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A Christmas
Dinner
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 bell 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!
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On Christmas Eve, grandmamma is always in excellent
spirits, and after employing al the children, during the
day, in stoning the plums, and all that, insists,
regularly eery 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 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 downstairs;
and uncle Robert and aunt Jane, and the dear little baby,
and the nurse, and the whole party, are ushered upstairs
amidst tumultuous shouts of "Oh, my!" from the
children, and frequently repeated warnings not to hurt
baby from he 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 still 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 turkey, 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.
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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.
From Charles Dickens, 'A Christmas
Dinner,' Sketches by Boz
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