We wished for a white Christmas, and we got it. So all we can do is laugh!!! Merry Christmas, everyone!!!!
"...Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim who did NOT die he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.
He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle*, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us Every One! "
from "A Christmas Carol," By Charles Dickens.
* The Total Abstinence Principle is a bit of a play on words, with the double meaning of ghostly Spirits, like the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, which no longer troubled Scrooge. And also alcoholic spirits like whiskey, a prominent feature of life in Victorian England. There is also an abstinence from being bitter, mean-spirited, angry, dour, greedy, grasping, self-centered, and unforgiving. Especially dour.
