Scraps Of Mind

And to round off the Christmas Season…

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Today is St Stephen’s Day. So let’s round off our Christmas Season with the ever popular Christmas Carol set on this day (this one’s for you, Seona)

And just a bit of background to this Carol. It was first published in 1853 and the words were written by John Mason Neale. However the music actually originated 300 years earlier in Finland. Good Kink Wenceslas was actually the King of Bohemia back in the 10th century. He was assassinated by his brother Boleslaw and his own saint’s day is September 28. He is the patron Saint of the Czech Republic.

Good King Wenceslas

Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the feast of Stephen
When the snow lay round about
Deep and crisp and even
Brightly shone the moon that night
Though the frost was cruel
When a poor man came in sight
Gath’ring winter fuel

Merry Christmas

There’s no post for today.

Just a heartfelt wish to you all

to have a Joyous and Loving

Christmas

And spread the message of

A Sentimental Christmas Tree

My Christmas Tree is a microcosm of my family history.

My parents bought it when they were stationed in Cyprus in 1964. It was the first time we had ever had an artificial tree. And most of the decorations on it have been in the family for years. Some of them since the 1950s. A lot of them look pretty shabby now, as does the tree.

But they’ve traveled across the world with us and the tree has graced the lounge rooms of many of our homes. Each of my siblings and myself have taken a turn with this tree when we set up our first homes. Until finally it made it’s return home to my Mother.

Sadly Mum is no longer with us but I still put up that tree every year, even though it’s so old fashioned and sparse looking and fill it full of the old coloured glass baubles that have been collected over half a century. And it is with love and reverence I place that Coffee Pot that was her all time favourite Christmas decoration on this wonderful old family Christmas Tree.

I wish you and all your families a wonderful sentimental Christmas. And if you have any special family Christmas traditions (more sentimental the better) please share them with us in the comments below.

Thanks to Lynn Griffin for her great Christmas Cheer Kit used for the scrapbook layout in this post.

Other Posts you might enjoy:

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It’s Carnival Time for Digital Scrapbookers
Do you make Layouts Without Photos?

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The Scrapbooking Edge will show you how.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Stave 1: Marley’s Ghost

arley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don’t know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain. The mention of Marley’s funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet’s Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot — say Saint Paul’s Churchyard for instance — literally to astonish his son’s weak mind. Scrooge never painted out Old Marley’s name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names: it was all the same to him.

Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind- stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dogdays; and didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas.

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn’t know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often “came down” handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, “My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?” No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o’clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men’s dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, “No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!”

But what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call “nuts” to Scrooge. Read the rest of this wonderful Christmas Story here.

I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it. Their faithful Friend and Servant,

C. D.
December, 1843.

Most of us have seen movies or musical adaptations of Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol. Some are good, many are dreadful. But I suspect there are quite a few people who have never actually read the story in Dickens’ own words.

In my opinion, apart from The Nativity Story, A Christmas Carol is the definitive Christmas Story. It is not a long read, one of Dickens’ short stories, but well worth taking the time to read, rather than just watching an adaptation.

The transcript is free on the Internet (see above) and I would heartily recommend you take an hour out of your busy Christmas schedule to sit down and read it if you have never done so before. I must admit, I read this book every Christmas. It’s as much a part of my Christmas traditions as putting up the Christmas Tree and making mince pies.

So go have a read, and maybe it will become part of your Christmas tradition too.

Five Freebies on Friday

Here we go with the Christmas Week’s Five Freebies on Friday. All the very best of the Season to you all. Enjoy these Christmas Freebies.
And please do remember to leave some love when you download your freebie. It costs you nothing and means a lot to the designer.

1. For those of you needing some last minute Christmas Cards, Lynn’s Scrap Attic has the most gorgeous Christmas Card Quick Page based on her Christmas Cheer Kit which I used in my Animated Layout
2. June from Cen’s Loft has a pack of the cutest Christmas Elements as her contribution to the Christmas Around The World Project. Click over and check them out.
3. And there are some gorgeous Christmas Quick Pages at 12 Days of Christmas. But you have to be quick because the link for each day’s freebie doesn’t stay up longer than that day.
4. Christine at Digital Design has made some great looking Christmas Stars for you. Just click on the image to download.
5. And to finish it off hop over to Perfectly Imperfect and pick up Amanda’s gorgeous glitter alpha. Just perfect for those Christmas scrapbook layouts.

Other related posts:

Five Freebies on Friday 14 Dec 2007
Five Freebies on Friday 30 Nov 2007
Five Freebies on Friday 07 Dec 2007

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