When you read this, you will have begun the new year. I am writing on the day after Christmas. Perhaps you will watch the old year out with festivities in hilarity perhaps a quiet family hour before the fireplace but if your husking is dragging on like ours, you will observe midnight only with the common general sleep that comes these strenuous days. The old year will die and the new year will be ushered in and to us it will only be one more restful night in the continuity of time.
This Sunday afternoon has been bright and sunny. There is no snow, but moisture has condensed and frozen on every tiniest twig and sprig of vegetation till the world turns white. The heavy rime, glowing and glittering on trees and hedges, adorns them with the lace-like tracery of old cathedrals.
It has been a long, luxurious, drowsy restful day. The boys are busy with their new toys, Ruth and I are writing thank you letters, and daddy is napping on the davenport. All the greeting cards are crowded on the mantle at the feet of the tall, red Christmas candles, yours among the many. And before we go farther, let me here thank you for the friendly and loyal greetings so many of you have sent to me into the household. I know I don't deserve the pleasant things you said, but praise is always sweet and it will help me carry in the dull times and try to do better in receiving and sorting and arranging your letters, so you will be kept in friendly touch with one another and continue to find the household profitable in both material and spiritual ways
Hold Special Services.
It is nearly chore time. Daddy will have to rouse himself and go to milk the cows. While he is gone, the children and I will have our playtime, only today it will be our very special on Christmas service instead. We have held it every Christmas since Sonny was big enough to lift his lusty voice in so-called song. We will cuddle down before the fireplace in this year we will throw on the fire some fairy fuel, which makes the flame burn blue (blue for happiness, you know!) and the soft light will flare and fade on the Christmas tree in the corner, and the red candles will throw a mild glimmer over your names and messages on the mantle, til it will almost seem that you are with us, and then we will sing our favorite songs beginning with Silent Night. Of course, not one of us can carry a tune and part of us lisp a little on the words, but it will be sort of poetry to us, and if we can't do well enough to make the atmosphere solemn, we can at least have a good laugh. Happy new year to you all – Hope
MEMORY GEM
Speak a shade more kindly.
Than the year before
Pray a little oftener.
Love, a little more.
Cling a little closer.
To the father's love
Life below shall liker grow.
To the life above
– selected