hard times come again no more

i just finished my final task of christmas shopping which was buying for 3 kids at the Denver Children's Home. there's nothing more rewarding and fun than buying for strangers who will appreciate your gifts beyond the depths of your own imagination. i've been shifting in these past couple years towards spending more on that and less on my own family, although i love shopping in general for everyone. now i just have to do the dreaded wrapping & waiting in line at the post office for the rest of my stuff.

for many different and some unknown reasons, this has been a difficult, trying year for a lot of my friends and yet a year of necessary transitions. it's not been easy to keep positive.

i am currently working on a "good mood" themed mixmas to try and shut out the bad ghosts of 2007, but nonetheless one song sticks with me whenever i think about the hard times this year, and it's true, it does come up in my ipod a lot on shuffle (even though i have 7,131 other songs in there). really nicely covered by eastmountainsouth on the Elizabethtown soundtrack, it's this lyric:

let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears
while we all sup sorrow with the poor
there's a song that will linger forever in our ears
oh, hard times come again no more

'tis a song, a sigh of the weary
hard times, hard times come again no more
many days you have lingered around my cabin door
oh, hard times come again no more

while we seek mirth and beauty
and music light and gay
there are frail ones fainting at the door
though their voices are silent
their pleading looks will say
oh, hard times come again no more