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On Christmas Thursday
Posted by Tom Hoopes
Thursday, December 25, 2008 11:30 AM
“There is no more dangerous or disgusting habit than that of celebrating Christmas before it comes, as I am doing in this article,” begins G.K. Chesterton in an essay linked here.”
So we waited to post it. It delightfully begins with a reference to Thursday ... “It is the very essence of a festival that it breaks upon one brilliantly and abruptly, that at one moment the great day is not and the next moment the great day is. Up to a certain specific instant you are feeling ordinary and sad; for it is only Wednesday. At the next moment your heart leaps up and your soul and body dance together like lovers; for in one burst and blaze it has become Thursday.”
But, alas, he doesn’t mean Christmas Thursday.
He advocates an extreme ban on Christmas before Christmas day: “And all the old wholesome customs in connection with Christmas were to the effect that one should not touch or see or know or speak of something before the actual coming of Christmas Day. Thus, for instance, children were never given their presents until the actual coming of the appointed hour. The presents were kept tied up in brown-paper parcels, out of which an arm of a doll or the leg of a donkey sometimes accidentally stuck. I wish this principle were adopted in respect of modern Christmas ceremonies and publications. Especially it ought to be observed in connection with what are called the Christmas numbers of magazines. The editors of the magazines bring out their Christmas numbers so long before the time that the reader is more likely to be still lamenting for the turkey of last year than to have seriously settled down to a solid anticipation of the turkey which is to come.”
The rest goes on in the Chestertonian rambling way, with gems like this thrown in:
“I do not know whether an animal killed at Christmas has had a better or a worse time than it would have had if there had been no Christmas or no Christmas dinners. But I do know that the fighting and suffering brotherhood to which I belong and owe everything, Mankind, would have a much worse time if there were no such thing as Christmas or Christmas dinners.”
If you have time, go and read the whole thing.
— Tom Hoopes
| Filed under christmas classics, weekend commentary
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