y is in the very best of spirits, and disposed to please and be
pleased. Grandpapa relates a circumstantial account of the purchase of
the turkey, with a slight digression relative to the purchase of previous
turkeys, on former Christmas-days, which grandmamma corroborates in the
minutest particular. Uncle George tells stories, and carves poultry, and
takes wine, and jokes with the children at the side-table, and winks at
the cousins that are making love, or being made love to, and exhilarates
everybody with his good humour and hospitality; and when, at last, a
stout servant staggers in with a gigantic pudding, with a sprig of holly
in the top, there is such a laughing, and shouting, and clapping of
little chubby hands, and kicking up of fat dumpy legs, as can only be
equalled by the applause with which the astonishing feat of pouring
lighted brandy into mince-pies, is received by the younger visitors.
Then the dessert!--and the wine!--and the fun! Such beautiful speeches,
and _such_ songs, from aunt Margaret's husband, who turns out to be such
a nice man, and _so_ attentive to grandmamma! Even grandpapa not only
sings his annual song with unprecedented vigour, but on being honoured
with an unanimous _encore_, according to annual custom, actually comes
out with a new one which nobody but grandmamma ever heard before; and a
young scapegrace of a cousin, who has been in some disgrace with the old
people, for certain heinous sins of omission and commission--neglecting
to call, and persisting in drinking Burton Ale--astonishes everybody into
convulsions of laughter by volunteering the most extraordinary comic
songs that ever were heard. And thus the evening passes, in a strain of
rational good-will and cheerfulness, doing more to awaken the sympathies
of every member of the party in behalf of his neighbour, and to
perpetuate their good feeling during the ensuing year, than half the
homilies that have ever been written, by half the Divines that have ever
lived.

CHAPTER III--THE NEW YEAR

Next to Christmas-day, the most pleasant annual epoch in existence is the
advent of the New Year. There are a lachrymose set of people who usher
in the New Year with watching and fasting, as if they were bound to
attend as chief mourners at the obsequies of the old one. Now, we cannot
but think it a great deal more complimentary, both to the old year that
has rolled away, and to the New Year that is just beginning to dawn upon