We are halfway through the Feast and those who do not know how to Feast well are already growing tired of jollity. There is great skill to living well and one of those skills gentlemen and ladies used to be taught was pacing a party. Ancients would fast for forty days and party for weeks.
We get tired after a few days at home. This is because we party badly . . . like children and not as adults. An ancient Greek or a Victorian knew the gift of pacing. A child grabs all the treats on day one. A child is lazy and indulges only a few of his senses. A child does not understand that creative work can be play.
Scrooge looked down on party goers for good reason. Most people do not know how to party and leave the Feast less able to live a good life than when they went into the jollity. He was mistaken, however, and one job of the Ghosts of Christmas was to show the old sinner that a feasting man was engaged in the business of Heaven. Feasting should not dissipate our strength, but recreate it.
Dickens said of Scrooge after his return to the Faith:
He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.
He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!
Scrooge knew how to keep Christmas well. How can we keep Christmas well?
Rest and be active.
If you have time off, do creative work.
Few of us have jobs that use all of our God given creativity. A feast time is a good time to write a play, novel, song, make a piece of furniture. Do something with time off that is creative.
If you do not have time off, try to focus on the Feast. Do your job, but (if you can) make it a lower priority than the celebration. You can do this and when you must make the job a higher priority (as I often do), this will be easier.
Eat feast foods, drink feast drinks, but do not forget moderation.
We have a body, mind, soul, and passionate nature. Let’s celebrate with all of us.
Giving is more blessed than receiving.
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