Yes, Christmas decorations are delightful altogether.  And so the clergymen think, when they become excited in their sermons, and bring their fists down sharply on some charming arrangement of holly round the pulpit.  They do not actually swear then, but their faces express sufficiently all they would like to say; it rather spoils the effect of the discourse, especially if the text be on the virtue of patience.

As I said before, everybody is prickly at Christmas time, especially one’s relations.  And so, to make the season as festive as possible, we, in our sensible way, collect as many of these cheerful, sociable beings together as we can; and, in short, make a delightful family party.  Holly? it is an insult to the tree to compare it in any way.  No, I think the whole gathering resembles a hedgehog more than anything else.  It is one mass of prickles.  Ah, these happy family parties!  Is there ever one member that agrees with another, I wonder?

There is the crabbed old maiden aunt, always on the defensive, never without the idea that someone is waging war against her.  Yet she has to be treated civilly, and humored.  Has she not that which some people term “filthy lucre,” but never really think so?  Have these old ladies ever had any youth?  Have they ever danced and enjoyed themselves like other people?  What has made them so sour, so bitter?  Is it disappointment or regret?  Poor old souls!  In spite of their money, they never seem happy.  They are to be pitied, I think, though they do try to make themselves as disagreeable as possible.  They are so independent, too, they will not be interfered with.  They know everything better than any one else.  One old lady I used to know declined altogether to have a lawyer, insisting on making her will herself.  It was found afterwards, fortunately not too late, that she had appointed herself her own executor!

Then there is the maternal grandmother; to whom, of course, the host is openly rude.  This wears you out more than anything, for you have always to be ready to smooth over and soften every sentence that is said.  And she never helps you at all, either.  If she can possibly put her foot in it, and unconsciously irritate her son-in-law more than ever, she does it.

Then the uncle who spends his life in making the most villainous puns you ever heard.  Not a remark, not a word in any assembly, which this witty specimen of humanity does not at once garnish with a pun of the poorest description.  It generally has to be repeated twice, too, for it is never noticed the first time.  The poor pun, indeed, has a most melancholy existence, for it is greeted with no other applause than that emanating from the author of its being, and stirs up a torrent of abuse from the maiden aunt, who thinks the laughter is directed at her.

Why were punsters ever invented, or family parties either?  They are our thorns in the flesh, I suppose, and so must be endured.