David O. and Emma Ray McKay were serving in the European Mission in 1923, and sent this letter of Christmas greeting to close friends:

December is the month in the year when we like to go home. No matter where we are, at that time, as fledglings to their nest, our thoughts turn homeward. And yet it is a dreary month. No flowers sweeten the air as in May; there are no smiling fields nor pleasant fishing as in June; neither are there bounteous harvests and gorgeously bedecked mountains as in October. The forces that inspired the Springtime, enriched the Summer, and crowned the Autumn are now sleeping unseen, unfelt; yet December, cold, cheerless and threatening, makes our wandering hearts long for home more than any month in the calendar.

This is because December brings that season in which the doors of Friendship swing wide open and reveal the warm glow of loving hearts!

In the Spring we rejoice with the flowers, the bees and the birds, in the animation of life all around, and we accept with joy what nature gives us. In Summer we admire the fields for their promised bounty. In Autumn we garner the harvests and prepare for our keep and comfort through the long nights and storms of Winter. But in December, more than at any other time, our thoughts turn to others.

It is the Christ Spirit, associated with friendship, and Festivity. We love our friends for what they are, and we desire to clasp their hands, to look into each happy face, and say with a whole heart: –

“A Merry Christmas, old friend; and joy attend you!”

December 1923 finds home and you, – dear friends and true, – seven thousand miles from where I pen these lines. Neither mere wishes, nor earnest desires can take us to you. But next to the joy of seeing yo is the pleasure of saying that you are the cause of our yearning to be back at Christmas time!

God bless you everyone, and give you the happiness that we now send in this old but treasured greeting:

“A Merry, Merry Christmas, & A Happy, Prosperous New Year!”