“There are souls in this world who have the gift of finding joy everywhere, and leaving it behind them when they go.” ― Frederick William Faber

 The guests are known by their curious wiles,

Mysterious nods, and becks, and smiles;
There are secrets flying about by scores,
Smothered laughs behind fast-closed doors;
There's a noise of hammers, and tink of bells,
And whispered "Hushes," and soft "Don't tells."
Oh, a wonderful place for mystery
In the ancient Inn of the Christmas Tree!
-P F Clamp

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“The rapid nightfall of mid-December had quite beset the little village as they approached it on soft feet over a first thin fall of powdery snow. Little was visible but squares of a dusky orange-red on either side of the street, where the firelight or lamplight of each cottage overflowed through the casements into the dark world without.

Most of the low latticed windows were innocent of blinds, and to the lookers-in from outside, the inmates, gathered round the tea-table, absorbed in handiwork, or talking with laughter and gesture, had each that happy grace which is the last thing the skilled actor shall capture--the natural grace which goes with perfect unconsciousness of observation.

Moving at will from one theatre to another, the two spectators, so far from home themselves, had something of wistfulness in their eyes as they watched a cat being stroked, a sleepy child picked up and huddled off to bed, or a tired man stretch and knock out his pipe on the end of a smoldering log.”

― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows