Thursday, December 24, 2009

Sentiments of the season, y'all

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Christmas comes but Once a Year

God grant ye joy this Christmas day,
May every heart be jolly;
Love kiss ye now beneath the bough
Of mistletoe and holly.
The long, hard year of toil is done;
Today the bells are ringing,
Put down your burdens everyone,
And share the carol singing.

For Christmas comes but once a year,
When harvesting is ended;
With merry din the day comes in,
By love and mirth attended;
The children dance and shout with glee,
The eyes of all are beaming;
And high above the Christmas tree,
The star of Hope is gleaming.

- Edgar A. Guest


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Heigh Ho, The Holly

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh ho, sing heigh ho, unto the green holly;
most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remember'd not.
Heigh ho, sing heigh ho, unto the green holly:
most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

- William Shakespeare

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Bounce buckram, velvets dear,
Christmas comes but once a year,
When it comes it brings good cheer,
And when it's gone it's never near.

- English traditional Christmas poem


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I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year. As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through the year. And thus I drift along into the holidays - let them overtake me unexpectedly - waking up some fine morning and suddenly saying to myself: "Why, this is Christmas Day!"

- David Grayson

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Merry freakin' Christmas from the entire staff at
The Ephemeral Frontier


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6 comments:

  1. Isn't the entire staff you?

    But I love the Grayson quote, and that is a wonderful depiction of Santa.

    Which reminds me, t'other blog needs a tale told...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey Emilly,

    Yeah Hon, I'm it.

    The Santa whose lap I am sittin' on is actually Marty, the bouncer at the Gem. Just to be clear he's not part of my staff. But I do appreciate him posing in the picture with me, especially as dressing up as Santa every year is something he absolutely detests. He'll sit there during the entire Deadwood Christmas party, muttering about how much he hates his life, etc. etc.

    It's really quite endearing.

    I shall look forward to seeing what sort of tale appears on 't'other blog."


    And Hon, I wish you a pleasant Holiday season.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love the Grayson quote as well. When Christmas (and its reason) is approached as a year-round thing, it changes from a wad of stress to the culmination of joy.

    Which means we can all start planning for next year--tomorrow! *winks*

    A very Merry Christmas to you, Dio!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Merry Christmas, Dio! Did Santa deem you naughty or nice?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hey Merryann, a happy Christmas to you too. I like the significance of the Grayson quote being as he was a muckraking Progressive era journalist, and I believe his interpretation of "keeping Christmas" and behaving with kindness and humanity throughout the year was a far different thing from today's self-serving and smarmy "christianity" represented by certain Fox News personalities and their ilk.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hey Rhia,

    Merry Christmas to you too Hon!

    Oh, the real Santa was remarkably kind to me, so either he don't mind the "F" word too greatly, or he's slightly deaf.

    As far as our pretend Deadwood Santa--Marty the bouncer from the Gem--I am pretty sure that he looks upon me as something in the nice category. Marty has always been very accommodating to my requests I have had of him, such as opening locked doors without benefit of a key (or tools of any kind for matter). He also has carried large and heavy loads for me, in a most agreeable way.

    Some folks are kinda scared of Marty--the fact that he is actually larger than Clay and has been known to rip off a fella's arm and beat him senseless with the detached limb tends to make certain folks a little cautious around him.

    I've always found him easy-going unless provoked (or instructed otherwise by Clay) and have even seen a tender side to him. There was this instance when some asshat knifed a young prostitute and killed her; Clay asked Marty to take her down to the Doc's so he could draw up a death certificate and all that. And as Marty, bless his heart, went off down the street gently cradling the dead girl's body in his massive arms, he was heard softly telling her, "Now don'choo wory none...ever'ting gonna be awright...Doc'll take gud care o' yoo"

    I think Marty made the best Santa, ever.

    ReplyDelete