Is there a more congenial day in the whole year than the Friday after
Thanksgiving, when it becomes proper to begin celebrating Christmas?

There should still be lots of turkey left for sandwiches and soup, it
is permitted to play Christmas music incessantly, and the season of egg
nog begins.

A jigger of good Brandy in a glass of store-bought nog will do the
trick — and does for me every night of the Christmas holidays.  Sipped
on a cold night by the fire, egg nog revives the calm and coziness of
childhood Christmases as the gentle suspense of the season built to the dramatic
revelations of Christmas morning.

Later in life one comes to appreciate that Christmas is a celebration
of childhood on every level, as much of the world pauses to honor
the birth of a child, a miracle revealed if only momentarily as a
mystical event, beyond comprehension . . . the very definition of joy.

Cheers!