The Christmas Ball - Golden - Full of fun, people, and a great success, with the highlight being a table overflowing with food.
The Dream - Not all could partake of the festivities. Thinking a meal of baked beans and bacon could be believed to be a Christmas turkey. While dreaming, he saw his landlady with food. Then a neighbor's daughter. She was real and invited him to her family's home, where the dream came true.
Christmas Pantomime - Imagine an evening of entertainment all done in pantomime.
For the Rocky Mountain News. “THE GRAVE OF THE YEAR,"
It is well to pause as we stand on the verge of the year—as weary Time seems to rest his rapid career—and look back on the changes and desolations of the past. Yes, the year 1860 has passed away, and is numbered with those beyond the flood; with all our acts, good or bad, which will add to our happiness or misery, and run on commensurate with eternity. How few can conscientiously say that they have done all they could for the happiness of their fellow man, and the cause of Christ. Thrice happy is the man who can say there is no act of his in the past that he would wish to expunge from the book of memory. When we take a retrospective view of the past, what changes have taken place in one short year? How few eyes, that have not shed tears for the loss of some loved friend—perhaps an aged parent, whose head was silvered o’er with the frosts of many winters—■ who died in the triumphs of divine grace singing as he passed away, •‘Jesus can make a dying bed Feel soft as downy pillows are;’’ and crossed over the river, where the weary find rest, and the wicked cease from troubling. “And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither the light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light; and they shall reign forever and ever.” Perhaps a brother or sister, whose kind voice has often saluted us with “a Merry Christmas” or a “Happy New Year”—now hushed in the stillness of death, and their hearts have ceased to swell with joy, or throb with delight. They passed away as the first summer rose, That awaits not the time when the winter wind blows; But hasteth away on the autumn’s quick gale, And scatters its odors o’er mountain and dale. A child—perhaps an only son— who budded and blossomed but to die—and then transplanted to that eternal Spring time, where the lily fades not, but will bloom on
and bloom ever in the paradise of God, while his parents are left to mourn his untimely death. “They will miss him when the flowers come, In the garden where he played; They will miss him by thy fire-ride, When the flowers have all decayed. They will see his toys and his empty chair, And the horse he used to ride; And they will speak, with a silent speech, Of their little boy that died.” Oh! I remember well and never forget the little mound where rest the ashes of one little boy that died, although many years have passed, and l am far away. Yet my affections still cling around that sacred spot like the ivy green around the majestic oak, long after its leaves have faded and its trunk is dead. “I am all alone in my cabin now, And the midnight hour is near; And the faggots crack and the clock’s dull tick, Are the only sounds I hear; And over my soul in its solitude, Sweet feelings of sadness glide, For my heart and my eyes are full when I think Of niy little boy that died” This is a world of disappoimment, affliction, sorrow and death. Alas, all things here are fading, dying, and passing away. If we look upon our dearest friends, we see their countenances turn pale, and they bid us farewell and pass away forever. Such is life. ‘Like a dream, when one awaketh, soon it vanisheth away.’ Oh! I hate the stale banquet, the triflers have tasted, When I think of the ills of life’s comfortless day, How the flowers of my childhood, their verdure have wasted, And the friends of my youth have been stolen away. They know not how vain is the warmest endeavor To woo the kind moments, so slighted when near; When the hours that oblivion has cancelled forever, His hand has entombed—in the Grave of the Year,” Since the last solemn reign of this day of reflection, What crowds have resigned Life’s ephemeral breath! How many have shed their last tears of dejection, And closed the dim eye in the darkness of death! How many have sudden their pilgrimage ended, Beneath the sad pall that now covers their bier; Or to death’s lonesome valley have gentley descended, And found their last bed—with the Grave of the Year. *'Tis the year that so late, its new promise disclaiming, Rose bright on the happy, the careless and gay, Who now’ on their pillows of dust are reposing, Where the sod presses cold on their bosoms of clay. Then talk not of bliss while hdrsmile is expiring, Disappointment still drowns it in miseries tear: Reflect and be wwe-4br the day is retiring, And to-morrow will dawn—on the Grave of the Year. Ah! trust not the gleam of life’s perishing taper, So faintly that shines o’er the wanderer’s head; ’Twill expire—when no sun may dispel the thick vapor, No dawn of the morning revisit my bed. As breaks the white foam on the boisterous billow, So the visions of pleasure and hope disappear, Like night-winds that moan through the verdant willow, Or the shades that now meet in the Grave of the Year. Yet aw hile and no seasons around us will flourish, But Silence for each her dark mansion prepare: Where Beauty no longer her roses shall nourish, Nor the lily o’erspread the wan cheek of Despair! But the eye shall with lustre unfailing be brightened. When it wakes to true bliss in yon orient sphere: By sunbeams of splendor immortal enlighten’d, Nevermore to godown—on the Grave of the Year.
Denver, Dec. 31, 1860.
S. D. R.
Until next time,
Doris
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