Merry Christmas

Peace on Earth

Good will to men

and Luna jumped over the Moon

candles at four o'oclock

“Surely everyone is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a wintry fireside; candles at four o'clock, warm hearthrugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies to the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without.”
">― Thomas de Quincey, “Confession of an English Opium 

Dickens

In every life, no matter how full or empty one's purse, there is tragedy.  It is the one promise life always fulfills. Thus, happiness is a gift, and the trick is to not expect it, but to delight in it when it comes, and to add to other people's store of it... What do you do when your family shrinks?... Cry your tears, but then, do the vital thing - build a new family, person by person.  Come to see that family need not be defined merely as those with whom you share your blood, but as those to whom you would give your blood.  -Nicholas Nickleby

The Wind in the WIllows

It was a pretty sight, and a seasonable one, that met their eyes when they flung the door open. In the fore-court, lit by the dim rays of a horn lantern, some eight or ten little field mice stood in a semicircle, red worsted comforters round their throats, their fore-paws thrust deep into their pockets, their feet jigging for warmth. With bright beady eyes they glanced shyly at each other, sniggering a little, sniffing and applying coat- sleeves a good deal. As the door opened, one of the elder ones that carried the lantern was just saying, 'Now then, one, two, three!' and forthwith their shrill little voices uprose on the air, singing one of the old-time carols that their forefathers composed in fields that were fallow and held by frost, or when snow-bound in chimney corners, and handed down to be sung in the miry street to lamp-lit windows at Yule-time.

Kenneth Graham