Christmas essay by Jack Kerouac

NOT LONG AGO JOY ABOUNDED AT CHRISTMAS (Excerpt)

by Jack Kerouac

…Christmas was observed all-out in my Catholic French-Canadian environment in the 1930s much as it is today in Mexico…When we were old enough it was thrilling to be allowed to stay up late on Christmas Eve and put on best suits and dresses and overshoes and earmuffs and walk with adults through crunching dried snow to the bell-ringing church. Parties of people laughing down the street, bright throbbing stars of New England winter bending over rooftops sometimes causing long rows of icicles to shimmer. As we passed near the church you could hear the opening choruses of Bach being sung by child choirs mingled with the grownup choirs usually led by a tenor who inspired laughter more than anything else. But from the wide-open door of the church poured golden light, and inside the little girls were lined up for their trumpet choruses caroling Handel…

Note: “Not long ago joy abounded at Christmas” was first published in the New York World Telegram on Dec. 5, 1957. Read a longer excerpt at richardhowe.com.

Photo: Jack Kerouac as a boy during the 1930s.

Over the River and Through the Wood, poem by Lydia Maria Child

OVER THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE WOOD (Excerpts)
by Lydia Maria Child (1844) 

Over the river, and through the wood,
   to Grandfather’s house we go;
      the horse knows the way
      to carry the sleigh
   through the white and drifted snow.
 
Over the river, and through the wood,
   to Grandfather’s house away!
      We would not stop
      for doll or top,
   for ’tis Thanksgiving Day.
 
Over the river, and through the wood,
   to have a first-rate play.
      Hear the bells ring,
      “Ting a ling ding!”
   Hurray for Thanskgiving Day!
 
Over the river, and through the wood,
   trot fast my dapple gray!
      Spring over the ground
      like a hunting-hound!
   For ’tis Thanksgiving Day.
 
Over the river, and through the wood—
   when Grandmother sees us come,
      she will say, “O, dear,
      the children are here,
   bring pie for everyone.”
 
Over the river, and through the wood—
   now Grandmother’s cap I spy!
      Hurrah for the fun!
      Is the pudding done?
   Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!

Note: A longer version of the poem with beautiful illustrations by Christopher Manson is available at Amazon.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Lydia Maria Francis Child (1802–1880) was an American abolitionist, women’s rights activist, Indian rights activist, novelist, and journalist. Her journals, fiction and domestic manuals reached wide audiences from the 1820s through the 1850s. Child was later most remembered for her poem “Over the River and Through the Wood” about Thanksgiving. Her grandfather’s house, restored by Tufts University in 1976, still stands near the Mystic River on South Street in Medford, Massachusetts. (Read more at wikipedia.org.)