Festivation.

Some pity the heathen because he has no trousers, but I pity him because he has no Christmas. Our early forebears were also denuded of more than their Christmas stockings; although they indulged in sock-as-sock-can and rotary clubbings, they never relaxed at Christmas, because they had no Christmas; in any case to relax entailed the risk of becoming a premature ancestor. Although Christmas is old it becomes newer as it gets older, because Progress produces, year by year, bigger and better methods of festivation. Back in the age of unreason, when Christmas was in the early stages of consummation, there was nothing else to do except to vivify the vitality with the vitamins of venison, soak in sack, mop up mead, mollify the metaphysics with mull, and fill up the gaps in the conversation with carved specimens of still life. Christmas was a multiplication table, simple abstraction, or absorption of weights and measures. Every man was sufficient unto himself, provided he had a fair spin and was not subject to lock-jaw. Loss of appetite was unknown unless the appetite was cut off at the collar-button, which was sometimes the case in single combat or double-crossing. The modus operandi of the festivity was restricted to gastronomy, and eating was a protected industry.