A very nice stuffing for turkeys can be made from chestnuts, but space will not allow me to enter into further details.
In conclusion, let me add, let Christmas come as a blessing, and not as a curse.
The demon Alcohol is abroad at this holy season, and many know that they require an archangel’s strength to trample him underfoot. Let the law of each feast be regulated like that of the wise Eastern monarch: “None did compel.” Let every one on Christmas Eve endeavour to find some case of distress which it is real and not false charity to alleviate. He will doubly enjoy his own dinner who can think that some one but for him would have gone without. It is such deeds that entitle us to say—
—— —— —— ——“That his bones,
When he has run his course, and sleeps in blessings,
May have a tomb of orphans’ tears wept on ’em.”
CHRISTMAS CHEER.
There is something sacred in the very name of home to every true-born Englishman, and, as we should naturally expect from the hallowing influence of this holy season of the year, home seems doubly sacred on Christmas Day. How many thousand families throughout the land are united but once a year! what efforts, too, do some make, so that on their great annual holiday they may once again find shelter under the old and loving parental wings!
But let us this year anticipate the day’s festivities, and Christmas Eve finds us once again reunited round the fire, on which the log is heaped, and crackles brightly: for no one, unless by abject poverty compelled, would have a poor fire on Christmas Eve. The fresh-cut holly glistens on the wall, the curtains are drawn, and the grey-haired, bright-eyed old man, as he glances round the circle, his voice too full almost to speak, yet feels an inner comfort difficult to describe—a feeling partly of thankfulness, partly of resignation, as he looks forward to the fast-approaching time when the places that know him now shall know him no more for ever. For it has been well said that children, though they increase the cares of life, yet mitigate the remembrance of death. But such a good old-fashioned circle round the fire on such a night would not be complete without a steaming bowl of something hot, to drink a toast in memory of yet another happy gathering in the old house at home. So, while the party assembled listen to the distant sound of the waits, or perhaps to the still preferable music of the bird of dawn—which recalls one of the brightest gems that have dropped from the pen of our greatest poet—we will, after repeating the lines, step down-stairs, and brew a bowl of bishop:—
“Some say that ever, that season comes