( Letter and pictures behind cut )

Tags: animals, christmas, farm
Mood: silly
Music: Winter Wonderland

CHRISTMAS EVE, and twelve of the clock.
  'Now they are all on their knees,'
An elder said as we sat in a flock
  By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
  They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
  To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
  In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
  'Come; see the oxen kneel

'In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
  Our childhood used to know,'
I should go with him in the gloom,
  Hoping it might be so.

--Thomas Hardy, 1915

Pretty legends associated with Christmas tell us that the cattle all kneel at midnight in honor of the birth of Christ, or that the farm animals can speak between midnight and dawn of Christmas morning. English poet and author Thomas Hardy was often pessimistic and skeptical, yet his verse frequently displays this yearning for the old stories to actually be true.

Tags: christmas, poetry
Mood: pensive
Music: Rain on the roof

With thanks to all of you for a warm and affection-filled year...

With hopes that all of your dreams will be fulfilled in the year to come...

Here's a little retro greeting in html form.

*passes out sugar plums*

Tags: christmas, solstice, yule
Mood: happy
Music: "We need a little Christmas" from Mame!