Christmases Yet to Come
Events of recent weeks left me lingering in a more tender place. Robert Browning’s quote, “Come grow old with me, the best is yet to be, the last of life for which the first was made.” I once believed those words had first been spoken to Elizabeth Barrett during their courtship. I don’t know why. I suppose I just liked it that way.
Just Thinkin’
Events of recent weeks left me lingering in a more tender place. Robert Browning’s quote, “Come grow old with me, the best is yet to be, the last of life for which the first was made.” I once believed those words had first been spoken to Elizabeth Barrett during their courtship. I don’t know why. I suppose I just liked it that way.
Then, as education is wanted to expose, I discovered he actually wrote it many years later in his poem, Rabbi Ben Ezra. That does not preclude that he once, at some earlier time, whispered those lines into Elizabeth Barrett’s ear but it does cast some doubt. I know you can carry a phrase around in your mind for years before an opportunity appears to use it.
But let me move along. Today, no matter how much sincerity and honey I might use to coat those words, my wife isn’t buying it.
It is almost Christmas. Stir a cup of hot apple cider with a cinnamon stick, then smell and slowly sip. I see Christmas trees.
Christmas trees. My father, fresh home from World War II and with Boy Scout hatchet in hand, took my brother and me to cut a native cedar from the hillside just north of that rickety bridge on the Lequire Road just before it began its steep incline up from the floor of the creek. We chopped a tree. It was beautiful.
I smell the cinnamon and cider. I realize Christmas images are not of gifts, although I remember some gifts distinctly. A chemistry set at 10. A .22 rifle at 12 and a Schick single blade razor at 13.
I believe I have given more thought to this coming Christmas than I have in many years. Not thought in terms of gift buying, I’ll do little of that. I was never very good at it and I don’t hold out much hope for improvement.
On a snowy Christmas Eve, arriving at a Midnight Mass as the priests, in full array, were making their way around the church to the front doors during a rather intense snowfall. In a reversal of the original intent, the warm light from inside the church poured out through the stained glass illuminating the men on the sidewalk. This Christmas vision was so perfect that another observer preserved it in art.
I have so many Christmas memories. Each memory is a grand gift in and of itself. These are gifts best shared. So, I write about them.
Christmas traditions. I was making a fine fast recovery when, despite full vaccination, I unexpectedly tested positive for COVID. If this keeps up, who is going to read “Twas the Night Before Christmas” to our family?
AND A MERRY, MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!!! == THE MCBRIDE FAMILY Hal McBride writes a column, Just Thinkin’, published each week.
