Christmas thoughts through the ages.

I have been reading the thoughts of others on Christmas Day - they conjure up such lovely images I thought I would share some of them with you:-

The first is from the diary of Frances Kilvert in 1870:

Sunday - Christmas Day. As I lay awake praying in the early morning I thought I heard the sound of distant bells. It was an intense frost. I sat down in my bath upon a sheet of thick ice which broke in the middle into large pieces while sharp points and jagged edges stuck all around the sides of the tub like cheveux de frise, not particularly comforting to the naked thighs and loins.
I had to collect the floating pieces of ice and pile them on a chair before I could use the sponge.
The morning was most brilliant. I walked to Sunday school with Gibbins and the road sparkled with a million rainbows. The church was very cold in spite of two roaring fires.

(Sad that this lovely young man, with such an eye for the girls, died young - just as he was to embark upon a happy life).

Now from the diary of Daphne du Maurier when she was an old lady and lived at home alone in her house Menabilly:

It is so queer having no one down here for Christmas. I have not done my routine decorating, but have put all my cards around, and have lovely flowers everywhere, and an arrangement of holly on the centre table in the Long Room, and so it all looks very cheerful. If I thought about it too deeply, I might be rather sad, but I don't. I think the thing is always to look ahead in life and never look back; except in gratitude.

And finally from the diary of Stephen Spender, who was in Jerusalem for the Nativity. The year is 1974.

After dinner, to the Church of the Nativity, for Midnight Mass. The Church is large and bare, the Mass was intoned in Latin, with some dignity. The most beautiful part of the evening was after we left the service and walked back along the road the two miles to Rebecca's well, where our car was parked. We heard, from that distance across the valley dividing us from Bethlehem,
the voices from the Church still singing, which the cold night air seemed to purify of raggedness and wrong notes, so that coming from the hill above us, they seemed those of a heavenly choir.

I wonder how safe it is these days to walk those two miles in that terribly divided country.

Enjoy these few days before Christmas.