Chris Squire, "Hold Out Your Hand / You By My Side"

Strauss II, Rejoice in Life Waltz, Op. 340

Andris Nelson conducts the New York Concert Orchestra ...

Transformation.

A priest once quoted to me the Roman saying that a religion is dead when the priests laugh at each other across the altar. I always laugh at the altar, be it Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist, because real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter.

Alan Watts

Responsible.

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.

Viktor E. Frankl, from Man's Search for Meaning

Immensity.

When we recognize our place in an immensity of light‐years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual -- so are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature.

Carl Sagan, from The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Simple.

What a wild winter sound,— wild and weird, up among the ghostly hills.  I get up in the middle of the night to hear it. It is refreshing to the ear, and one delights to know that such wild creatures are among us. At this season Nature makes the most of every throb of life that can withstand her severity.  This simplicity of winter has a deep moral. The return of Nature, after such a career of splendor and prodigality, to habits so simple and austere, is not lost either upon the head or the heart. It is the philosopher coming back from the banquet and the wine to a cup of water and a crust of bread. 

John Burroughs, from "The Snow-Walkers"

One.

Yesterday, when weary with writing, I was called to supper, and a salad I had asked for was set before me. "It seems then," I said, "if pewter dishes, leaves of lettuce, grains of salt, drops of water, vinegar, oil and slices of eggs had been flying about in the air for all eternity, it might at last happen by chance that there would come a salad."

"Yes," responded my lovely, "but not so nice as this one of mine."

Johannes Kepler, from De Stella Nova

Byrd, Mass for Four Voices

Stile Antico performs the Agnus Dei ...

Dusk.

It was dusk - winter dusk. Snow lay white and shining over the pleated hills, and icicles hung from the forest trees. Snow lay piled on the dark road across Willoughby Wold, but from dawn men had been clearing it with brooms and shovels. There were hundreds of them at work, wrapped in sacking because of the bitter cold, and keeping together in groups for fear of the wolves, grown savage and reckless from hunger.

Joan Aiken, from The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

U2, "Rejoice"

Peter Murphy, "Marlene Dietrich's Favourite Poem"

Happy Birthday, Mick Jones

Mick Jones was born on this day in 1944.

"Headknocker"...

Never.

NEVER forget what they took from you.

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Thanks, Mum.

Excellent.

Excellent albums ...

Happy Birthday, Johannes Kepler

Köhler, Johannes Kepler, n/d

We ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the universe. The diversity of the phenomena of nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the skies so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment.

Johannes Kepler, born on this day in 1571

Rather.

Trumbull, Drafting the Declaration of Independence, 28th June 1776 (detail), 1817

Oh, very well, Doctor, I had rather relate your stories than other men’s truths.

Thomas Jefferson on Dr. Franklin, 4 December 1818

Oddly.

Dali said, "To daze is to think" ...

Time inevitably figures in stargazing, since everything we see in the night sky belongs to the past. This relationship is embodied in the "light year," a standard cosmic yardstick defined as the distance light, moving through the vacuum of space at 186,000 miles per second, travels in one year—nearly six trillion miles. We see the Moon as it was 1.3 seconds ago, bright stars as they were decades to centuries ago, and galaxies as they were millions of years ago. To confront light older than the human species and even the Earth may be disconcerting at first—big time, like big space, making the us feel inconsequential by comparison—but in the end it can be oddly reassuring to consider the fleeting span of human life in a cosmic context. We may be only actors strutting on a stage, but the stage is big and the play has been going on for a very long time.

Haydn, Symphony No. 83 in G-Minor, "The Hen"

Evgeny "Crazy Ivan" Svetlanov conducts the State Academic Symphony Orchestra ...

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

The Oyster Months: A Yuletide Songbook

A collection of dark and dirgey dance tunes ...

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died

And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world

Came people singing, dancing,

To drive the dark away.

They lighted candles in the winter trees;

They hung their homes with evergreen;

They burned beseeching fires all night long

To keep the year alive.

And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake

They shouted, reveling.

Through all the frosty ages you can hear them

Echoing behind us—listen!

All the long echoes, sing the same delight,

This Shortest Day,

As promise wakens in the sleeping land:

They carol, feast, give thanks,

And dearly love their friends,

And hope for peace.

And now so do we, here, now,

This year and every year.

Welcome, Yule!

Susan Cooper

Triptyk

Midwinter Night's Mass

Quadriga Consort

Winter's Delights: Early Christmas Music and Carols from the British Isles

George Winston

December

Windham Hill Artists 

A Winter's Solstice

Windham Hill Artists

A Winter's Solstice II

Øyonn Groven Myhren, Eilert M. Hægeland, Alf Tveit

I Jolo

VOCES8

Winter

Chuck Bramlett

Early Carols for Solo Guitar

Trio Mediæval

Yule

Quadriga Consort

On a Cold Winter's Day - Early Christmas Music and Carols from the British Isles

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Tales.

American Spectator on tales best for winter, ones of sprites and goblins ...

It is easy to forget, in an era of central heating, triple-pane windows, and loose-fill fiberglass insulation, just how brutal winters were for our ancestors. Peter Hitchens, in his 1999 jeremiad The Abolition of Britain, blamed the advent of central heating and double-glazing for the fragmentation of society, insofar as these technological developments have “allowed even close-knit families to avoid each other’s company in well-warmed houses, rather than huddling round a single hearth forced into unwanted companionship, and so compelled to adapt to each other’s foibles and become more social, less selfish beings.” Modern social disengagement has many root causes aside from forced air heating, but the decline of the hearth as the focal point of domestic life cannot be denied.

The hearth-fire was once sacred, held in the highest reverence. There was “clearly an ancient relation,” wrote the wonderfully-named French historian Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges, “between the worship of the dead and the hearth-fire. We may suppose, therefore, that the domestic fire was in the beginning only the symbol of the worship of the dead; that under the stone of the hearth an ancestor reposed; that the fire was lighted there to honor him, and that this fire seemed to preserve life in him, or represented his soul as always vigilant.” In the ancient world, “hearth-fire demons, heroes, Lares, all were confounded,” and there “remained in the hearth-fire whatever of divine was most accessible to man.” These days, a domestic fireplace is usually surmounted by a flat-panel television, a device that once forced families into a sort of passive companionship, at least until the appearance of laptops, smartphones, and tablets further fragmented our social relations. The decline of the hearth is the decline of song, of memory, of culture, of the gentle art of belonging.

The origins of storytelling around the fire are prehistoric in nature, and it has even been hypothesized that the extended hours of firelight, and the complex social interactions made possible by these evening gatherings, fostered cognitive development in our species. In midwinter, when the day submits so readily to night’s cold embrace, the need for hearthside tales was all the greater, but what sorts of stories should they be? 

Internal.

Homann, Danish Part of Norway, the Great Diocese of Akershus, 1729

Bodleian Map Room explores a unique Nordic mine map ...

This map shows the county of Akershus in Norway, centred around Christiania (now Oslo), in the eighteenth century. The map was drawn by Johann Baptist Homann, a largely self taught cartographer and engraver, in 1729. The area is described by a Latinized version of its name, Aggerhusiensis. About a quarter of the map is taken up by an illustration of a mine, with the surface cut away to show the internal workings.

Geographicus Rare Antique Maps has more, HERE.

Only.

Find.

Morgen, Giovanni Boccaccio, 1822

You must read, you must persevere, you must sit up nights, you must inquire, and exert the utmost power of your mind. If one way does not lead to the desired meaning, take another; if obstacles arise, then still another; until, if your strength holds out, you will find that clear which at first looked dark.

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313 - 1375)

Call.

Deep in the forest a call was sounding, and as often as he heard this call, mysteriously thrilling and luring, he felt compelled to turn his back upon the fire and the beaten earth around it, and to plunge into the forest, and on and on, he knew not where or why; nor did he wonder where or why, the call sounding imperiously, deep in the forest.

Jack London, from The Call of the Wild

Pictured: London's study

Williams, "The Turtle Dove"

Ars Nova Copenhagen performs, conducted by Graham Ross ...

Happy Birthday, Thomas Gray

Eccart, Thomas Gray, 1748

ELEGY WRITTEN in a COUNTRY CHURCHYARD

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

         The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,

The plowman homeward plods his weary way,

         And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the sight,

         And all the air a solemn stillness holds,

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,

         And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r

         The moping owl does to the moon complain

Of such, as wand'ring near her secret bow'r,

         Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,

         Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,

Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

         The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,

         The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,

The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,

         No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,

         Or busy housewife ply her evening care:

No children run to lisp their sire's return,

         Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

         Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;

How jocund did they drive their team afield!

         How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

         Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;

Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile

         The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,

         And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,

Awaits alike th' inevitable hour.

         The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,

         If Mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise,

Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault

         The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust

         Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?

Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,

         Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

         Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;

Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,

         Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre.

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page

         Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;

Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,

         And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,

         The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:

Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,

         And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast

         The little tyrant of his fields withstood;

Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,

         Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.

Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,

         The threats of pain and ruin to despise,

To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,

         And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib'd alone

         Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd;

Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,

         And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,

         To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,

Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride

         With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,

         Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;

Along the cool sequester'd vale of life

         They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect,

         Some frail memorial still erected nigh,

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,

         Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd muse,

         The place of fame and elegy supply:

And many a holy text around she strews,

         That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,

         This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,

Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,

         Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,

         Some pious drops the closing eye requires;

Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,

         Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who mindful of th' unhonour'd Dead

         Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;

If chance, by lonely contemplation led,

         Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,

         "Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn

Brushing with hasty steps the dews away

         To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech

         That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,

His listless length at noontide would he stretch,

         And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,

         Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove,

Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,

         Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.

"One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,

         Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree;

Another came; nor yet beside the rill,

         Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

"The next with dirges due in sad array

         Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him borne.

Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay,

         Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."

THE EPITAPH

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth

       A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.

Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,

       And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,

       Heav'n did a recompense as largely send:

He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,

       He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,

       Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,

(There they alike in trembling hope repose)

       The bosom of his Father and his God.

Thomas Gray, born on this day in 1716

Neale, "Good King Wenceslas"

Andrew Kaiser performs on the hurdy-gurdy ...

The story goes that if the Czech Republic is in danger, the statue of King Wenceslas will come to life, raise a sleeping army and reveal a legendary sword to bring peace to the land.

Attend.

Welcome.

On our way homeward his heart seemed overflowing with generous and happy feelings. As we passed over a rising ground which commanded something of a prospect, the sounds of rustic merriment now and then reached our ears; the Squire paused for a few moments, and looked around with an air of inexpressible benignity. The beauty of the day was of itself sufficient to inspire philanthropy. Notwithstanding the frostiness of the morning, the sun in his cloudless journey had acquired sufficient power to melt away the thin covering of snow from every southern declivity, and to bring out the living green which adorns an English landscape even in mid-winter. Large tracts of smiling verdure contrasted with the dazzling whiteness of the shaded slopes and hollows. Every sheltered bank, on which the broad rays rested, yielded its silver rill of cold and limpid water, glittering through the dripping grass; and sent up slight exhalations to contribute to the thin haze that hung just above the surface of the earth. There was something truly cheering in this triumph of warmth and verdure over the frosty thraldom of winter; it was, as the Squire observed, an emblem of Christmas hospitality, breaking through the chills of ceremony and selfishness, and thawing every heart into a flow. He pointed with pleasure to the indications of good cheer reeking from the chimneys of the comfortable farm-houses and low thatched cottages. "I love," said he, "to see this day well kept by rich and poor; it is a great thing to have one day in the year, at least, when you are sure of being welcome wherever you go, and of having, as it were, the world all thrown open to you; and I am almost disposed to join with Poor Robin, in his malediction of every churlish enemy to this honest festival:—

"Those who at Christmas do repine,

And would fain hence despatch him,

May they with old Duke Humphry dine,

Or else may Squire Ketch catch 'em."

The Squire went on to lament the deplorable decay of the games and amusements which were once prevalent at this season among the lower orders, and countenanced by the higher: when the old halls of castles and manor-houses were thrown open at daylight; when the tables were covered with brawn, and beef, and humming ale; when the harp and the carol resounded all day long, and when rich and poor were alike welcome to enter and make merry. "Our old games and local customs," said he, "had a great effect in making the peasant fond of his home, and the promotion of them by the gentry made him fond of his lord. They made the times merrier, and kinder, and better; and I can truly say, with one of our old poets,—

"I like them well—the curious preciseness

And all-pretended gravity of those

That seek to banish hence these harmless sports,

Have thrust away much ancient honesty.

Washington Irving, from "Christmas Day" 

Bach, Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248

Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducts Concentus Musicus Wien with Peter Schreier, tenor, Robert Holl, bass, and the soloists of the Tolzer Knabenchor.

Part One: The Birth, The Annunciation, and The Adoration ...

Part Two: The Circumcision and Naming of Jesus, The Journey of the Magi, and The Adoration of the Magi ...

Well-Remembered.

I have been looking on, this evening, at a merry company of children assembled round that pretty German toy, a Christmas Tree. The tree was planted in the middle of a great round table, and towered high above their heads. It was brilliantly lighted by a multitude of little tapers; and everywhere sparkled and glittered with bright objects. There were rosy–cheeked dolls, hiding behind the green leaves; and there were real watches (with movable hands, at least, and an endless capacity of being wound up) dangling from innumerable twigs; there were French–polished tables, chairs, bedsteads, wardrobes, eight–day clocks, and various other articles of domestic furniture (wonderfully made, in tin, at Wolverhampton), perched among the boughs, as if in preparation for some fairy housekeeping; there were jolly, broad–faced little men, much more agreeable in appearance than many real men—and no wonder, for their heads took off, and showed them to be full of sugar–plums; there were fiddles and drums; there were tambourines, books, work–boxes, paint–boxes, sweetmeat–boxes, peep–show boxes, and all kinds of boxes; there were trinkets for the elder girls, far brighter than any grown–up gold and jewels; there were baskets and pincushions in all devices; there were guns, swords, and banners; there were witches standing in enchanted rings of pasteboard, to tell fortunes; there were teetotums, humming–tops, needle–cases, pen–wipers, smelling–bottles, conversation–cards, bouquet–holders; real fruit, made artificially dazzling with gold leaf; imitation apples, pears, and walnuts, crammed with surprises; in short, as a pretty child, before me, delightedly whispered to another pretty child, her bosom friend, “There was everything, and more.” This motley collection of odd objects, clustering on the tree like magic fruit, and flashing back the bright looks directed towards it from every side—some of the diamond–eyes admiring it were hardly on a level with the table, and a few were languishing in timid wonder on the bosoms of pretty mothers, aunts, and nurses—made a lively realisation of the fancies of childhood; and set me thinking how all the trees that grow and all the things that come into existence on the earth, have their wild adornments at that well–remembered time.

Charles Dickens, from "A Christmas Tree"

Habit.

INTRODUCTORY

It was Christmas Eve.

I begin this way because it is the proper, orthodox, respectable way to begin, and I have been brought up in a proper, orthodox, respectable way, and taught to always do the proper, orthodox, respectable thing; and the habit clings to me.

Of course, as a mere matter of information it is quite unnecessary to mention the date at all. The experienced reader knows it was Christmas Eve, without my telling him. It always is Christmas Eve, in a ghost story,

Christmas Eve is the ghosts' great gala night. On Christmas Eve they hold their annual fete. On Christmas Eve everybody in Ghostland who IS anybody—or rather, speaking of ghosts, one should say, I suppose, every nobody who IS any nobody—comes out to show himself or herself, to see and to be seen, to promenade about and display their winding-sheets and grave-clothes to each other, to criticise one another's style, and sneer at one another's complexion.

"Christmas Eve parade," as I expect they themselves term it, is a function, doubtless, eagerly prepared for and looked forward to throughout Ghostland, especially the swagger set, such as the murdered Barons, the crime-stained Countesses, and the Earls who came over with the Conqueror, and assassinated their relatives, and died raving mad.

Hollow moans and fiendish grins are, one may be sure, energetically practised up. Blood-curdling shrieks and marrow-freezing gestures are probably rehearsed for weeks beforehand. Rusty chains and gory daggers are over-hauled, and put into good working order; and sheets and shrouds, laid carefully by from the previous year's show, are taken down and shaken out, and mended, and aired.

Oh, it is a stirring night in Ghostland, the night of December the twenty-fourth!

Ghosts never come out on Christmas night itself, you may have noticed. Christmas Eve, we suspect, has been too much for them; they are not used to excitement. For about a week after Christmas Eve, the gentlemen ghosts, no doubt, feel as if they were all head, and go about making solemn resolutions to themselves that they will stop in next Christmas Eve; while lady spectres are contradictory and snappish, and liable to burst into tears and leave the room hurriedly on being spoken to, for no perceptible cause whatever.

Ghosts with no position to maintain—mere middle-class ghosts— occasionally, I believe, do a little haunting on off-nights: on All-hallows Eve, and at Midsummer; and some will even run up for a mere local event—to celebrate, for instance, the anniversary of the hanging of somebody's grandfather, or to prophesy a misfortune.

He does love prophesying a misfortune, does the average British ghost. Send him out to prognosticate trouble to somebody, and he is happy. Let him force his way into a peaceful home, and turn the whole house upside down by foretelling a funeral, or predicting a bankruptcy, or hinting at a coming disgrace, or some other terrible disaster, about which nobody in their senses would want to know sooner than they could possibly help, and the prior knowledge of which can serve no useful purpose whatsoever, and he feels that he is combining duty with pleasure. He would never forgive himself if anybody in his family had a trouble and he had not been there for a couple of months beforehand, doing silly tricks on the lawn, or balancing himself on somebody's bed-rail.

Then there are, besides, the very young, or very conscientious ghosts with a lost will or an undiscovered number weighing heavy on their minds, who will haunt steadily all the year round; and also the fussy ghost, who is indignant at having been buried in the dust-bin or in the village pond, and who never gives the parish a single night's quiet until somebody has paid for a first-class funeral for him.

But these are the exceptions. As I have said, the average orthodox ghost does his one turn a year, on Christmas Eve, and is satisfied.

Why on Christmas Eve, of all nights in the year, I never could myself understand. It is invariably one of the most dismal of nights to be out in—cold, muddy, and wet. And besides, at Christmas time, everybody has quite enough to put up with in the way of a houseful of living relations, without wanting the ghosts of any dead ones mooning about the place, I am sure.

There must be something ghostly in the air of Christmas—something about the close, muggy atmosphere that draws up the ghosts, like the dampness of the summer rains brings out the frogs and snails.

And not only do the ghosts themselves always walk on Christmas Eve, but live people always sit and talk about them on Christmas Eve. Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories. Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about spectres. It is a genial, festive season, and we love to muse upon graves, and dead bodies, and murders, and blood.

There is a good deal of similarity about our ghostly experiences; but this of course is not our fault but the fault of ghosts, who never will try any new performances, but always will keep steadily to old, safe business. The consequence is that, when you have been at one Christmas Eve party, and heard six people relate their adventures with spirits, you do not require to hear any more ghost stories. To listen to any further ghost stories after that would be like sitting out two farcical comedies, or taking in two comic journals; the repetition would become wearisome.

There is always the young man who was, one year, spending the Christmas at a country house, and, on Christmas Eve, they put him to sleep in the west wing. Then in the middle of the night, the room door quietly opens and somebody—generally a lady in her night-dress—walks slowly in, and comes and sits on the bed. The young man thinks it must be one of the visitors, or some relative of the family, though he does not remember having previously seen her, who, unable to go to sleep, and feeling lonesome, all by herself, has come into his room for a chat. He has no idea it is a ghost: he is so unsuspicious. She does not speak, however; and, when he looks again, she is gone!

The young man relates the circumstance at the breakfast-table next morning, and asks each of the ladies present if it were she who was his visitor. But they all assure him that it was not, and the host, who has grown deadly pale, begs him to say no more about the matter, which strikes the young man as a singularly strange request.

After breakfast the host takes the young man into a corner, and explains to him that what he saw was the ghost of a lady who had been murdered in that very bed, or who had murdered somebody else there—it does not really matter which: you can be a ghost by murdering somebody else or by being murdered yourself, whichever you prefer. The murdered ghost is, perhaps, the more popular; but, on the other hand, you can frighten people better if you are the murdered one, because then you can show your wounds and do groans.

Then there is the sceptical guest—it is always 'the guest' who gets let in for this sort of thing, by-the-bye. A ghost never thinks much of his own family: it is 'the guest' he likes to haunt who after listening to the host's ghost story, on Christmas Eve, laughs at it, and says that he does not believe there are such things as ghosts at all; and that he will sleep in the haunted chamber that very night, if they will let him.

Everybody urges him not to be reckless, but he persists in his foolhardiness, and goes up to the Yellow Chamber (or whatever colour the haunted room may be) with a light heart and a candle, and wishes them all good-night, and shuts the door.

Next morning he has got snow-white hair.

He does not tell anybody what he has seen: it is too awful.

There is also the plucky guest, who sees a ghost, and knows it is a ghost, and watches it, as it comes into the room and disappears through the wainscot, after which, as the ghost does not seem to be coming back, and there is nothing, consequently, to be gained by stopping awake, he goes to sleep.

He does not mention having seen the ghost to anybody, for fear of frightening them—some people are so nervous about ghosts,—but determines to wait for the next night, and see if the apparition appears again.

It does appear again, and, this time, he gets out of bed, dresses himself and does his hair, and follows it; and then discovers a secret passage leading from the bedroom down into the beer-cellar,- -a passage which, no doubt, was not unfrequently made use of in the bad old days of yore.

After him comes the young man who woke up with a strange sensation in the middle of the night, and found his rich bachelor uncle standing by his bedside. The rich uncle smiled a weird sort of smile and vanished. The young man immediately got up and looked at his watch. It had stopped at half-past four, he having forgotten to wind it.

He made inquiries the next day, and found that, strangely enough, his rich uncle, whose only nephew he was, had married a widow with eleven children at exactly a quarter to twelve, only two days ago,

The young man does not attempt to explain the circumstance. All he does is to vouch for the truth of his narrative.

And, to mention another case, there is the gentleman who is returning home late at night, from a Freemasons' dinner, and who, noticing a light issuing from a ruined abbey, creeps up, and looks through the keyhole. He sees the ghost of a 'grey sister' kissing the ghost of a brown monk, and is so inexpressibly shocked and frightened that he faints on the spot, and is discovered there the next morning, lying in a heap against the door, still speechless, and with his faithful latch-key clasped tightly in his hand.

All these things happen on Christmas Eve, they are all told of on Christmas Eve. For ghost stories to be told on any other evening than the evening of the twenty-fourth of December would be impossible in English society as at present regulated. Therefore, in introducing the sad but authentic ghost stories that follow hereafter, I feel that it is unnecessary to inform the student of Anglo-Saxon literature that the date on which they were told and on which the incidents took place was—Christmas Eve.

Nevertheless, I do so.

Jerome K. Jerome, from Told after Supper

Light.

The YULE LOG

Come, bring with a noise,

My merry, merry boys,

The Christmas log to the firing;

While my good dame, she

Bids ye all be free,

And drink to your heart's desiring.

With the last year's brand

Light the new block, and

For good success in his spending,

On your Psaltries play,

That sweet luck may

Come while the log is tending.

Robert Herrick

Listened.

Alden, "They Went Around the House, Playing Under the Windows", 1908

The party now broke up for the night with the kind-hearted old custom of shaking hands. As I passed through the hall, on the way to my chamber, the dying embers of the Yule-clog still sent forth a dusky glow; and had it not been the season when "no spirit dares stir abroad," I should have been half tempted to steal from my room at midnight, and peep whether the fairies might not be at their revels about the hearth.

My chamber was in the old part of the mansion, the ponderous furniture of which might have been fabricated in the days of the giants. The room was panelled with cornices of heavy carved-work, in which flowers and grotesque faces were strangely intermingled; and a row of black-looking portraits stared mournfully at me from the walls. The bed was of rich though faded damask, with a lofty tester, and stood in a niche opposite a bow-window. I had scarcely got into bed when a strain of music seemed to break forth in the air just below the window. I listened, and found it proceeded from a band, which I concluded to be the waits from some neighbouring village. They went round the house, playing under the windows. I drew aside the curtains, to hear them more distinctly. The moonbeams fell through the upper part of the casement, partially lighting up the antiquated apartment. The sounds, as they receded, became more soft and aërial, and seemed to accord with quiet and moonlight. I listened and listened—they became more and more tender and remote, and, as they gradually died away, my head sank upon the pillow and I fell asleep.

Washington Irving, from the "Christmas Eve" entry in Old Christmas

Gladden.

Weir, Christmas Eve, 1865

CHRISTMAS EVE TEN YEARS AGO

At midnight's hour the solemn sound,

      The moaning swell

Hark, to the sound of that mystic bell,

Steals o'er my heart like a magic spell!

Tolls this bell upon my ear

      A cloud of frosty light

      So soft and clear,

This long December night—

      A chant of praise,

      For peaceful days.

Christmas Eve, watching the fire,

This dreary night, with visions bright;

Cheerful faces gladden my Christmas Eve

Upon a ghostly Winter's night.

Louis Charles

Good.

Walker's Arms points to a good omen for the coming year.

Tchaikovsky, The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a

Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra performs under the direction of Yannick Nezet-Seguin ...

Again.

Here we are again! Bless me, I believe I said that before—but after all you don’t want Christmas to be different each year, do you?

J.R.R. Tolkien, from Letters from Father Christmas

Bach, C.P.E., Magnificat

Hans-Christoph Rademann conducts the Gaechinger Cantorey ...

Yet.

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.  I am an optimist, unrepentant and militant. After all, in order not to be a fool, an optimist must know what a sad place the world can be. It is only the pessimist who finds this out anew every day.  The point of living and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come

Peter Ustinov

Merry Christmas to all.  Drink up, Jim ...

Technique.

Technique is the proof of your seriousness.

Wallace Stevens

Premiered.

Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 22 , 1785

Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-Flat Major, K. 482, premiered on this day in 1785.

András Schiff performs and conducts Capella Andrea Barca ...

Seeing.

Sir Roger's Christmas message from 2014 ...

It is an interesting exercise to stare into a dark, denuded hedgerow and count the colours. Every shade of red and blue, from salmon pink to scarlet, and from deepest indigo to pale forget-me-not, is lurking there, recuperating from the light of summer. And as you watch these hues glimmer like embers you come to understand some of the mystery of colour how red excludes green and yellow and blue; how white is somehow not a colour at all, and the metal shades are like glosses in which colours are trapped and made invisible. These strange phenomena are not explained by the physics of light – a fact that Goethe noticed, and which led him to compose his great treatise on colour. They are not facts about things, but about us seeing things. Pondering them we are also pondering the mystery of consciousness. How is it that the world not only is, but also seems? Why was it not sufficient for the world to be? 

Published

Wyeth, N.C., 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, 1925

A VISIT from ST. NICHOLAS

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds;

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;

And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,

Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap,

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash,

Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,

Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,

When what to my wondering eyes did appear,

But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer,

With a little old driver so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:

"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!

On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donner and Blitzen!

To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!

Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;

So up to the housetop the coursers they flew

With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too—

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof

The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

As I drew in my head, and was turning around,

Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,

And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;

A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,

And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.

His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!

His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,

And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,

And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;

He had a broad face and a little round belly

That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,

And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head

Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,

And laying his finger aside of his nose,

And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,

And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

Clement C. Moore, published on this day in 1823