Dickens, of course

6 Days Until Christmas

A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire by Charles Dickens

From the frontpiece:

Published in its entirety for the first time since 1852, this shining collection of Christmas tales was originally selected by Charles Dickens for his periodical “Household Words”. Each story varies in theme and tone, with scenes of romance, theft, justice, and heart-warming family reunions set alongside haunting tales and chilling ghost stories, while topics addressed range from the meaning of Christmas to disability and race. Contributing authors include Elizabeth Gaskell, Edmund Saul Dixon, Edmund Oliver, and of course Dickens himself, making this a brilliant example of Victorian storytelling and an insightful reflection on the holiday season during the 19th century.

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Dickens was editor of Household Words – a very popular Victorian periodical, with sales at the time in the six figures (wow!).  Dickens often commissioned his favorite authors to impersonate an event and write short story installments from different perspectives. In these stories (published as a 1852 Christmas supplement issue) Dickens had each of the authors take on an imaginary role in an extended Victorian family and its servants.  Utilizing these various voices from very different classes, the tales are presented in the age old tradition of round-robin style before a roaring fire – sometimes the characters even address one another (which I found delightful).

I will say this is no Hallmark card and these tales are often quite un-Christmasy — from an accidental murder, to ghosts and the mistreatment of a maid.  But this being Dickens – there is always uplift and hope within each tale and the storyline, despite being written by different authors, compels the reader to the next narrator.

Because this is the Victorian period (and the often pedantic Dickens), the writing can be a rough road for a modern reader.  As in this example from the beginning of Dickens first story entry:

He was very reluctant to take precedence of so many respected members of the family, by beginning the round of stories they were to relate as they sat in a goodly circle by the Christmas fire…

I promise you’ll eventually get in the cadence of the writing but it does take some concentration and perseverance.   It is well worth the effort.  This is a wonderful view into the Victorian era – where life was hard but hope and charity were steadfast.

Holiday Graphics Gone Wrong

7 Days Until Christmas

This is a collection of reproduced vintage holiday graphics which I bought used at the Friends of the SF Public Library bookstore (where I volunteer).  My plan was to cut it up for holiday package tags, but once I turned the pages, I realized it had to stay intact and part of my holiday book collection.

 

 

Let me show you why. OK, front cover looks innocent, what could go wrong with “Vintage Holiday Graphics”?

 

(Click to view larger)

  Back cover —  still fairly innocuous.

 

 

 

 

But upon further investigation….

There’s creepy Santa

 

 

 

 

Then there’s stalker Santa

 

 

 

 

Awkward family Christmas photos

 

 

 

 

Festive pasta holiday decorations

 

 

 

 

Armed children.

 

 

 

 

Holiday advertising, because what could be a better gift than a new thermos?

 

 

 

Obviously Santa enjoys a drink or two

 

 

 

 

As do the villagers.

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, a charming book of matches, perfect for enticing the little ones to burn down the house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See why I couldn’t cut this book up?  I leave it out every year for unsuspecting visitors…who pick it up and inevitably say “What the ___ ?”

The Christmas Letters by Lee Smith

8 Days Until Christmas

 

By now you know of my fondness for epistolary novels and when it involves Christmas letters – well, all the more enticing.  I’ve read this book almost every year since I received it as a gift from my friend Jane.  Turns out my copy (left) is a first edition and the cover was changed with subsequent editions (right).

Lee Smith is a Southern writer, most famous for Fair and Tender Ladies (add that one to your list) who writes compelling family sagas without slobbering or being sticky sweet.

This novella tells the life stories of several generations of women through their family letters at Christmas.  The women write of their struggles to cope with the hardships each generation is given–a husband off in WWII, a damaged Viet Nam veteran, divorce, loss of a parent, a child leaving home and the fate of being handed a life you can’t fathom but try to accept.

Not your typical “feel good” Christmas story – this is real life, messy and unforgiving, but still filled with love and family ties.  And it includes recipes – each woman shares what she has tried cooking and writes out how she prepared the dish.  The dishes range in time period, a simple custard during WWII to the novelty of processed food in the sixties, and then a back-to-the-earth vegetarian recipe.   Nicely, the talk of food in the letters set the tone without overpowering the story — when the Southern grandmother takes her first bite of a bagel, she exclaims “Whoever thinks this is good has never had a biscuit!”.

The ending leaves a big question making me wonder if Ms. Lee had plans to continue the saga – but sadly there have been no sequels.

Excerpted  from the back cover:

Dear Friends,

Like me, you probably get Christmas letters every year. I read every word and save every letter. Because every Christmas letter is the story of a life, and what story can be more interesting than the story of our lives? Often, it is the story of an entire family. But you also have to read between the lines with Christmas letters. Sometimes, what is not said is even more important than what is on the page.

I wrote this little book for the same reason I write to my friends and relatives every holiday–Christmas letters give us a chance to remember and celebrate who we are.

With warmest greetings, Lee Smith

The book is a lovely quiet holiday read, and it holds its standing as one of my favorite Christmas books to re-read each season, to remind me of what I hold dear about the holidays, the embracing of loved ones, good cheer and charity.

Murder for Christmas by Thomas Godfrey

9 Days until Christmas

I’ve had these paperbacks forever —  they’re well-worn and spine-creased – but I can’t get rid of them as they were some of the few books I had in our first apartment in New Hampshire.  I would cuddle up on the couch with two afghans – (the apartment was drafty and so-o-o cold), watch the snow and secretly savor these light stories of mystery and mayhem.

A two volume selection of yuletide mysteries from some of the classic golden age authors at their best, Agatha Christie, Georges Simenon, Stanley Ellin, Ellery Queen, and famous characters such as Sherlock Holmes, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Nero Wolfe.

There are also few anomalies  (the Woody Allen story is a plum for those readers who enjoy a little metafiction), and a few obscure works (who knew Thomas Hardy wrote a Christmas mystery which didn’t end in death and despair all around?).

There are delightfully morbid Graham Wilson drawings to dispel any Christmas saccharine sweetness that may be invading your holiday. 

Dip into a short mystery as a quick break from the holiday preparations they’re sure to get you in a festive mood (aside from the murders and whatnot).

A Northern Christmas by Rockwell Kent

10 Days Until Christmas

I found this book at Bells Bookstore in Palo Alto, back when I would sneak to bookstore to escape the  high tech insanity. Bells is a wonderful family run, independent bookstore with rare and used books. If I remember, this wasn’t very expensive and the only reason I can recall where it came from is Bells bookmark is still in the book.  Barbara Wohl (now retired from the store)  is a well-known heritage rose gardener and her garden just up the street from the store is to die for. But I digress…

At merely 20 pages, I knew this tiny book with it’s decorated sleeve and cover was mine before I even opened it.  A short story which tells of a father and young son spending Christmas in a small hand built cabin in 1918, just a few miles from the Arctic Circle,   Rockwell Kent is the graphic artist probably best known for his magnificent illustrations for Moby Dick and the complete works of Shakespeare.   Here and   Here

Mr. Kent published WILDERNESS, A Journal of Quiet Adventure  in Alaska in 1941 and this is taken from that larger published work.  The introduction explains he had this little volume reprinted as Christmas presents for all his friends a few years later.   Here’s a couple of the illustrations from A Northern Christmas  — aren’t they just wonderful?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the holiday approaches Mr. Kent and his son improvise their holiday cheer with a tree, hand made ornaments and candles.  The second photo here shows the menu they cobbled together as a holiday feast for their only neighbor Olson, a weather beaten gold miner who prepared carefully for the occasion with hair specially clipped around his hears and a gold nugget stickpin in his silk tie.  Beans a la Resurrection Bay anyone?

Some other special selections from this Christmas tale (and yes the dates are printed in red in the book  – a charming touch):

Thursday, December nineteenth.  This day is never to be forgotten, so beautiful, so calm, so still with the earth and every branch and tree muffled in deep feathery, new fallen snow.  And all day the softest clouds have drifted lazily over the heaven, shrouding the land here and there with veils of falling snow, while elsewhere or through the snow itself the sun shone.  Golden shadows, dazzling peaks, fairy tracery of branches against the blue summer sea!  It was a day to Live, – and work could be forgotten.

Christmas Eve.  We’ve cleaned the house, stowed everything away upon shelves and hooks, and in corners, moved even my easel aside; decorated the roof timbers with dense hemlock boughs, stowed quantities of wood behind the stove — for there must be no work on that holiday – and now both Rockwell and I are in a state of suppressed excitement over tomorrow.   What a strange thing! Nothing is coming to us, no change in any respect in the routine of our lives but what we make ourselves – and yet the day looms so large and magnificent before us!  I suppose the greatest festivals of our lives are those at which we dance ourselves.

The underline is mine …

Wishing you a happy holiday countdown with your own festivals.

 

Christmas Books

My mother and I share a delight in Christmas books.  We get them out every year and display them, covers up please; on the coffee table, in the reading nook, by a convenient chair near the kitchen. Their familiar bright covers seem to add to the house decorations and our Christmas spirits.

Then, while those cookies are baking, or in between wrapping presents, we can slow down for a moment to dip into a favorite Christmas tale.

I’ve whittled my Christmas books down to a cherished few (OK a dozen or so) and re-read them, or at least browse through them, every year.

So tune in tomorrow, each day I’ll be showcasing one of my favorite holiday books while counting the days until Christmas.