Five Days to Christmas: A Collection of Angels and Santas

From Miracle on 10th Street and Other Christmas Writings by Madeleine L’Engle:

“The morning star is low on the horizon. There are three more stars pulsing faintly in the city sky. But even if I can’t see a skyful of stars they are there above me nevertheless; the Milky Way, our own galaxy, swings somewhere in the vast dark above the city lights.

“All those stars. Suns. More suns than can be imagined. Great flaming brilliant atomic furnaces, the bursting of their atoms providing life. Providing life for their planets. Perhaps there are planets where that which was created by love returns love, and there is joy and worship and praise, and man sings with the angels. “

From A Christmas Story by Jean Shepherd:

“At the far end of Toyland in Goldblatt’s, on a snowy throne framed with red-and-white candy canes under a suspended squadron of plastic angels blowing silver trumpets in a glowing golden grotto, sat the Man, the Connection: Santa Claus himself….

“In Northern Indiana Santa Claus is a big man, both spiritually and physically, and the Santa Claus at Goldblatt’s was officially recognized among the kids as being unquestionably THE Santa Claus. In person. Eight feet tall, shiny high black patent-leather boots, a nimbus cloud of snow-white beard, and a real, thrumming, belt-creaking stomach. No pillows or stuffing. I mean a real stomach!”