...But we only called the fire brigade, and soon the fire engine came and three tall men in helmets brought a hose into the house and Mr. Prothero got out just in time before they turned it on. Nobody could have had a noisier Christmas Eve. And when the firemen turned off the hose and were standing in the wet, smoky room, Jim's Aunt, Miss. Prothero, came downstairs and peered in at them. Jim and I waited, very quietly, to hear what she would say to them. She said the right thing, always. She looked at the three tall firemen in their shining helmets, standing among the smoke and cinders and dissolving snowballs, and she said, "Would you like anything to read?"


(from the one and only Christmas work I read and adore, Dylan Thomas' "A Child's Christmas in Wales". If you haven't, do please read it. if you have, do read it again maybe? http://www.bfsmedia.com/MAS/Dylan/Christmas.html


"I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept."