Living in London

After the clouds and dark days of earlier December, the last two days have dawned clear and cold, and left all of London feeling a bit manic I think. We went on a long walk today though Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park where it seemed most people were smiling and laughing, out for a Sunday stroll and dressed in their Christmas best. Many children received either scooters or roller blades from Santa and they were all in the park trying them out.

It occurs to me that this type of weather, and resulting behavior, may have afflicted Dickens when he wrote A Christmas Carol -- Scrooge, the cranky, penny-pinching miser, felt so much better when a clear and sunny Christmas Day dawned, that he reformed. Or maybe he had just gotten an iPod and could finally listen to his own playlist as he walked! In either case, we send out our best wishes for a Happy New Year to all our friends and family.

"I don't know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoon of himself with his stockings. "I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!"

Check out this site for great information on how much Dickens influenced the modern idea of Christmas.