December is a month made for children. It’s hot cocoa and marshmallows; sleigh rides and snow angels; candle lighting; carol singing; dreidel spinning; and stockings brimming over with treats.

More magic than all these things is waking up to that first snow of the season, when all the world is, as Robert Louis Stevenson says in this poem, “frosted like a wedding cake.”

May we all let the child inside us relish in the festivities, fun, and wonder of this special month.

Winter-Time

by Robert Louis Stevenson

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.

Before the stars have left the skies,
At morning in the dark I rise;
And shivering in my nakedness,
By the cold candle, bathe and dress.

Close by the jolly fire I sit
To warm my frozen bones a bit;
Or with a reindeer-sled, explore
The colder countries round the door. 

When to go out, my nurse doth wrap
Me in my comforter and cap;
The cold wind burns my face, and blows
Its frosty pepper up my nose. 

Black are my steps on silver sod;
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;
And tree and house, and hill and lake,
Are frosted like a wedding cake.

From A Child’s Garden of Verses,
which may be accessed for free at Project Gutenberg.