HO-HO-HO

I never got around to making my own Christmas cards this year. Around mid-October I usually leave post-it notes around the house reminding me that Christmas is around the corner so I should start making studies for my cards. It would infinitely be more interesting to create one than getting a pack from the store. I don't know about you, but I find it extremely difficult to find one that says what is really on my mind. Blank cards are okay, but I still worry about finding the right photo or illustration, color, paper, etc, etc.

Anyway, Christmas 2005 has come and gone and I didn't even get a chance to lift my pen for this task. Tsk, tsk, tsk. And worse, I did not send out a card at all. Thank god for text messaging and email. Typical Steph… it's always all or nothing. Picky, picky, picky. Maybe this year.

I want to make up for my lack of enthusiasm for spreading holiday cheer by posting an excerpt from Neil Gaiman's collection of short stories, "Smoke and Mirrors." I wish I had written this myself!!! He wrote this bit years ago for his Christmas card. It was calligraphed by Dave McKean. Sigh. I need to add this for my list of goals for 2006.



Nicholas was…

Older than sin, and his beard could grow no whiter. He wanted to die.

The dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did not speak his language, but conversed in their own, twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible rituals, when they were not actually working in the factories.

Once every year they forced him, sobbing and protesting, into Endless Night. During the journey he would stand near every child in the world, leave one of the dwarves' invisible gifts by its bedside. The children slept, frozen in time.

He envied Prometheus and Loki, Sisyphus and Judas. His punishment was harsher.

Ho.

Ho.

Ho.

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PS. I found the photo online. It’s not from Neil Gaiman or Dave McKean.