From “Christmas Festivities” in A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings by Charles Dickens:
“Who can be insensible to the outpourings of good feeling, and the honest interchange of affectionate attachment, which abound at this season of the year? A Christmas family party! We know nothing in nature more delightful! There seems a magic in the very name of Christmas. Petty jealousies and discords are forgotten: social feelings are awakened in bosoms to which they have long been strangers; father and son, or brother and sister, who have met and passed with averted gaze, or a look of cold recognition for months before, proffer and return the cordial embrace, and bury their past animosities in their present happiness. Kindly hearts that have yearned towards each other but have been withheld by false notions of pride and self-dignity, are again united, and all is kindness and benevolence!
“Would that Christmas lasted the whole year through, and that the prejudices and passions which deform our better nature were never called into action among those to whom, at least, they should ever be strangers.”
I’ve never thought of autumn leaves as Xmas decorations, as someone from the North Country, you know they’re long gone by now, around here, down and out by Thanksgiving really. But you got some great color here, they do make excellent holiday decorations – – is it Japanese maple in the first shots?
Usually by mid-December we are mostly out of color even here, but autumn started so late that I can still find some colorful leaves hanging around. Probably be gone by January (just in time to start coming back!), especially if we get some rain over the next couple of weeks.
Yes, that’s a Japanese Maple … a small shrubby one from Oakland Cemetery. They turn fantastic colors; I have three on my property, one turns yellow, one turns purple, and one turns bright red. Weird, that … they look the same to me but they must be different varieties, or the soil and lighting conditions vary just enough to get them to paint themselves differently.
Love those colors!
Thank you!
( I do too! 🙂 )
Beautiful leaf colours!
Thanks, Ann! It was neat to find these really bright colors just a few days before Christmas!