In The Spirit of Yuletide!

A fitting place to start is to bid all guests a warm welcome and a wish for the peace and comfort of the season.

Christmas grabs me like a vice every time it comes! It's not the food and the gatherings, neither is it the beautiful trees and gay, excited children all of which are enough to make any heart swell with gratitude.

Rather, it's the inexplicable magic in the air that I feel at no other time of the year. I remember while growing up long ago, my siblings and I grew excited as it's arrival heralded christmas each year. We took it for granted for the most part, unmindful that most adults around us had lost the ability to perceive it.

I woke up one day seemingly as my same old self only to discover this fact, and to realise that I had myself entered into adulthood. I also discovered that many of my compatriots had not felt any of it even as a child and so had no idea what I meant referring to it.

Struggling to regain it has been a tug of war that is only now being gradually rewarded. The struggle continues...

Oh by the way, have you really listened to that carol 'In Dulci Jubilo'? Don't let the season pass without doing so....please!

And you can listen right here and now to this beautiful version (the wordings follow):

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Willsbridge, Gloucestershire, 31st of January, 1837. R.L.Pearsall.

In dulci jubilo / Let us our homage shew; [In sweet jubilation]
Our heart's joy recli- / neth in praesepio [the manger]
And like a bright star shineth, / Matris in gremio. [On his mother's lap]
Alpha es et O, / Alpha es et O. [You Who are Alpha and Omega]

O Jesu parvule! / I yearn for thee alway! [1] [O tiny Jesus]
Hear me, I beseech / thee, O puer optime! [O best of boys]
My prayer let it reach thee, / O Princeps gloriae! [O prince of glory]
Trahe me post te! / Trahe me post te! [Draw me after Thee]

O Patris caritas, / O Nati lenitas! [O love of the Father] [O gentleness of the Son]
Deeply were we stained / Per nostra crimina; [Through our sins]
But thou hast for us gained / Coelorum gaudia. [The joy of heaven]
O that we were there! / O that we were there!

Ubi sunt gaudia, / If that they be not there? [Where are joys?]
There are angels singing / - Nova cantica, [New songs]
There the bells are ringing / In Regis curia: [In the King's court]
O that we were there, / O that we were there.

[1] Pearsall's translation of this line was "My heart is sore for thee!"