Christmas
time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast something like a
jovial feeling is not roused - in whose mind some pleasant associations are
not awakened - by the recurrence of Christmas. There are people who will tell
you that Christmas is not to them what it used to be; that each succeeding
Christmas has found some cherished hope, or happy prospect, of the year
before, dimmed or passed away; that the present only serves to remind them of
reduced circumstances and straitened incomes - of the feasts they once
bestowed on hollow friends, and of the cold looks that meet them now, in
adversity and misfortune. Never heed such dismal reminiscences. There are few
men who have lived long enough in the world, who cannot call up such thoughts
any day in the year. Then do not select the merriest of the three hundred and
sixty-five for your doleful recollections, but draw your chair nearer the
blazing fire - fill the glass and send round the song - and if your room be
smaller than it was a dozen years ago, or if your glass be filled with reeking
punch, instead of sparkling wine, put a good face on the matter, and empty it
off-hand, and fill another, and troll off the old ditty you used to sing, and
thank God it's no worse. Look on the merry faces of your children (if you have
any) as they sit round the fire. One little seat may be empty; one slight form
that gladdened the father's heart, and roused the mother's pride to look upon,
may not be there. Dwell not upon the past; think not that one short year ago,
the fair child now resolving into dust, sat before you, with the bloom of
health upon its cheek, and the gaiety of infancy in its joyous eye. Reflect
upon your present blessings - of which every man has many - not on your past
misfortunes, of which all men have some. Fill your glass again, with a merry
face and contented heart. Our life on it, but your Christmas shall be merry,
and your new year a happy one!
Who can be insensible to the outpourings of good feeling,
and the honest interchange of affectionate attachment, which abound at this
season of the year? A Christmas family-party! We know nothing in nature more
delightful! There seems a magic in the very name of Christmas. Petty
jealousies and discords are forgotten; social feelings are awakened, in bosoms
to which they have long been strangers; father and son, or brother and sister,
who have met and passed with averted gaze, or a look of cold recognition, for
months before, proffer and return the cordial embrace, and bury their past
animosities in their present happiness. Kindly hearts that have yearned
towards each other, but have been withheld by false notions of pride and
self-dignity, are again reunited, and all is kindness and benevolence! Would
that Christmas lasted the whole year through (as it ought), and that the
prejudices and passions which deform our better nature, were never called into
action among those to whom they should ever be strangers!
The Christmas family-party that we mean, is not a mere
assemblage of relations, got up at a week or two's notice, originating this
year, having no family precedent in the last, and not likely to be repeated in
the next. No. It is an annual gathering of all the accessible members of the
family, young or old, rich or poor; and all the children look forward to it,
for two months beforehand, in a fever of anticipation. Formerly, it was held
at grandpapa's; but grandpapa getting old, and grandmamma getting old too, and
rather infirm, they have given up house-keeping, and domesticated themselves
with uncle George; so, the party always takes place at uncle George's house,
but grandmamma sends in most of the good things, and grandpapa always WILL
toddle down, all the way to Newgate-market, to buy the turkey, which he
engages a porter to bring home behind him in triumph, always insisting on the
man's being rewarded with a glass of spirits, over and above his hire, to
drink 'a merry Christmas and a happy new year' to aunt George. As to
grandmamma, she is very secret and mysterious for two or three days
beforehand, but not sufficiently so, to prevent rumours getting afloat that
she has purchased a beautiful new cap with pink ribbons for each of the
servants, together with sundry books, and pen-knives, and pencil-cases, for
the younger branches; to say nothing of divers secret additions to the order
originally given by aunt George at the pastry-cook's, such as another dozen of
mince- pies for the dinner, and a large plum-cake for the children.
On
Christmas-eve, grandmamma is always in excellent spirits, and after employing
all the children, during the day, in stoning the plums, and all that, insists,
regularly every year, on uncle George coming down into the kitchen, taking off
his coat, and stirring the pudding for half an hour or so, which uncle George
good-humouredly does, to the vociferous delight of the children and servants.
The evening concludes with a glorious game of blind-man's-buff, in an early
stage of which grandpapa takes great care to be caught, in order that he may
have an opportunity of displaying his dexterity.
On the following morning, the old couple, with as many of
the children as the pew will hold, go to church in great state: leaving aunt
George at home dusting decanters and filling casters, and uncle George
carrying bottles into the dining-parlour, and calling for corkscrews, and
getting into everybody's way.
When the church-party return to lunch, grandpapa produces a
small sprig of mistletoe from his pocket, and tempts the boys to kiss their
little cousins under it - a proceeding which affords both the boys and the old
gentleman unlimited satisfaction, but which rather outrages grandmamma's ideas
of decorum, until grandpapa says, that when he was just thirteen years and
three months old, HE kissed grandmamma under a mistletoe too, on which the
children clap their hands, and laugh very heartily, as do aunt George and
uncle George; and grandmamma looks pleased, and says, with a benevolent smile,
that grandpapa was an impudent young dog, on which the children laugh very
heartily again, and grandpapa more heartily than any of them.
But all these diversions are nothing to the subsequent
excitement when grandmamma in a high cap, and slate-coloured silk gown; and
grandpapa with a beautifully plaited shirt-frill, and white neckerchief; seat
themselves on one side of the drawing-room fire, with uncle George's children
and little cousins innumerable, seated in the front, waiting the arrival of
the expected visitors. Suddenly a hackney-coach is heard to stop, and uncle
George, who has been looking out of the window, exclaims 'Here's Jane!' on
which the children rush to the door, and helter-skelter down- stairs; and
uncle Robert and aunt Jane, and the dear little baby, and the nurse, and the
whole party, are ushered up-stairs amidst tumultuous shouts of 'Oh, my!' from
the children, and frequently repeated warnings not to hurt baby from the
nurse. And grandpapa takes the child, and grandmamma kisses her daughter, and
the confusion of this first entry has scarcely subsided, when some other aunts
and uncles with more cousins arrive, and the grown-up cousins flirt with each
other, and so do the little cousins too, for that matter, and nothing is to be
heard but a confused din of talking, laughing, and merriment.
A
hesitating double knock at the street-door, heard during a momentary pause in
the conversation, excites a general inquiry of 'Who's that?' and two or three
children, who have been standing at the window, announce in a low voice, that
it's 'poor aunt Margaret.' Upon which, aunt George leaves the room to welcome
the new-comer; and grandmamma draws herself up, rather stiff and stately; for
Margaret married a poor man without her consent, and poverty not being a
sufficiently weighty punishment for her offence, has been discarded by her
friends, and debarred the society of her dearest relatives. But Christmas has
come round, and the unkind feelings that have struggled against better
dispositions during the year, have melted away before its genial influence,
like half-formed ice beneath the morning sun. It is not difficult in a moment
of angry feeling for a parent to denounce a disobedient child; but, to banish
her at a period of general good- will and hilarity, from the hearth, round
which she has sat on so many anniversaries of the same day, expanding by slow
degrees from infancy to girlhood, and then bursting, almost imperceptibly,
into a woman, is widely different. The air of conscious rectitude, and cold
forgiveness, which the old lady has assumed, sits ill upon her; and when the
poor girl is led in by her sister, pale in looks and broken in hope - not from
poverty, for that she could bear, but from the consciousness of undeserved
neglect, and unmerited unkindness - it is easy to see how much of it is
assumed. A momentary pause succeeds; the girl breaks suddenly from her sister
and throws herself, sobbing, on her mother's neck. The father steps hastily
forward, and takes her husband's hand. Friends crowd round to offer their
hearty congratulations, and happiness and harmony again prevail.
As
to the dinner, it's perfectly delightful - nothing goes wrong, and everybody
is in the very best of spirits, and disposed to please and be pleased.
Grandpapa relates a circumstantial account of the purchase of the turkey, with
a slight digression relative to the purchase of previous turkeys, on former
Christmas-days, which grandmamma corroborates in the minutest particular.
Uncle George tells stories, and carves poultry, and takes wine, and jokes with
the children at the side-table, and winks at the cousins that are making love,
or being made love to, and exhilarates everybody with his good humour and
hospitality; and when, at last, a stout servant staggers in with a gigantic
pudding, with a sprig of holly in the top, there is such a laughing, and
shouting, and clapping of little chubby hands, and kicking up of fat dumpy
legs, as can only be equalled by the applause with which the astonishing feat
of pouring lighted brandy into mince-pies, is received by the younger
visitors. Then the dessert! - and the wine! - and the fun! Such beautiful
speeches, and SUCH songs, from aunt Margaret's husband, who turns out to be
such a nice man, and SO attentive to grandmamma! Even grandpapa not only sings
his annual song with unprecedented vigour, but on being honoured with an
unanimous ENCORE, according to annual custom, actually comes out with a new
one which nobody but grandmamma ever heard before; and a young scapegrace of a
cousin, who has been in some disgrace with the old people, for certain heinous
sins of omission and commission - neglecting to call, and persisting in
drinking Burton Ale - astonishes everybody into convulsions of laughter by
volunteering the most extraordinary comic songs that ever were heard. And thus
the evening passes, in a strain of rational good-will and cheerfulness, doing
more to awaken the sympathies of every member of the party in behalf of his
neighbour, and to perpetuate their good feeling during the ensuing year, than
half the homilies that have ever been written, by half the Divines that have
ever lived.
