Now that the evening is here, and dinner is concluded, I am all warm and comfy at home with coffee in hand and a piece of pie next to me.
I live in a manner that generations previous would rightly call "kingly", a not-uncommon sentiment among my fellows, and I am indeed grateful that I can live so well despite suffering a literally crippling injury that heretofore would have me condemned to being destitute if not dead. (Try being a working class man when you can't walk; I'd consider myself fortunate to find a place in a monestary after such a wound.)
Whatever else is going wrong right now, it goes wrong in a time of material advancement that was science fiction generations ago for most, and the wealthy of yesteryear would wonder at what we take for granted--even depreciate--now. This is madness, but sadly not uncommon either, but also not impossible to rectify.
And, for those chomping at the bit for big trees and tinsel while singing caroles and listening to Elvis sing the standards of the season, hold on just a bit longer. December 1st is next Tuesday.
Christmas begins at vespers on the evening of the 24th, according to the Western calendar. The Christmas octave extends to the feast of the Circumcision or Holy Family (as the Novus Ordo Seclorum crowd would have it) which is New Years Day, and the Christmas feast extends to the 12th day of Epiphany on the 5th. The Christmas season then further extends to the feast of the Presentation and Purification on February 2nd. Advent, beginning this year on December 1st, is the fast of anticipation. I won't say we shouldn't carol during the fast.. But I will say that in our obscene decadence we begin the feast far too soon, effectively annulling the fast, and then end celebration of the feast far too fast. The decorating and lights should begin with advent, and the tree should go up and carols should begin in the last week of advent and last until at least the fifth, and the lights should remain up until February. As in so many things the Prots Puritans, their modernist Illuminati spawn have wrecked us, left us bereft of our patrimony, our staunch discipline, our steadfast leisure, our full bequest of joy.
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