> There are several attitudes towards Christmas,

> Some of which we may disregard:

> The social, the torpid, the patently commercial,

> The rowdy (the pubs being open till midnight),

> And the childish—which is not that of the child

> For whom the candle is a star, and the gilded angel,

> Spreading its wings on the summit of the tree

> Is not only a decoration, but an angel.

> The child wonders at the Christmas tree,

> Let him continue in the spirit of wonder

> At the Feast as an event not accepted as a pretext;

> So that the glittering rapture, the amazement

> Of the first-remembered Christmas Tree,

> So that the surprises, delight in new posessions

> (Each one with its peculiar and amazing smell),

> The expectation of the goose or turkey

> And the expected awe on its appearance,

> So that the reverence and the gaiety

> May not be forgotten in later experience,

> In the bored habituation, the tedium, the fatigue,

> The awareness of death, the consciousness of failure,

> Or in the piety of the convert

> Which may be tainted with a self-conceit

> Displeasing to God and disrespectful to children

> (And here I remember also with gratitude

> St. Lucy, her carol, and her crown of fire):

> So that before the end, the eightieth Christmas

> (By eightieth meaning whichever is last),

> The accumulated memories of annual emotion

> May be concentrated into a great joy

> Which shall also be a great fear, as on the occasion

> When fear came upon every soul:

> Because the beginning shall remind us of the end,

> And the first coming of the second coming.

— T. S. Eliot, "The Cultivation of Christmas Trees"