December 9th, you're really here. Not gonna lie, December is coming and going just like that.
I'm steadily trying to get my fix of holiday films in while I can. Obviously this month we celebrate with so many different holidays, so the movies are overflowing the channels back to back.
This past weekend it was
National Lampoons Christmas vacation and
Scrooged. Next, I'm looking forward to getting my cartoon fix. I'm watching
The Peanuts Christmas,
The Grinch Stole Christmas, and
Mickeys Christmas Carole. After that, it's on to
A Christmas Story,
Home Alone,
Die Hard (because I like action movies and it's great to watch with my dad),
Home Alone lost in New York, the
Nutcracker (for obvious reasons),
The Little Match Girl, and of course many more I just can't think of at the moment.
With the spirit of the holidays, and just a season of giving, there are so many stories out there that just make you think outside your box. One of my favorites is this story I heard when I was a kid called the little match girl. Something about this story struck a cord inside me as a child. I'd like to share it with you as a holiday gift from me to you. Hope you enjoy.....
The Little Match Girl by
Hans Christian Anderson
Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and
evening-- the last evening of the year. In this cold and darkness there
went along the street a poor little girl, bareheaded, and with naked
feet. When she left home she had slippers on, it is true; but what was
the good of that? They were very large slippers, which her mother had
hitherto worn; so large were they; and the poor little thing lost them
as she scuffled away across the street, because of two carriages that
rolled by dreadfully fast.
One slipper was nowhere to be found;
the other had been laid hold of by an urchin, and off he ran with it; he
thought it would do capitally for a cradle when he some day or other
should have children himself. So the little maiden walked on with her
tiny naked feet, that were quite red and blue from cold. She carried a
quantity of matches in an old apron, and she held a bundle of them in
her hand. Nobody had bought anything of her the whole livelong day; no
one had given her a single farthing.
She crept along trembling with cold and hunger--a very picture of sorrow, the poor little thing!
The
flakes of snow covered her long fair hair, which fell in beautiful
curls around her neck; but of that, of course, she never once now
thought. From all the windows the candles were gleaming, and it smelt so
deliciously of roast goose, for you know it was New Year's Eve; yes, of
that she thought.
In a corner formed by two houses, of which one
advanced more than the other, she seated herself down and cowered
together. Her little feet she had drawn close up to her, but she grew
colder and colder, and to go home she did not venture, for she had not
sold any matches and could not bring a farthing of money: from her
father she would certainly get blows, and at home it was cold too, for
above her she had only the roof, through which the wind whistled, even
though the largest cracks were stopped up with straw and rags.
Her
little hands were almost numbed with cold. Oh! a match might afford her
a world of comfort, if she only dared take a single one out of the
bundle, draw it against the wall, and warm her fingers by it. She drew
one out. "Rischt!" how it blazed, how it burnt! It was a warm, bright
flame, like a candle, as she held her hands over it: it was a wonderful
light. It seemed really to the little maiden as though she were sitting
before a large iron stove, with burnished brass feet and a brass
ornament at top. The fire burned with such blessed influence; it warmed
so delightfully. The little girl had already stretched out her feet to
warm them too; but--the small flame went out, the stove vanished: she
had only the remains of the burnt-out match in her hand.
She
rubbed another against the wall: it burned brightly, and where the light
fell on the wall, there the wall became transparent like a veil, so
that she could see into the room. On the table was spread a snow-white
tablecloth; upon it was a splendid porcelain service, and the roast
goose was steaming famously with its stuffing of apple and dried plums.
And what was still more capital to behold was, the goose hopped down
from the dish, reeled about on the floor with knife and fork in its
breast, till it came up to the poor little girl; when--the match went
out and nothing but the thick, cold, damp wall was left behind. She
lighted another match. Now there she was sitting under the most
magnificent Christmas tree: it was still larger, and more decorated than
the one which she had seen through the glass door in the rich
merchant's house.
Thousands of lights were burning on the green
branches, and gaily-colored pictures, such as she had seen in the
shop-windows, looked down upon her. The little maiden stretched out her
hands towards them when--the match went out. The lights of the Christmas
tree rose higher and higher, she saw them now as stars in heaven; one
fell down and formed a long trail of fire.
"Someone is just
dead!" said the little girl; for her old grandmother, the only person
who had loved her, and who was now no more, had told her, that when a
star falls, a soul ascends to God.
She drew another match against
the wall: it was again light, and in the lustre there stood the old
grandmother, so bright and radiant, so mild, and with such an expression
of love.
"Grandmother!" cried the little one. "Oh, take me with
you! You go away when the match burns out; you vanish like the warm
stove, like the delicious roast goose, and like the magnificent
Christmas tree!" And she rubbed the whole bundle of matches quickly
against the wall, for she wanted to be quite sure of keeping her
grandmother near her. And the matches gave such a brilliant light that
it was brighter than at noon-day: never formerly had the grandmother
been so beautiful and so tall. She took the little maiden, on her arm,
and both flew in brightness and in joy so high, so very high, and then
above was neither cold, nor hunger, nor anxiety--they were with God.
But
in the corner, at the cold hour of dawn, sat the poor girl, with rosy
cheeks and with a smiling mouth, leaning against the wall--frozen to
death on the last evening of the old year. Stiff and stark sat the child
there with her matches, of which one bundle had been burnt. "She wanted
to warm herself," people said. No one had the slightest suspicion of
what beautiful things she had seen; no one even dreamed of the splendor
in which, with her grandmother she had entered on the joys of a new
year.
Nicole
Nicole
