And so here we are, once again on tiptoe for a merry Christmas and a
happy new year. My good friends, especially my fair friends, permit me
to wish you both. Yes, Christmas is here--Christmas, when winter and
jollity, foul weather and fun, cold winds and hot pudding, good frosts
and good fires, are at their meridian! Christmas! With what dear
associations is it fraught! I remember the time when I thought that word
cabalistical; when, in the gay moments of youth, it seemed to me a
mysterious term for every thing that is delightful; and such is the
force of early associations, that even now I cannot divest myself of
them. Christmas has long ceased to be to me what it once was; yet do I
even now hail its return with pleasure, with enthusiasm. But, alas! how
differently is it viewed, not only by the same individual at different
periods of life, but by different individuals of the same age; by the
rich and poor, the wretched and the happy, the pampered and the
penniless!

To proceed to the object of this paper, which is simply to throw
together a few casual hints, connected with the period. I would beg my
reader's attention, in the first place, to an odd superstition,
countenanced by Shakspeare, and which, if he happens to lie awake some
night, (say with the tooth-ache--what better?--for that purpose I mean,)
he will have an opportunity of verifying. The passage which contains it
is in _Hamlet_ and exhibits at once his usual wildness of imagination,
and a highly praiseworthy religious veneration for the season. Where the
ghost vanishes upon the crowing of the cock, he takes occasion to
mention its crowing all hours of the night about Christmas time. The
last four lines comprise several other superstitions connected with the
period:--

It faded on the crowing of the cock.