A little screed on Christmas by a certain character in a certain Christmas tale: [View all]

[Brigid]

"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say . . . But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come around -- apart from the veneration due its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely and to think of people below them as if the really were fellow-passengers to the grave and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"

-- Scrooge's nephew