“I have nothing against Saturnalia, it belongs to this season of the year: but how do we get so confused about the true meaning of even our simplest-appearing pastimes?”

Katherine Anne Porter, A Christmas Story. First appeared in Mademoiselle (December, 1946)”
American Christmas Stories edited by Connie Willis

#americanchristmasstories #christmasstory #katherineannporter

“Christmas is what we make it and this is what we have so cynically made of it: not the feast of the Child in the straw-filled crib, nor even the homely winter bounty of the old pagan with the reindeer, but a great glittering commercial fair, gay enough with music and food and extravagance of feeling and behavior and expense, more and more on the order of the ancient Saturnalia…”

#americanchristmasstories #christmasstory #katherineannporter