From this high midtown hall, undecked with boughs, unfortified with mistletoe, we send forth our tinselled greetings as of old,
to friends, to readers, to strangers of many conditions in many places. Merry Christmas to uncertified accountants, to tellers
who have made a mistake in addition, to girls who have made a mistake in judgment, to grounded airline passengers, and to all
those who can't eat clams! We greet with particular warmth people who wake and smell smoke. To captains of river boats on
snowy mornings we send an answering toot at this holiday time. Merry Christmas to intellectuals and other despised minorities!
Merry Christmas to the musicians of Muzak and men whose shoes don't fit! Greetings of the season to unemployed actors and
the blacklisted everywhere who suffer for sins uncommitted; a holly thorn in the thumb of compilers of lists! Greetings to wives
who can't find their glasses and to poets who can't find their rhymes! Merry Christmas to the unloved, the misunderstood, the
overweight. Joy to the authors of books whose titles begin with the word "How" (as though they knew!). Greetings to people
with a ringing in their ears; greetings to growers of gourds, to shearers of sheep, and to makers of change in the lonely
underground booths! Merry Christmas to old men asleep in libraries! Merry Christmas to people who can't stay in the same
room with a cat! We greet, too, the boarders in boarding hoses on 25 December, the duennas in Central Park in fair weather
and foul, and young lovers who got nothing in the mail. Merry Christmas to people who plant trees in city streets; merry
Christmas to people who save prairie chickens from extinction! Greetings of a purely mechanical sort to machines that
think--plus a sprig of artificial holly. Joyous Yule to Cadillac owners whose conduct is unworthy of their car! Merry Christmas
to the defeated, the forgotten, the inept; joy to all dandiprats and bunglers! We send, most particularly and most hopefully, our
greetings and our prayers to soldiers and guardsmen on land and sea and in the air--the young men doing the hardest things at
the hardest time of life. To all such, Merry Christmas, blessings, and good luck! We greet the Secretaries-designate, the
President-elect; Merry Christmas to our new leaders, peace on earth, good will, and good management! Merry Christmas to
couples unhappy in doorways! Merry Christmas to all who think they are in love but aren't sure! Greetings to people waiting
for trains that will take them in the wrong direction, to people doing up a bundle and the string is too short, to children with
sleds and no snow! We greet ministers who can't think of a moral, gagmen who can't think of a joke. Greetings, too, to the
inhabitants of other planets; see you soon! And last, we greet all skaters on small natural ponds at the edge of woods toward
the end of afternoon. Merry Christmas, skaters! Ring, steel! Grow red, sky! Die down, wind! Merry Christmas to all and to all
a good morrow!
E.B. White, 12/20/52