“A MERRY CHRISTMAS!”
A Christmas Greeting
“A MERRY CHRISTMAS!”
It is an old, very old, timeworn greeting, this of the friendly “Merry Christmas to you!” and there are some folks among us in these days who profess to hate the very sound of it. It came into use when England was known as “Merrie England,” an appellation which seems more than singular to us who have to endure the inane dullness and melancholy stupidity of “society” as it exists in this present gloriously-progressive Motor-Era. Looking round on the tired, worn, nervous, querulous faces in the crowds that fill the streets and shops at Christmas-time,—hearing the endless complaints, the new diseases, the troubles, real and fancied, of each person who can manage to detain a friend for five minutes’ hurried and morbid conversation,—reading the delectable details of suicide, murder, mania and misadventure preciously garnered up as gems of literature for the million by the halfpenny press—one may reasonably wonder whether England was ever in truth really “merrie,” as recorded. Her ancient sweet songs and ballads, her old-fashioned “Yule games” and picturesque “country dances” would appear to prove her so,—reports of the “open doors” and generous hospitality of her jolly yeomen and hunting squires in bygone days are still extant,—and it may be reasonably asked why, if she was so “merrie” once, she cannot be equally “merrie” again.
“It is a farce to wish me ‘A Merry Christmas,’” says the pessimist—“I have no cause to be merry!”