In this week’s Inner Sanctum:

Joseph Pearce waxes whimsical on how his wife is promoting the noble tradition of shooting your eye out for Christmas.

He also vents his spleen dogmatically on the hierarchical necessity of singing “The Twelve Days of Christmas” in the correct order, condemning those who place drummers drumming and pipers piping above dancing ladies and leaping lords. (People have been burned for less!)

Celebrating the full twelve days of Christmas with the poets, he celebrates New Year with Francis Thompson, Twelfth Night with Belloc, and the Epiphany with T. S. Eliot.

Returning to the Path to Rome after a brief Christmas break, Joseph joins Hilaire Belloc in a treacherous fog on an equally treacherous mountain in the Swiss Alps.