Virginia Woolf firar jul

Varken i Virginia Woolfs brev eller dagböcker står det särskilt mycket om julen. Hon berättar inget om julklappar hon har fått eller gett, inte ens i sina tidiga dagböcker samlade i boken A Passionate Apprentice, The Early Journals 1897 –1909 (redigerad av Quentin Bell och Angelica Garnett, utgiven  1990). Men år 1906, när hon var 23 år, tillbringade hon och brodern Adrian dagarna 21 december till och med 31 december hos sin släkting Sarah Duckworth i Hampshire. Där skriver hon ett dagboksinlägg med titeln The New Forest Christmas.

 Orden Forest och Christmas får den unga Virginia att tänka på att det finns ett samband mellan dem: 

For why does the forest always disappoint me? & why does Christmas disappoint me too?  Is it not that they both promise something glittering & ruddy & cheerful, & when you have it you find it not quite as good as you expected? The forest is too benign & complaisant, it gives you all that you can ask; but it hints at no more. [...] The forest is an ideal place for the old & conservative, there are so many proprieties  to be observed, & and they are so decorous & easy of approach.  So this why Christmas is kept so appropriately here. You can almost fancy that the woods have been arranged for the festival, & hung with  holly, & sprinkled with snow. Christmas day and & the forest seemed to mix & melt indistinguishable‚ you left the dinner table & its turkey & its crackers, its cake with a jaunty sprig of holly in it – you stepped into a world where these emotions were continued unbrokenly.  We walked along a a crisp white road, & then beneath dark leaved ever greens. Here were berries glowing red; & all the twigs were iced and with snow.  Then it grew late & the jolly evening sky lit up – flame coloured, & clear & healthy – with the black trees sharp aginst it. But O for the dusky roll of some Northern moor, or the melancholy cliffs of Cornwall. There you hear the wind and the sea.