Happy
St. Stephen’s Day.
Have
you ever wondered what the song Good King
Wenceslas has to do with Christmas? The answer is: nothing. St. Stephen’s
Day is December 26, and Good King
Wenceslas is a St. Stephen’s Day song, so it gets sung this time of the year.
On
to the horror.
public domain
One
of the most terrible stories I was told at school as a child was The Gift of the Magi, by O. Henry. It
seems this couple was very poor, but at least the husband had a gold watch that
had been handed down from his grandfather. And the wife had beautiful brown
hair that went past her knees.
In
a desperate attempt to get enough money to buy her husband a Christmas present,
the wife sold her hair. That’s right, she sold her hair. Then she used the money to buy a platinum chain for her
husband’s watch.
Meanwhile,
the husband had sold his gold watch to buy a set of jeweled combs for her hair.
So
on Christmas day, they had a chain for a watch they no longer had, and combs
for hair that no longer existed.
All
the adults thought this was a beautiful story. I think the girls thought it
romantic.
I
was horrified by this sequence of events that culminated in an ironic twist of
fate.
So
Merry Christmas to you, O. Henry, you sicko.
photo by Jane Art
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