There are some wonderful Christmas stories – they start with Dickens' Christmas Carol, of course. It's a shame that it seems so hard to make a successful film out of it, because it's so overwhelmingly dramatic – but all the many, many versions and adaptations always seem stiff and clumsy when compared with reading the original, which has such conviction and power even in its most sentimental passages. I've always struggled with the other Dickens Christmas books – The Chimes seems so unhappy and grimy, The Cricket on the Hearth so long-winded. Perhaps it's just because I got used to Scrooge at such a young age – I'm certainly not a Dickens fan.
Connie Willis, the wonderful science fiction writer who published a marvelous and eerie collection of contemporary Christmas stories (The Miracle and Other Christmas Stories), lists her favorite Christmas books and movies in an appendix. I'm with her on some of them; there are others I've never read – plus a few surprises by Damon Runyon, Wodehouse, and Auden (I particularly want to read the Morley's 'Tree that Didn't Get Trimmed' and Disch's 'Santa Claus Compromise', but haven't ever found them).
I'm with her on Barbara Robinson's Best Christmas Pageant Ever, which is pretty powerful despite being a sentimental tale for teenagers; and O. Henry's 'Gift of the Magi', which is of course exasperatingly familiar but as strong and expressive as the Dickens. (No, I didn't mean 'as the dickens', thank you so much.) She misses out on some other ones – Saki's 'Down Pens' and Capote's 'A Christmas Memory' should be on that list.
Here are a few that aren't famous, but are wonderful, and should be more widely known: John Arden's strangely blunt play The Business of Good Government, which does a brilliant job of positioning Herod as an intelligent politician trying to keep a status quo. The play gets a bit unfocused towards the end, but has great stuff in it; the finest moments are amazing monologues by the innkeeper's wife, and by the farm girl who sows the field that grows magically to cover the escape to Egypt.
Shirley Jackson's Raising Demons, one of her two books of family life, has a brilliant scene about opening boxes of decorations. Here's an excerpt I cut down to be read at a Gay Men's Chorus of LA concert, by a woman narrator of course:
"I opened the last carton, labeled DECORATIONS. There on top was the cardboard tree Jannie had made in kindergarten. That always went on the dining room buffet, and then there was the big Santa Claus face Sally had done in first grade, and that went on the back door, and the red and green paper chains Larry had made when he was a Cub Scout went over the doorway. Not two weeks ago Barry had come home from nursery school with a greenish kind of a picture of a snowman, and that somehow got established on the refrigerator next to the big chart Larry always made early in December, so we could all fill out our Christmas lists and keep them in plain sight. Here were the popcorn strings my mother strung when I was the youngest child, and the paper bells Larry and I made when he was so small it seems unbelievable now, and the jigsaw Santa my husband cut out the same year, and the painted candy canes, and the red ribbons, and the green paper wreaths. "Oh, my," I said, looking at all of it. "Oh, Mom, just sit down," Jannie said. "You just don't remember, that's all. You sit down and I'll do it." "
Then there's Beerbohm's A Christmas Garland, a set of bizarre parodies; they aren't great Christmas texts and many have dated too much (nobody even remembers most of the novelists they parodied), but a few are hilarious, especially the Henry James parody. Neil Gaiman published the brilliant miniature 'Nicholas Was...', just 100 words long, in his collection Smoke and Mirrors. He wrote it as his Christmas card one year; it's certainly among the creepiest and most exquisite retellings of Santa's hideous destiny.
One of my very favorites is the last story in Tove Jansson's Tales from Moominvalley, 'The Fir Tree'. It helps if you already know the Moomin books, and are unfazed at seeing the reactions by hemulens and fillyjonks to the stresses of producing a family Christmas; but the sensible, incredibly Scandinavian simplicity of the ending is a wonderful response to the confused feelings of the holidays.
***
Here is a rather strange script I made out of a combination of the story as told by Luke, and Unplug the Christmas Tree, a cheesy self-help book I found on an obscure shelf in the UCLA library, for the finale of a Gay Men's Chorus of LA concert in 1987. It was read by Ted and Brita, a married couple who were professional actors; the music was an atmospheric arrangement of Stille Nacht by Mannheim Steamroller, which was timed to end about a minute after the last line. I remember Brita's voice reading her part, which was particularly funny – she had perfectly captured the slightly addled, well-meaning but absurd, tone of that self-help book:
F – One letter says, "I live alone and I'm worried about this Christmas. I won't be with my family and I haven't made any other plans." More and more people in this country are living alone. Many of them go home to extended families for Christmas, but an increasing number have no close family or, for a variety of reasons, decide not to rejoin their relatives during the holidays.
M – And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. And Joseph went up from Galilee, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem.
[MUSIC CUE : STILLE NACHT]
F [no break] – There are a number of things you can do alone that you cannot do as part of a family gathering. You can play your favorite music for hours on end. You can eat when and what you want, and generally set your own schedule...
M – And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
F [brief pause] – One man, a hairdresser, told us that his job required so much day-to-day contact and conversation that he relished the idea of Christmas Day alone. He said he saved up special reading material, prepared his favorite meal of fried shrimp for Christmas dinner, and put his favorite madrigal music on the stereo.
M [brief pause] – And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
F [brief pause] – One man with no family got the idea of making some banana bread and taking it around to his new neighbors, whom he had not yet had a chance to meet. He told us that their reception of a strange man bearing slightly soggy, warm banana bread on Christmas Day was heartwarming.
M [brief pause] – And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them; and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them: Fear not; for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
F [brief pause] – If, on the other hand, you want your celebration to be social, you will probably find that you have more options than you may have realized at first. Whether you perceive your lack of family as an irretrievable loss or as a chance to explore new options depends entirely on your attitude. First, redefine your idea of "family"...
M [brief pause] – And this shall be a sign unto you: ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
F [longer pause] – You may know several unattached, compatible people who would welcome an opportunity to gather at your house and spend Christmas with you...
M [longer pause] – But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.
***
In any case, merry Christmas. And yes, that's my tree....
I remember reading 'A Christmas Carol' for the first time as a child. I was enchanted, it was as though Dickens had cast a spell on me, confining me to my bedroom for the days I spent reading it. The thought of Christmas parties didn't interest me, I rushed my Christmas dinners, I just wanted to escape to the story. And I agree that whenever it makes the transition to film, the story loses magic.
Posted by: Jade | August 27, 2009 at 02:55 PM