I Love the Smell of Cornflakes in the Morning

Taxmom (who with her husband shares two adolescent  sons) offers a further Christmas update:

Steve and I won an indoor remote controlled helicopter (yes) at the office xmas party last week, and the boys have been flying it around the living room with the Valkyrie music playing.....so we have had Apocalypse Now going on in our living room for the past several days.

That Day Again

Marcellus gets his big moment and then exits stage left:

Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long;
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,
The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

--Hamlet, Act I, Sc. i

[Evidently not applicable in Souithern CA:]

That Day Again

This is the Month, and this the happy morn
Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King,
Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,
That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

--John Milton, On the Morning of Christ's Nativity

For another post about this poem, go here.

Afterthought: In his great Milton collection, Merritt Y. Hughes says that "the theme of the Ode--the triumph olf the infant Christ over the gods of paganism--was dear to Christian humanists, Protestant and Catholic alike." Hughes, John Milton: Complete Poems and Major Prose 42 (1957). Quite right, and a question that may be more obvious to us now than it was to Hughes is: how come to Christianity didn't get swamped by the paganism?

Whew, That's Over

Ah, survived another Christmas. Never my best day, don't ask, but in any event, I don't have to face it again for another year. Well actually, we are booked disport ourselves with a couple of sets of grandchildren later in the week, but that part is fun and easy.

The really fun part so far was a basket of overnight goodies form Zabar's--too much for just the two of us, so we had to dragoon some friends. Salmon, coffee, rugulah, that sort of stuff. I tell you (and they do not pay me for this)--it's pricy, but good.

Mrs. B and I succeeded in giving each other the same book only once--The Rest is Noise, by Alex Ross, on 20th Century music. I think she almost doubled me with James L. Kugel's How to Read the Bible, but she backed off and opted for John H. Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, which she found on my Amazon wish list. Yes, that's a lot of religion for a pagan household, but we try to operate on a broad spectrum.

She also fitted me out with a fistful of cards like the picture at left. Without comment. I guess I have to interpret this for myself.

'Tis the Season

Forwarded by someone who ought to know better (link), and I hope you are properly ashamed.

Update: Not quite as tacky, but still cute (link).

Kalle Anka

Okay, so have you had it with A Wonderful Life? Thoughtcha did. You want some real Christmas culture? Then carry yourself away to Sweden, where every Christmas afternoon they settle down to a session of Kalle Anka Och Hans Vänner Önskar God Jul--that would be Donald Duck And His Friends Wish You A Merry Christmas. Evidently the government tried to crack down on it as unseemly--which ought to have been predictible as the most futile use of government resources since "Whip Inflation Now " buttons.

I'm not sure this (with a bit of chipmunk-on-chipmunk action, if I read it right) is the right one, but it ought to be close: link. Enjoy, and if you can find the real link, give me a headsup.

Footnote: My cousin Dave weighs in with this one. Hint: Fjuckby.