And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us—listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome, Yule!
In 1st grade I played Tiny Tim in a production of A Christmas Carol!
My only line in the entire play was “God bless us, everyone“.
They would probably cut those words out of a contemporary adaptation.
Hmmm. What would they even CALL Dickens’ great tale if he tried to publish it today?
Some oh-so-PC suggestions for you:
A Winter Celebration of Diversity
A Traditional Holiday Song
An Old Winter Solstice Melody
A Traditional Tale (from the Anglo/Saxon cultural context), about the global need for sustainable spirituality and human imagination in effecting social change
A Kwanzaa Festival Chant from Victorian England
A Celebration of our Collective Humanity
Yuck.
Political correctness makes me feel like vomiting all over my ChristmasYuletideWinter Festival Holiday cheer.
Christmas Bells
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 – 1882)
I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play, And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom Had rolled along The unbroken song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till, ringing, singing on its way The world revolved from night to day, A voice, a chime, A chant sublime Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black, accursed mouth The cannon thundered in the South, And with the sound The Carols drowned Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head; ‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said; ‘For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!’
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: ‘God is not dead; nor doth he sleep! The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men!’
