Хо-Хо-Хо

[Hetran]

До католического рождества, с которого скопипастили добрую дофига новогодних традиций чуть больше недели и мои интернеты начинают заполняться соответствующим контентом.

Прекрасное, например:
'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house,
all the creatures were stirring, yes, even a mouse,
the crosses were nailed to the chimney in prayer,
in hopes that the Niklas wouldn't come there.
The children were huddled in fear in their beds,
lost in visions of terrors wrapped 'round their heads.
And mama in chains, and I in my trap,
losing our minds from the long winter nap.
When out on the lawn there came such a clatter,
I rose from my slumber to discover the matter,
Away to the window, despair growing fast,
I gathered my worries and threw open the glass.
The moonlight did glitter on the new fallen snow,
it looked like a midnight graveyard below,
when suddenly, to my bloodshot eyes they appear,
a dark chariot with eight demons came near.
With a gnarled old driver, voice raspy and thick,
I stared in such horror, as here was the Nik.
More rabid than foxes his minions they came,
and he screamed and he shouted and called them by name:
"Now! Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth, Abhoth and Cthulu,
On Shub-Niggurath, on Nyarlathotep and Yig, yes you too!
To the top of the world, beyond the great wall,
Bring about chaos and destruction for all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
when twirling they rise like a mountaintop high,
So up to the top of my world they did rise,
with a sleigh full of hopelessness that burned in their eyes.
I heard the screams of nightmare, the gnashing of teeth,
As I knew what had come from the world 'twas beneath.
I drew myself inward, and was turning around,
when down through the chimney came the Nik without sound.
He was dressed in ancient cult from head to his foot,
his clothes were all ash and covered in soot,
a bundle of terrors was slung on his back,
a solace to none, he ripped open his pack.
His eyes- how they burned so intensely, not merry,
twistingly disfigured like a burned-out old cherry.
His dried lips were twisted into a bow,
his skin shriveled and ashen like dirty old snow.
The charred remains of a pipe he held in his teeth,
and the smoke it enveloped his head like a wreath.
He was gaunt and quite narrow, the ancient old devil,
I stammered and stared at this man so disheveled.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
was all that it took to complete my own dread.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
reshaping our world to something much worse.
From cities in shambles to cries in the streets,
everything was gone from the great to the least.
He turned with a jerk, his finger on nose,
right through the remains of our chimney he rose,
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a roar,
they responded in kind, while he cried out and swore.
As the souls heard him shout, as they rose out of sight,
"No more Christmas to all, And to all: Eternal Night!"

Алсо, чтоб не постить несколько раз, одна из горячо любимых мною вещей у Геймана.
Nicholas Was...
older than sin, and his beard could grow no whiter. He wanted to die.
The dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did not speak his language, but conversed in their own, twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible rituals, when they were not actually working in the factories.
Once every year they forced him, sobbing and protesting, into Endless Night. During the journey he would stand near every child in the world, leave one of the dwarves' invisible gifts by its bedside. The children slept, frozen into time.
He envied Prometheus and Loki, Sisyphus and Judas. His punishment was harsher.
Ho.
Ho.
Ho.

И цитата из Hogfather'а Пратчетта. Формально, она не рождественская. Но чуть ли не любимая у автора:
“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
"So we can believe the big ones?"
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
"They're not the same at all!"
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"
MY POINT EXACTLY.”