24 Days of Ornaments: Dec the 5th

This is a tiny book which doesn't open. It is the last remaining ornament from a collection of small children's ornaments sent to us 25-30 years ago from my Australian penpal, Julie. There were small angels and elves and a silver garland wreath among other things. Over the years, they were broken or lost or they just wore out. But this book stays and every year as I pull it (gently now) from the box, I remember Julie and her family.

Once upon a time, before there was email, at Christmas time we would record audio cassette tapes for each other, a device which seems to be universal in a way that DVD movies are not. Before we went to Australia in 2008, I transferred all of her audio tapes to CDs and mailed them to her. Now she also has a recorded diary of her life as a young mother. She can hear her children's voices and listen to her husband's stories as told to people a half-world away.

Merry Christmas, Julie and Wil and Nathan and Sarah.

And to all a good Knight

Little did Edward Bulwer-Lytton know that his (in)famous opening line, "It was a dark and stormy night..." in the 1830 novel Paul Clifford, would inspire such nonsense as the contest run in his name and the wink-wink-nudge-nudge of many a semi-literary discussion. Romance authors themselves love the "He was a dark and stormy knight" aspect to it.

Which is just one reason why I so love English. It probably helps to be a native speaker and to be educated among people who loved a double entendre and puns. Myself, I love crossword puzzles and I know that those of the Wall Street Journal have polished my skills at looking at clues from more than one angle. English seems to be the most flexible of languages, adding and subtracting as its speakers want. That's an amateur wordsmith's opinion of course. The linguists might know another as versatile.

But for the moment, I want to combine the ending of Clement C. Moore's The Night Before Christmas with a romance twist. "And to all a good Knight." May you come across someone kind and honorable, valiant and trustworthy, male or female. May you be, to someone else, a good knight.

Merry Christmas. To all a good knight.