Another Red Letter Day for literature in the English language:

Jonathan Swift, b. 1667. Read “A Lump of Deformity Smitten With Pride.”

Mark Twain, aka Samuel Clemens, b. 1835. Mark Twain’s Christmas greeting from 1890:

It is my heart-warmed and world-embracing Christmas hope and aspiration that all of us, the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the admired, the despised, the loved, the hated, the civilized, the savage (every man and brother of us all throughout the whole earth), may eventually be gathered together in a heaven of everlasting rest and peace and bliss, except the inventor of the telephone.”

Lucy Maud Montgomery, b. 1874.

Christmas broke on a beautiful white world. It had been a very mild December and people had looked forward to a green Christmas; but just enough snow fell softly in the night to transfigure Avonlea. Anne peeped out from her frosted gable window with delighted eyes. The firs in the Haunted Wood were all feathery and wonderful; the birches and cherry trees were outlined in pearl; the ploughed fields were stretches of snowy dimples; and there was a crisp tang in the air that was glorious. Anne ran downstairs singing until her voice re-echoed through Green Gables.

Winston Churchill, b. 1874. Christmas with Churchill by Gerald Pawle, Blackwoods Magazine, Vol. 314, No. 1898, December, 1973.