What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ’em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you?

— Ebenezer Scrooge. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens.

This year, I seem to find myself more in tune with the first chapter of A Christmas Carol than with the last.

Tonight was the Christmas fling in Wilmore, where all the town folks turn out on Main Street, and all the downtown businesses open their doors and have snacks and hot drinks. I just did not feel like staying very long, and I got very cold, so I just came home. I’m trying to work on my book, but I’m having a hard time concentrating.

Tomorrow night is another Christmas party. I’m not even sure I’m going. Perhaps I will make the requisite appearance. I suppose folks will expect me to do a Dickens reading, and I’m just not sure I have the heart for it. I’m more inclined to read about Scrooge walking home through the foggy streets of London and up his broad staircase – wide enough for the coach-and-four! – than I am to read about Fezziwig and how the small things we do for one another mean so much.

Perhaps I should not write things like this in such a public medium, where I am supposed to be all jolly and positive. However, this year has worn me down as no year ever has before, and I’m just not sure I have the energy to do the Christmas thing this year.