A Northern Christmas by Rockwell Kent

Author:Rockwell Kent
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
Published: 1998-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

Christmas Eve!

We’ve cleaned the house, stowed everything away upon shelves and hooks and in corners, moved even my easel aside; decorated the roof timbers with dense hemlock boughs, stowed quantities of wood behind the stove—for there must be no work on that holiday—and now both Rockwell and I are in a state of suppressed excitement over tomorrow.

What a strange thing! Nothing is coming to us, no change in any respect in the routine of our lives but what we make ourselves,—and yet the day looms so large and magnificent before us! I suppose the greatest festivals of our lives are those at which we dance ourselves. You need nothing from outside,—not even illusion. Certainly children need to be given scarcely an idea to develop out of it an atmosphere of mystery and expectation as real and thrilling to themselves as if it rested upon true belief.

Well, the tree is ready, cut to length with a cross at the foot to stand upon, and a cardboard and tin-foil star to hang at its top. And now as to Christmas weather. This morning, as might just as well have been expected, was again overcast. Toward evening light snow began to fall. It soon turned to rain and the rain now has settled down to a gentle, even, all-night-and-day pace. Let it snow or rain and grow dark at midday! The better shall be our good Christmas cheer within. This is the true Christmas land. The day should be dark, the house further overshadowed by the woods, tall and black. And there in the midst of that somber, dreadful gloom the Christmas tree should blaze in glory unrivaled by moon or sun or star.

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