I love it, annpan. Thanks.

I love wrapping presents. I feel sad when we don't have lots to wrap.

Sarah, I swear every year that I will give vouchers in coloured envelopes! But I love choosing things for gifts whenever I see something in the Sales. Starting in January!
I had to bestir myself to do the dreaded wrapping this year as we are having the family get together tomorrow (Saturday). Everybody is going away for the summer break so this is the best arrangement.
That should have read 'people' in my post. Can I change it?
No, I did not get into the egg-nog early ;-)

'Tis the week before Christmas
No cookies are baked,
I planned to have done it
Yet no cookies were 'maked' !

No Christmas card greetings
Have I sent out to a friend,
There are gifts to be wrapped
And errands with no end.

So I guess for this year
Things will just have to be
Done or not done
It makes sense to me !

*whew ! where's the nog ?!?

annpan, in our area the malls have tables set up by different charities, often HS groups, who wrap for donations. Teenage girls do a good job at this! The table I saw this week was the lacrosse team from the local HS.

'Twas the night before Christmas
And down in the kitchen,
The spoons were a-stirring,
The beaters a-mixing.
The cook was a-stumbling
o'er dog and cat tumbling,

The cell phone resounded,
And plans were confounded:
Friends bringing more guests;
Cards not addressed.

More places at table
Formed plans quite unstable.
"What matter five more"
You've done it before!"

Open bottles of cheer;
Look to a new year.
Raise high your glass,
For this, too, shall pass!

Written at 4:30 a.m. during a bout of insomnia....

Veronicae, I can use a similar wrapping service at Christmas but as I usually buy gifts early, I cannot get them done then. I would have to carry the items back to the shopping centre in December!
Actually, this year was better for me. I have a new extending table and with more space to work on, was able to assemble all the necessary items on it and got through the task with no bad temper at all! Hurray!
Woodnymph, I enjoyed that product of sleeplessness! I check and write emails early and often the posting date comes up as the day before! The birds wake me up with the dawn. It gets light early now it is our summer.

the association I attend from time to time, has just pubblished a little magazine (4 pages)
there I found this lyric
you can take it as my Christmas and happy new year greetings

White Christmas
Irving Berlin, 1942
I'm dreaming of a
white Christmas
Just like the ones I
used to know
Where the treetops
glisten
and children listen
To hear sleigh bells
in the snow.
I'm dreaming of a
white Christmas
With every
Christmas card I
write
May your days be
merry and bright
And may all your
Christmases be
white.
I'm dreaming of a
white Christmas
With every
Christmas card I
write
May your days be
merry and bright
And may all your
Christmases be
white.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Berlin

Here is a link that might be useful: Italo Britannica

grelobe -- It's not really Christmas around here until we hear "White Christmas," which was recorded by Bing Crosby in 1942 and has sold 50 million copies worldwide. I also love the movie "White Christmas" with Crosby, Danny Kaye and Rosemary Clooney -- a must-see for me at this time of year.

grelobe, my son and his wife went to an old movie theater and saw "White Christmas" on the big screen. Exciting for him, as he has loved the movie since he was a child, but also because his wife had never seen it before at all! So it was a treat. She really liked it.

The other movie which seems like a companion to that one is HOLIDAY INN.

The old movies are so comfortable and have such a cozy feeling to me.

Here is a poem written in old age by Thomas Hardy who had lost his simple faith in the 'Christmas Story'. It comes from a time when tinsel, hysterical shopping for expensive presents and over indulgence in food and drink played little part in what was still a religious holiday.

The Oxen by Thomas Hardy

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
"Now they are all on their knees,"
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
"Come; see the oxen kneel,

"In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,"
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.

`My favourite Christmas poem of all time, Vee. Thanks for posting it.

Dido

" Ah friends, dear friends, as
years go on and heads get gray,
Touch hands, touch hands, with those who stay.
Strong hands to weak,
old hands to young,
Around the Christmas board touch hands."
-Wm. H.H. Murray

That's nice, Yoyobon.

One of my favorites is "And the Queens Came Late"
It is obviously Christian so I know it does not have universal interest, but I'll share it for what it is to me-a lovely image of experienced mothers helping a new mum.

The Queens Came Late
The Queens came late, but the Queens were there
With gifts in their hand and crowns in their hair
They�d come, these three, like the kings, from far,
Following, yes, that guiding star.
They�d left their ladles, linens, looms,
Their children playing in nursery rooms,
And told their sitters: "Take charge! For this
Is a marvelous sight we must not miss."!
The Queens came late, but not too late
To see the animals small and great
Feathered and furred, domestic and wild
Gathered to gaze at a mother and child.
And rather than frankincense and myrrh
And gold for the babe, they brought for her
Who held him, a homespun gown of blue,
And chicken soup�with noodles, too�
And a lingering, lasting cradle-song.
The Queens came late and stayed not long,
For their thoughts already were straining far�
Past manger and mother and guiding star
And child a-glow as a morning sun---
Toward home and children and chores undone.

This poem is really for the Epiphany, 6th January, the Twelfth Day of Christmas and, in the UK, the time at which we take down the decorations.

T.S. Eliot - Journey Of The Magi

'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed,
refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the
terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men cursing and
grumbling
And running away, and wanting their
liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the
lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns
unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high
prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all
night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears,
saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a
temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of
vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill
beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped in
away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with
vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for
pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so
we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment
too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say)
satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I
remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth,
certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had
seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different;
this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like
Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these
Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old
dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their
gods.
I should be glad of another death.