Well, I’m absolutely mortified! Look what Mary has done to me! No one’s going to believe that I’m Father Christmas? (Well, maybe that dopey pink poodle who keeps chasing me on the sea front may…she’d believe anything!)Mary thought it would be nice to dress me up for when D takes me to visit people. I think it’s a dumb idea. Isn’t my warm smile and waggy tail good enough? But it’s the season of Advent and maybe D will eventually come to his senses before Christmas day and take it off of me! I look like a flippin Ho-Ho ho...if you get my drift!
The poet John Betjeman wrote a wonderful poem about Christmas. I thought you might like to see it. Also, I see that D has written about it in his diary:
The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.
The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
'The church looks nice' on Christmas Day.
Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says 'Merry Christmas to you all'.
And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.
And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children's hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say 'Come!'
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.
And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?
And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,
No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.
That was lovely. And now I know why D likes the poem so much. Mr Betjeman is as barking as D is!
Doggone it!
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