.jpg){kind=small}
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