having Christmas in Wales

I'm not. But, as tradition has it, I am reading 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' by poet Dylan Thomas. I confess I haven't read much of Thomas' work, but what I have I love. Here's the opening stanza:

"One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six."

Such words. Such imagery. And here are some of those images made real from the imaginations of artists, including the woodcuts by Ellen Raskin, author of 'The Westing Game'.

: "It snowed last year, too. I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea." Were you packing snowballs, singing carols, seeking out faces with 'taproom noses and wind-bussed cheeks'? And since it's just two weeks until Christmas, kids, I'm wondering if you're ready? Get out the hidden gifts while they're at school or lacrosse practice. Here's another 'Dylan' to send you wrapping:

Onward.