Christmas Outside Of Eden

This is the story the robins tell as they huddle beneath the holly on the Eve of Christmas. They have told it every Christmas Eve since the world started. They commenced telling it long before Christ was born, for their memory goes further back than men's. The Christmas which they celebrate began just outside of Eden, within sight of its gold-locked doors. It is a merry, tender sort of story. They twitter it in a chuckling fashion to their children. If you prefer to hear it firsthand, creep out to the nearest holly bush on almost any Christmas Eve when snow has made the night all pale and shadowy. If the robins have chosen your holly bush as their rendezvous and you understand their language, you won't need to read what I have written. Like all true stories, it is much better told than read. It's the story of the first laugh that was ever heard in earth or heaven. To be enjoyed properly, it needs the chuckling twitter of the grown-up robins and the squeaky interruptions of the baby birds asking questions. When they get terrifically excited, they jig up and down on the holly branches, and the frozen snow falls with a brittle clatter. Then the mother and father birds say, "Hush!" quite suddenly. No one speaks for a full five seconds. They huddle closer, listening and holding their breath. That's how the story ought to be heard, after nightfall on Christmas Eve, when behind darkened windows little boys and girls have gone to bed early, having hung up their very biggest stockings.