Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

by Jimmy Johnson


This is a repeat of my 2011 Christmas post, but the sentiment is unchanged.

A Christmas Carol
by George Wither (1588-1667)

So now is come our joyful feast,
Let every man be jolly;
Each room with ivy leaves is dressed,
And every post with holly.
Though some churls at our mirth repine,
Round your foreheads garlands twine,
Drown sorrow in a cup of wine,
And let us all be merry.

Now all our neighbors’ chimnies smoke,
And Christmas blocks are burning;
Their ovens they with baked meats choke,
And all their spits are turning.
Without the door let sorrow lie,
And if for cold it hap to die,
We’ll bury it in a Christmas pie,
And evermore be merry.

Now every lad is wondrous trim,
And no man minds his labor;
Our lasses have provided them
A bagpipe and a tabor.
Young men and maids, and girls and boys,
Give life to one another’s joys;
And you anon shall by their noise
Perceive that they are merry.

Rank misers now do sparing shun,
Their hall of music soundeth;
And dogs thence with whole shoulders run,
So all things aboundeth.
The country-folk themselves advance,
For crowdy-mutton’s come out of France;
And Jack shall pipe and Jill shall dance,
And all the town be merry.

Ned Swatch hath fetched his bands from pawn,
And all his best apparel;
Brisk Nell hath bought a ruff of lawn
With droppings of the barrel.
And those that hardly all the year
Had bread to eat or rags to wear,
Will have both clothes and dainty fare,
And all the day be merry.

Now poor men to the justices
With capons make their errands;
And if they hap to fail of these,
They plague them with their warrants.
But now they feed them with good cheer,
And what they want they take in beer,
For Christmas comes but once a year,
And then they shall be merry.

Good farmers in the country nurse
The poor, that else were undone;
Some landlords spend their money worse,
On lust and pride at London.
There the roisters they do play,
Drab and dice their land away,
Which may be ours another day;
And therefore let’s be merry.

The client now his suit forbears,
The prisoner’s heart is eased;
The debtor drinks away his cares,
And for the time is pleased.
Though others’ purses be more fat,
Why should we pine or grieve at that;
Hang sorrow, care will kill a cat,
And therefore let’s be merry.

Hark how the wags abroad do call
Each other forth to rambling;
Anon you’ll see them in the hall,
For nuts and apples scrambling;
Hark how the roofs with laughters sound,
Anon they’ll think the house goes round;
For they the cellar’s depths have found,
And there they will be merry.

The wenches with their wassail-bowls
About the streets are singing;
The boys are come to catch the owls,
The wild mare in is bringing.
Our kitchen boy hath broke his box,
And to the dealing of the ox
Our honest neighbors come by flocks,
And here they will be merry.

Now kings and queens poor sheep-cotes have,
And mate with everybody;
The honest now may play the knave,
And wise men play at noddy.
Some youths will now a mumming go,
Some others play at rowland-hoe,
And twenty other gameboys moe;
Because they will be merry.

Then wherefore in these merry days
Should we, I pray, be duller?
No, let us sing some roundelays
To make our mirth the fuller.
And whilst we thus inspired sing,
Let all the streets with echoes ring;
Woods, and hills, and everything
Bear witness we are merry.

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45 responses to “Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!”

  1. Steve from Royal Oak, MI Avatar

    Bob, I love to sing, but not in Renaissance costumes. We have often gone to see A Christmas Carol at the Meadowbrook in Rochester where the singers are dressed in 19th century garb and I would not mine doing that. Keep up with the singing, it is good for the brain… and the soul.

  2. Smigz Avatar
    Smigz

    Arlo and Janis have the right idea in today’s real-time strip!

  3. Dennis from San Diego Avatar
    Dennis from San Diego

    I found this on Wikipedia:

    Wither had served as captain of horse in 1639 in the expedition of Charles I against the Scottish Covenanters, and his religious rather than his political convictions must be accepted as the explanation of the fact that, three years after the Scottish expedition, at the outbreak of the English Civil War, he is found definitely siding with the Parliament. He sold his estate to raise a troop of horse, and was placed by a parliamentary committee in command of Farnham Castle. After a few days occupation he left the place undefended, and marched to London. His own house near Farnham was plundered, and he himself was captured by a troop of Royalist horse, owing his life to the intervention of Sir John Denham, on the ground that so long as Wither lived he himself could not be accounted the worst poet in England.

    Now, I could not have written a poem nearly as good as this one, so I figure that I would have survived the English civil war as easily as did Mr Wither.

  4. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    Good morning. I have 5 minutes until that ceases to be true. Just woke up and getting up.

  5. Trapper Jean Avatar
    Trapper Jean

    Good afternoon, all! I’m up but not quite awake. We had a wonderful day yesterday with family and almost-family, but now I’m tired, so today is a lazy day. There is coffee and red velvet cake, so I’m good.

    Hi Ghost Sweetie!

  6. Morphy Avatar
    Morphy

    Boxing Day! Share some excess joy with those who help you all year long. Bus driver, pizza dude, that guy who happily listens to your sister-in-law drone on and on. OK, I made up the last one. But I would reward him.

    Enjoy a thoughtful Kwanzaa.

    emb, you did not include the name of your FF request, so I could not learn more. But in my daily perusal, I found Wikipedia notes the anniversary of G&S first effort Thespis, or The Gods Grown Old. It kicked off the Christmas theatre season at the Gaiety Theatre in 1871. Reproducible media has been lost for the original full score. But sense tells us it must have been grand, or they would not have rejoined latter.

  7. JACKQULINE MONIES Avatar
    JACKQULINE MONIES

    Got dressed for first time since started feeling bad. Not sure how I look but I am in clothes, an improvement probably. Getting my hair styled but had someone drive me here..

    Big goal is putting away clothes and coordinating the rest of clothes I was planning for visit.

  8. Morphy Avatar
    Morphy

    Glad you’re out, Jackie. You are either getting better already, or self-motivating right through it anyway. Get a whole day of no fever/no dizziness before embarking on travels, please.

  9. Old Bear Avatar
    Old Bear

    Glad Boxing day Debbe where ever you are.

    emb yeh. what tune on Friday – I will be listening.

  10. Morphy Avatar
    Morphy

    Dennis Monokroussos, self-described chess fan, among other seasonal observations today expands on Pascal’s Wager very nicely.
    http://www.thechessmind.net/blog/2016/12/25/merry-christmas.html

  11. Gary Avatar
    Gary

    Got on the road about 10:30 this morning. Weather forecast was for rain, freezing rain, ice pellets and snow. And we got all of that. Our 5 1/2 hour drive took over 8 hours but we made it home without incident. I can’t say the same for the mangled trucks and cars we passed going the other way. We saw a trailer without the front part laying in the ditch. A few hundred yards down the road we saw the cab and it still had the missing trailer panel attached. There were dozens of accidents like that.

  12. Morphy Avatar
    Morphy

    Glad you made it, Gary. 2½ hours and safe beats untold hours waiting in the snow, sleet, hail, and worst of all wind and darkness. Well done.

    Still waiting to hear success from three traveling parties, here.

  13. Gary Avatar
    Gary

    Yep. The trip down was time sensitive since the family was meeting up (roads were clear with only one minor accident to slow things down). The trip back could take as long as needed since there was no-one waiting for us.

  14. Morphy Avatar
    Morphy

    I might have been strong there. I *know* they are safe. They are grown, independent, and trained. Aside from middle-aged angst, I also came of age in a time when it is drilled into you, the host is responsible until the guest is home. An attitude I think is wrong in the way it supersedes personal responsibility; but hard to shake all the same.

  15. Smigz Avatar
    Smigz

    Jackie, something just occurred to me about blood sugar level: do you check more frequently when ill? It can behave erratically then.

  16. JACKQULINE MONIES Avatar
    JACKQULINE MONIES

    Yes and I do and it does. I have been having to take both kinds and more doses because of sudden huge jumps in the blood sugar numbers.

  17. emb Avatar

    Best listen for the tune’s title.

    Pascal? Since we’ve wandered into the non-secular realm again, here’s an online article that specified wandering led me to:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/24/opinion/sunday/varieties-of-religious-experience.html

    It also led to an Amazon ad for a book that provides evidence [pro-, not anti-] re the man orthodox Western and Eastern Christians claim as the second person of the Trinity. Another book you should know about is ‘How Jesus became God’ by the Rev. Bart Ehrman. I’ve read it and listened to his lectures on the topic, and our adult forum at BUMC is now watching the corresponding videos. I recommend it/them.

    Ehrman graciously allowed a group of evangelical theologs [I think all Protestant] to read the proofs, so they could simultaneously publish an anthology of their essays in a thinner book, ‘How God became Jesus.’ Es gibt ein crucial difference between them. Ehrman’s book has a thorough index, allowing the reader to look up whatever she wants, compare with other sources, etc. The anthology has no index. It is impossible for me to look up Ehrman’s subjects in their book.

    It used to take a lot of tedious time and effort to prepare an index. I know, I did one by hand in the late ’70s. No longer. There are computer programs that prepare you one, omitting function words and such [of, and, the, she, as, not, etc.] and allowing you to skip other words. Expect I could do an index to a word-processed book in a week. Why would they not have taken that trouble to aid the reader?

    Peace,

  18. Mark in TTown Avatar
    Mark in TTown

    Janis, I resemble that remark! I still use that “old-man ringtone” because when I tried the modern types I couldn’t tell the difference between my phone ringing and any other electronic sound effect from other devices!

  19. Bob in Orland Park Avatar
    Bob in Orland Park

    Mark I’m with you. After working many years for old Ma Bell I just don’t recognize any other ring.