The Festival of Christmas

For children the day begins with a weight on the toes, long, angular, and many-faceted as a leg by Picasso. The stocking should be opened by candlelight: no other light is resonant at that high frequency of excitement. Christmas is one of the oldest of our traditions, more ancient than any present-day beliefs, and strong enough to have survived even the attacks of Puritans in the seventeenth centu...