christmas special on TV. Fearless is the world at play with godly things, because Godless is its heart.

These girls looked awfully bored to me. I saw them on the sunroof, yawning and painting their nails and trying to keep up their Bermuda tans, and they seemed bored as hell. I talked with one of them, and she was bored with yachts and bored with flying around in airplanes and bored with skiing in Switzerland at Christmas and bored with the men in Brazil.

Close your eyes,” I say again. She closes them. I look at her. I wish her everything good. A friendly cab driver and short lines through security. A flight with no turbulence and an empty seat next to her. A beautiful Christmas. I wish her more happiness than can fit in a person. I wish her the kind of happiness that spills over. I place the bell into her open palms.

She turned down her street once more, glaring at the garish lights someone had put up along their house. Might as well light the roof with “Santa Park Here”. Sheesh. The closer she got to home, though, the lower her heart sank. The overly bright house looked suspiciously like... No. Oh, no. He wouldn’t. He had. Light up animated animals were dotted all over her lawn. The circle of life has apparently found our power outlet. And why the fuck is there a Star of David on my roof? She wasn’t exactly the most church-going member of the community, but you’d think Simon would know what religion she was. After all, she knew exactly who was going to officiate at his funeral. She picked up her cell phone and called Emma. “I’m going to kill him.

In this unsettled world, it is good to have this steadiness—the Christmas Eve service, the peal of the bell, the star atop the Peacocks’ silo, the saints burdened with concern. There is a holiness to memory, a sense of God’s presence in these mangers of the mind. Which might explain why it is that the occasions that change the least are often the very occasions that change us the most.

I understand right enough,” the stranger said slowly. “I just wanted to make sure you did. You had the greatest gift of all conferred upon you—the gift of life, of being a part of this world and taking a part in it. Yet you denied that gift.” As the stranger spoke, the church bell high up on the hill sounded, calling the townspeople to Christmas vespers. Then the downtown church bell started ringing.

Il n'y avait rien de très distingué dans tout ceci. Ce n'était pas une belle famille ; ils n'étaient pas bien habillés ; leurs souliers étaient loin d'être imperméables ; leur garde-robe était limitée ; et Peter savait peut-être, à coup sûr même, à quoi ressemblait une boutique de prêteur sur gages, à l'intérieur. Mais ils étaient heureux, reconnaissants, contents les uns des autres et trouvaient satisfaction dans le moment présent.

One of my most vivid memories is of coming back West from prep school and later from college at Christmas time. Those who went farther than Chicago would gather in the old dim Union Station at six o’clock of a December evening, with a few Chicago friends, already caught up into their own holiday gayeties, to bid them a hasty good-by. I remember the fur coats of the girls returning from Miss This-or-that’s and the chatter of frozen breath and the hands waving overhead as we caught sight of old acquaintances, and the matchings of invitations: “Are you going to the Ordways’? the Herseys’? the Schultzes’?” and the long green tickets clasped tight in our gloved hands. And last the murky yellow cars of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad looking cheerful as Christmas itself on the tracks beside the gate. When we pulled out into the winter night and the real snow, our snow, began to stretch out beside us and twinkle against the windows, and the dim lights of small Wisconsin stations moved by, a sharp wild brace came suddenly into the air. We drew in deep breaths of it as we walked back from dinner through the cold vestibules, unutterably aware of our identity with this country for one strange hour, before we melted indistinguishably into it again. That’s my Middle West — not the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns, but the thrilling returning trains of my youth, and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow. I am part of that, a little solemn with the feel of those long winters, a little complacent from growing up in the Carraway house in a city where dwellings are still called through decades by a family’s name. I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all — Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play, And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men! And thought how, as the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom Had rolled along The unbroken song Of peace on earth, good-will to men! Till ringing, singing on its way, The world revolved from night to day, A voice, a chime, A chant sublime Of peace on earth, good-will to men! Then from each black, accursed mouth The cannon thundered in the South, And with the sound The carols drowned Of peace on earth, good-will to men! It was as if an earthquake rent The hearth-stones of a continent, And made forlorn The households born Of peace on earth, good-will to men! And in despair I bowed my head; "There is no peace on earth," I said; For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!" Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men.

Let Everyday Be Christmas Christmas is forever, not for just one day, for loving, sharing, giving, are not to put away like bells and lights and tinsel, in some box upon a shelf. The good you do for others is good you do yourself. Peace on Earth, good will to men, kind thoughts and words of cheer, are things we should use often and not just once a year. Remember too the Christ-child, grew up to be a man; to hide him in a cradle, is not our dear Lord's plan. So keep the Christmas spirit, share it with others far and near, from week to week and month to month, throughout the entire year!

Mr. Micawber pressed my hand, and groaned, and afterwards shed tears. I was greatly touched, and disappointed too, for I had expected that we should be quite gay on this happy and long-looked-for occasion. But Mr. and Mrs. Micawber were so used to their old difficulties, I think, that they felt quite shipwrecked when they came to consider that they were released from them. All their elasticity was departed, and I never saw them half so wretched as on this night; insomuch that when the bell rang, and Mr. Micawber walked with me to the lodge, and parted from me there with a blessing, I felt quite afraid to leave him by himself, he was so profoundly miserable.

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

The crowd listened all the more closely for having waited and despaired, especially since this time the bells, ringing softly, demanded a deeper hush. The prelude was muted, a blend in which one could no longer distinguish bells alternating then coming together, it was a concert of bronze united, as if far off and very old. Music in a dream! It did not come from the tower, but from much farther away, from the depths of the sky, from the depths of time. This carillonneur had had the idea of playing some old Christmas carols, Flemish carols born of the race, mirrors in which it recognises itself. Like everything that has passed through the centuries, it was very solemn and a little sad.

On a Parisienne’s Bookshelf THERE ARE MANY BOOKS ON A PARISIENNE’S BOOKSHELF: The books you so often claim you’ve read that you actually believe you have. The books you read in school from which you remember only the main character’s name. The art books your parents give you each Christmas so you can get some “culture”. The art books that you bought yourself and which you really love. The books that you’ve been promising yourself you’ll read next summer … for the past ten years. The books you bought only because you liked the title. The books that you think makes you cool. The books you read over and over again, and that evolve along with your life. The books that remind you of someone you loved. The books you keep for your children, just in case you ever have any. The books whose first ten pages you’ve read so many times you know them by heart. The books you own simply because you must and, taken together, form intangible proof that you are well read. AND THEN THERE ARE THE BOOKS YOU HAVE READ, LOVED, AND WHICH ARE A PART OF YOUR IDENTITY: The Stranger, Albert Camus The Elementary Particles, Michel Houellebecq Belle du Seigneur, Albert Cohen Bonjour Tristesse, Françoise Sagan Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert L'Écume des jours, Boris Vian Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov Les Fleurs du Mal, Charles Baudelaire Journey to the End of the Night, Louis-Ferdinand Céline À la recherche du temps perdu, Marcel Proust “How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are: Love, Style, and Bad Habits” By Anne Berest, Audrey Diwan, Caroline de Maigret, and Sophie Mas

It was a sledge, and it was reindeer with bells on their harness. But they were far bigger than the Witch’s reindeer, and they were not white but brown. And on the sledge sat a person whom everyone knew the moment they set eyes on him. He was a huge man in a bright red robe (bright as hollyberries) with a hood that had fur inside it and a great white beard that fell like a foamy waterfall over his chest. Everyone knew him because, though you see people of his sort only in Narnia, you see pictures of them and hear them talked about even in our world – the world on this side of the wardrobe door. But when you really see them in Narnia it is rather different. Some of the pictures of Father Christmas in our world make him look only funny and jolly. But now that the children actually stood looking at him they didn’t find it quite like that. He was so big, and so glad, and so real, that they all became quite still. They felt very glad, but also solemn.

At six years old we didn't have any money; there was my mother, my brother and I. We had a deadbeat dad; left us before we were two, but she took us at Christmas-time to downtown Los Angeles. We had little cars going around in circles, it was pretty cool, and decorations in the window. She gave my brother and I a dime and told us, "Boys whole half of it each, give it to the man ringing the bell in the bucket." We put it in this bucket, we said, "Mom, why did we give that man a dime? That's like two soda pops." This is 1951, two soda pops, three candy bars. And mom said, "Boys, that's the Salvation Army. They take care of people that have no place to live and no food. And we don't have a lot of money, but we can afford a dime this year. Boys, always remember in life: give a little something to those in need, they'll always be somebody that's not as well-off as you are. No matter where you are or how far down you are, try and help someone along the way." It stuck with me.

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.

But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers’ shops. The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker’s doorway, and taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled with each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love it, so it was! In time the bells ceased, and the bakers’ were shut up; and yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker’s oven; where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too. “Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?” asked Scrooge. “There is. My own.” “Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?” asked Scrooge. “To any kindly given. To a poor one most.” “Why to a poor one most?” asked Scrooge. “Because it needs it most.” “Spirit,” said Scrooge, after a moments thought, “I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these peoples opportunities of innocent enjoyment.” “I!” cried the Spirit. “You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all,” said Scrooge. “Wouldn’t you?” “I!” cried the Spirit. “You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day?” said Scrooge. “And it comes to the same thing.” “I seek!” exclaimed the Spirit. “Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family,” said Scrooge. “There are some upon this earth of yours,” returned the Spirit, “who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry* and selfishness in our name; who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.

And Joe got in beside me, and we drove away together into the country, where the rich summer growth was already on the trees and on the grass, and sweet summer scents filled all the air. The day happened to be Sunday, and when I looked on the loveliness around me, and thought how it had grown and changed, and how the little wild flowers had been forming, and the voices of the birds had been strengthening, by day and by night, under the sun and under the stars, while poor I lay burning and tossing on my bed, the mere remembrance of having burned and tossed there, came like a check upon my peace. But when I heard the Sunday bells, and looked around a little more upon the outspread beauty, I felt that I was not nearly thankful enough-that I was too weak yet, to be even that-and I laid my head on Joe's shoulder, as I had laid it long ago when he had taken me to the Fair or where not, and it was too much for my young senses. More composure came to me after a while and we talked as we used to talk, lying on the grass at the old Battery. There was no change whatever in Joe. Exactly what he had been in my eyes then, he was in my eyes still; just as simply faithful, just as simply right. When we got back again and he lifted me out, and carried me-so easily!-across the court and up the stairs, I thought of that eventful Christmas Day when he had carried me over the marshes.

Last night they stole the watchman’s rattle, and knocked the watchman down. Now they go rattling through the streets, proclaiming the ballad of Worse-was-it-Never. There was a former age, it seems, when wives were chaste and pedlars honest, when roses bloomed at Christmas and every pot bubbled with fat self-renewing capons. If these times are not those times, who is to blame? Londoners, probably. Members of Parliament. Reforming bishops. People who use English to talk to God. Word spreads. On the farms around, labourers see the chance of a holiday. Faces blackened, some wearing women’s attire, they set off to town, picking up any edged tool that could act as a weapon. From the marketplace you can see them coming, kicking up a cloud of dust. Old men anywhere in England will tell you about the drunken exploits of harvests past. Rebel ballads sung by our grandfathers need small adaptation now. We are taxed till we cry, we must live till we die, we be looted and swindled and cheated and dwindled … O, Worse was it Never! Farmers bolt their grain stores. The magistrates are alert. Burgers withdraw indoors, securing their warehouses. In the square some rascal sways on top of a husting, viewing the rural troops as they roll in. ‘Pledge yourselves to me—Captain Poverty is my name.’ The bell-ringers, elbowed and threatened, tumble into the parish church and ring the bells backward. At this signal, the world turns upside down.

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.

My mother had a passion for all fruit except oranges, which she refused to allow in the house. She named each one of us, on a seeming whim, after a fruit and a recipe- Cassis, for her thick black-currant cake. Framboise, her raspberry liqueur, and Reinette after the reine-claude greengages that grew against the south wall of the house, thick as grapes, syrupy with wasps in midsummer. At one time we had over a hundred trees (apples, pears, plums, gages, cherries, quinces), not to mention the raspberry canes and the fields of strawberries, gooseberries, currants- the fruits of which were dried, stored, made into jams and liqueurs and wonderful cartwheel tarts on pâte brisée and crème pâtissière and almond paste. My memories are flavored with their scents, their colors, their names. My mother tended them as if they were her favorite children. Smudge pots against the frost, which we base every spring. And in summer, to keep the birds away, we would tie shapes cut out of silver paper onto the ends of the branches that would shiver and flick-flack in the wind, moose blowers of string drawn tightly across empty tin cans to make eerie bird-frightening sounds, windmills of colored paper that would spin wildly, so that the orchard was a carnival of baubles and shining ribbons and shrieking wires, like a Christmas party in midsummer. And the trees all had names. Belle Yvonne, my mother would say as she passed a gnarled pear tree. Rose d'Aquitane. Beurre du Roe Henry. Her voice at these times was soft, almost monotone. I could not tell whether she was speaking to me or to herself. Conference. Williams. Ghislane de Penthièvre. This sweetness.

Tinker Bell, meanwhile, was drifting with purpose up to the highest leafy branches of the jungle. Her light glowed warmly off the leaves below, the droplets seeping off their thick veins, the sweet sap running down the trunks of the trees. It made the whole clearing look... Well, like it was touched by fairies, Wendy thought with a smile. All her life she had looked for fairies in more mundane places, experiencing a rush of hope and warmth whenever a scene even palely imitated the one before here now. Candles at Christmas, fireflies in the park, flickering lamps in teahouses. The sparkling leaded glass windows of a sweets shop on winter afternoons when dusk came at four. A febrile, glowing crisscross of threads on a rotten log her cousin had once shown her out in the country: fox fire, magical mushrooms. And here it was, for real! Tinker Bell was performing what appeared to be a slow and majestic dance. First, she moved to specific points in the air around her, perhaps north, south, east, and west, twirling a little at each stop. Then she flew back to the center and made a strange bowing motion, keeping her tiny feet daintily together and putting her arms out gracefully like a swan. As she completed each movement, fairy dust fell from her wings in glittering, languorous trails, hanging in the air just long enough to form shapes. She started the dance over again, faster this time. And again even faster. Her trail of sparkles almost resolved into a picture, crisscrossed lines constantly flowing slowly down like drips of luminous paint. Wendy felt a bit like John, overwhelmed with a desire to try to reduce and explain and thereby translate the magic. But she also felt a lot like Michael, with an almost overwhelming urge to break free from her hiding place and see it up close, to feel the sparkles on her nose, to run a hand through the sigils not for the purpose of destruction but form a hapless, joyful desire to be part of it all.

The Addams dwelling at 25 West Fifty-fourth Street was directly behind the Museum of Modern Art, at the top of the building. It was reached by an ancient elevator, which rumbled up to the twelfth floor. From there, one climbed through a red-painted stairwell where a real mounted crossbow hovered. The Addams door was marked by a "big black number 13," and a knocker in the shape of a vampire. ...Inside, one entered a little kingdom that fulfilled every fantasy one might have entertained about its inhabitant. On a pedestal in the corner of the bookcase stood a rare "Maximilian" suit of armor, which Addams had bought at a good price ("a bargain at $700")... It was joined by a half-suit, a North Italian Morion of "Spanish" form, circa 1570-80, and a collection of warrior helmets, perched on long stalks like decapitated heads... There were enough arms and armaments to defend the Addams fortress against the most persistent invader: wheel-lock guns; an Italian prod; two maces; three swords. Above a sofa bed, a spectacular array of medieval crossbows rose like birds in flight. "Don't worry, they've only fallen down once," Addams once told an overnight guest. ... Everywhere one looked in the apartment, something caught the eye. A rare papier-mache and polychrome anatomical study figure, nineteenth century, with removable organs and body parts captioned in French, protected by a glass bell. ("It's not exactly another human heart beating in the house, but it's close enough." said Addams.) A set of engraved aquatint plates from an antique book on armor. A lamp in the shape of a miniature suit of armor, topped by a black shade. There were various snakes; biopsy scissors ("It reaches inside, and nips a little piece of flesh," explained Addams); and a shiny human thighbone - a Christmas present from one wife. There was a sewing basket fashioned from an armadillo, a gift from another. In front of the couch stood a most unusual coffee table - "a drying out table," the man at the wonderfully named antiques shop, the Gettysburg Sutler, had called it. ("What was dried on it?" a reporter had asked. "Bodies," said Addams.)...

The presence of this extraordinary being caused, as it were, a breath of life to circulate throughout the entire cathedral. It seemed as though there escaped from him, at least according to the growing superstitions of the crowd, a mysterious emanation which animated all the stones of Notre-Dame, and made the deep bowels of the ancient church to palpitate. It sufficed for people to know that he was there, to make them believe that they beheld the thousand statues of the galleries and the fronts in motion. And the cathedral did indeed seem a docile and obedient creature beneath his hand; it waited on his will to raise its great voice; it was possessed and filled with Quasimodo, as with a familiar spirit. One would have said that he made the immense edifice breathe. He was everywhere about it; in fact, he multiplied himself on all points of the structure. Now one perceived with affright at the very top of one of the towers, a fantastic dwarf climbing, writhing, crawling on all fours, descending outside above the abyss, leaping from projection to projection, and going to ransack the belly of some sculptured gorgon; it was Quasimodo dislodging the crows. Again, in some obscure corner of the church one came in contact with a sort of living chimera, crouching and scowling; it was Quasimodo engaged in thought. Sometimes one caught sight, upon a bell tower, of an enormous head and a bundle of disordered limbs swinging furiously at the end of a rope; it was Quasimodo ringing vespers or the Angelus. Often at night a hideous form was seen wandering along the frail balustrade of carved lacework, which crowns the towers and borders the circumference of the apse; again it was the hunchback of Notre-Dame. Then, said the women of the neighborhood, the whole church took on something fantastic, supernatural, horrible; eyes and mouths were opened, here and there; one heard the dogs, the monsters, and the gargoyles of stone, which keep watch night and day, with outstretched neck and open jaws, around the monstrous cathedral, barking. And, if it was a Christmas Eve, while the great bell, which seemed to emit the death rattle, summoned the faithful to the midnight mass, such an air was spread over the sombre façade that one would have declared that the grand portal was devouring the throng, and that the rose window was watching it. And all this came from Quasimodo. Egypt would have taken him for the god of this temple; the Middle Ages believed him to be its demon: he was in fact its soul.

The broth was nearly clear and colorless, singing with notes of the sea- and Belle had never actually been to the sea. When she broke her bread to dip, the crust shattered, the crumb inside moist to the point of almost being a custard. The terrine was so rich she managed only one tiny demitasse spoonful. She and her father didn't eat fancily but they ate well enough and even had meat once or twice a week. The herbs that still flourished in her mother's garden spiced up dishes more than it seemed like they should have. They supped well, like all Frenchmen and women. But even Christmas was nothing compared to this. Belle suddenly realized she was shoveling it all in like a character from one of those stories who was tricked into eating magic food until he exploded or grew too large to escape. And a slightly more down-to-earth part of her spoke up warningly, in what she liked to pretend was her mother's voice: You are, at the very least, going to have an extremely upset stomach from this rich new food.

two girls descended the stairs and burst into the kitchen where Mrs Spencer was placidly ironing Rebecca’s best skirt. She looked up and smiled as her daughter entered the room. ‘Going out?’ she queried. ‘You’ll come in after five minutes out there like a pair of drowned rats.’ Rebecca shook her head. ‘Cassie’s going, I’m staying,’ she said decidedly, and turned to take Cassie’s navy mac from the peg on the door. ‘Want to borrow a brolly? Heaven knows we’ve got enough of ’em.’ ‘No thanks; the rain won’t melt me,’ Cassie said gaily. She

the turret gunner, and

Christmas Sonatina by Carl Reinecke

the departing crowd. She giggled and jerked her thumb to where her mother and the stranger stood. ‘Look at that! They’re holdin’ hands! Tell you what, May, we’ll have a bet. I bet you ten bob our mam gets herself a feller before we go to university.’ ‘You’re on, April

managed it better if

or Cambridge to

pilot’s duty, and that of his crew, to check constantly, even when over the target with enemy fighters attacking from every angle and the flak coming up from the German ack-ack batteries just, as Andy remarked, to make life a little more exciting.

was unlikely to be able to rendezvous with her childhood friends. But we’ll arrange something, Andy told himself contentedly, burrowing his head into the pillow. Yes, something can be arranged. It would be too ridiculous to break up what was a good friendship just for the sake of one’s pride. Soon, he slept. Despite her intentions to write to Andy, it had been some considerable while before Cassie actually did so. For one thing she was extremely busy and for another she had been put forward as possible officer material, which meant courses and examinations, although in the end she had withdrawn her application, giving as her reason a desire to remain with her flight as acting corporal. After finally writing to Andy, Cassie had waited for a response and was disappointed when after a couple of weeks no letter had arrived. Her station was not far from his and she was easily able to

RECIPE FOR APPLESAUCE SPICE CAKE WITH MAPLE FROSTING OR CREAM CHEESE FROSTING CAKE 2½ cups all-purpose flour or cake flour 1 teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon baking powder 1½ teaspoons baking soda ¾ teaspoon cinnamon ½ teaspoon allspice ½ teaspoon cloves 1¾ cups sugar (scant) 1½ cups unsweetened applesauce ½ cup water ½ cup unsalted butter 2 eggs ½ cup chopped walnuts (optional) ¾ cup raisins (optional) Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour two 8" or two 9" round cake pans or one 9"x13" pan. Mix first 7 dry ingredients in medium bowl. Blend sugar, applesauce, butter, eggs and water in large

bowl. Add dry ingredients and combine on low mixer speed just until blended. Turn mixer to high speed for about 3 minutes. Fold in optional walnuts and/or raisins by hand. Pour batter into pans and bake. Plan on about 30–35 minutes for 9-inch layers and a bit longer for 8-inch layers; 50 to 60 minutes for a rectangular pan. A toothpick or tip of a sharp knife inserted into the center of the cake should come out clean. When the cake is cool, frost with maple frosting or cream-cheese frosting. MAPLE FROSTING 4 tablespoons butter (preferably unsalted) ¼ to cup pure maple syrup 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 2½ cups confectioner’s sugar 2 to 3 tablespoons milk (preferably whole) Blend together butter, syrup, vanilla and about a third of the sugar. Alternate milk and sugar. Use as much milk as needed for consistency. If necessary, refrigerate cake before serving to set frosting. CREAM CHEESE FROSTING 8 oz. cream cheese, softened (preferably full fat)

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened 2½ to 3 cups confectioner’s sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla (or a bit more to taste) Blend together cream cheese and butter with enough confectioner’s sugar for good spreading consistency. Stir in vanilla. Refrigerate frosted cake before serving.

It’s why I’m one-hundred-percent convinced talent is a gift from God and using it is a form of worship.

We all know Santa’s real, and how he likes to hide. “Where? You ask? Well open your hearts and you’ll hear his call. “Jingle bells Jingle bells Merry Christmas” Then we can all... be Santa Claus. By ig Oliver

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.)

Still onto This Day, I Dawdle to Be Plagued With The Same Unfortunate Reoccurring Nightmare. In My Horrifying Dream, there is an Attractive Women With Piercing Blue Eyes And Light Brownish Hair, Sporting A Lengthy Red Dress With Extended Dark Black Heals Who Kills Me On Christmas Day. In My Dream I am Listening to A Christmas Song… “Jingle Bells” While Rambling Down a Dark Corridor Inside A Home. I am Shot in The Back of The Head And The Music Box Lingers Playing The Same Tune. I Can See Nothing but The Bottom of Her Mends, And Then All Becomes Ample Dark.