twas the Night Before Christmas

Most of us, especially at this season of the year, can recall Christmas when we were

kids. Then anticipation, for weeks before the date, was so intense that we could hardly

wait and the days seemed to drag themselves out with tantalizing slowness.

No other piece of literature depicts this more than Clement Clarke Moore’s, ‘Night

Before Christmas’. Originally titled “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” it has passed from

generation to generation since it was written two hundred years ago. Professor Moore

meant for this poem to be just for his children in 1822. It was published the following

year and as they say, “the rest is history”.

Morgan County continues to keep alive the spirit of Christmas in our churches and

throughout our communities. Did you ever stop to reason why Christmas is so happy a

season for all of us? In addition to the occasion of celebrating the birth of Jesus, there is

a compelling reason for this season being one of happiness. It lies deep in the recesses

of human nature. It is the one season of the year when for a brief while, instead of

following the selfish habit of getting, we give ourselves over to the impulse of giving.

Therein lies the wellspring of the happiest of human experience. And yet as soon as the

Christmas season is over, we are prone to take up the task of acquiring and getting,

with all the selfish conniving and scheming and exhausting toil that go with its

accomplishment, all unmindful of the lesson in simple happiness the brief Christmas

season could give us.

Throughout the decades of my life, I have observed both the impulse of giving and the

habits of getting. To grow within our communities, we need to maintain that impulse of

giving year round. That is one thing Morgan Countians have demonstrated that they can

do well.

Merry Christmas to All, Until Next Time,

Emeline Bluestocking