Matt Charlton

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tinny reindeer.

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

“Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! on, on Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.

His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!”

This year I can’t be bothered writing another letter like I did last year. Surprisingly there are still a few things on there I haven’t gotten around to buying, I did end up getting most of it because I got rid of the silly things from the list.

Here’s a link to my amazon wishlist.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/registry/registry.html/ref=w_h_em-si-html_viewall?id=1RNU94ERFYV36

If you are wanting to buy me a Christmas present – thank you very much   Here is my wish list.

This comic is fab.

I’ve ordered a bunch of t-shirts from xkcd, you should all go there and read the comics, for they are funny.

This is a picture of what I talk about the most in my tweets/status updates.

Since the dawn of time (see what I did there?) man has used the sun to indicate to them whether it was time to go hunt or time to go to bed and sleep.

I’m using this example to explain a little of what happened overnight in the holiday cottage.

It’s an old converted barn and the windows have shutters that you close on a night in order to keep the heat in and the light out – not that there is any light of course, we’re in the middle of nowhere and the only light you get is that from the sun.  Obviously as we race towards the Winter months, we’re seeing less sunlight that we have done over Summer.

When the bedtime reading lamps have been switched off and you’re ready to sleep, it’s pitch black – absolute darkness.  No amount of time passing will allow your eyes to adjust to see anything – you can have your hand in front of your eyes and you can’t see it – it looks the same with your eyes open or closed.  It’s bizarre – especially when you live on a busy main road and there are streetlights outside your bedroom window for the rest of the year.

It should be peaceful and relaxing – truth is, its really, really disorientating.  Your mind plays tricks on you – the passing of time seems to fall away into some strange dimension where a minute can seem like an hour.  Sue woke in the middle of the night to go to the loo and switched the light on – I checked my phone as I thought it must be around 6/7am – it was 2:30am.  I felt like I’d had a full nights sleep.  It’s just weird.  I ended up going to the loo and then listening to music on my iPhone for half an hour or so to try and get myself back to sleep.

I remember last time we were here, we bought a night light for the bedroom, just one of the ones you plug into the wall socket and it shines a tiny amount of light out – not because we were scared of the dark, its just it was so disorientating that it was uncomfortable.  We left said night light at home somewhere – todays task is to find another one.

I woke up a bunch of times through the night, with no light to indicate whether or not it was getting towards morning or not – I couldn’t remember just how much of the light came through the shutters in the morning so when I awoke and saw a thin sliver of daylight coming through the underside of the shutter I thought it must have been getting on for 9am.  Wrong, it was 7am.

So there you go – light affects you in funny ways.  When there isn’t any of it, your body does wierd things to your head.

In other news, the cottage is lovely as always, we had fish and chips at Mr Chips in Whitby last night (it’s becoming something of a tradition – we’re three for three on that one) and then came back here and collapsed in front of the TV to watch X-Factor.  WHY ARE THE TWINS STILL IN? THEY SUCK BALLS!

Looking forward to enjoying the rest of our holiday, spending today with Paul and Margaret who are driving down from South Shields.  They should be here about 10am.  Which means I need to go get dressed.  Then I shall be beating Paul at Guitar Hero in Whitby \m/