ON THE TWELFTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS...

TWELFTH NIGHT... And the arrival of the last – or, maybe, the FIRST card of Christmas!

 

PEACE ON EARTH GOOWILL TO MEN

 

 

CHRISTMAS BELLS

 

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old, familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet

The words repeat

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

 

And thought how, as the day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along

The unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

 

Till ringing, singing on its way,

The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime,

A chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

 

Then from each black, accursed mouth

The cannon thundered in the South,

And with the sound

The carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

 

It was as if an earthquake rent

The hearth-stones of a continent,

And made forlorn

The households born

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

 

And in despair I bowed my head;

"There is no peace on earth," I said;

"For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

 

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men."

 

 

– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

 

 

 

'Christmas Bells' was written on December 25th, 1864 (some sources place its composition a year earlier) as a reflection on the American Civil War of 1861-1865.

 

[Artist: Anton Pieck (1895–1987)]

WHY IS IT SUCH A WONDERFUL LIFE?

Being now almost now that eve of eves, means it is time to watch, yet again, my favourite Christmas films – in fact one of my all-time favourite films whether it's Christmas or not! – Frank Capra's eternally satisfying and edifying 1946 masterpiece, It's a Wonderful Life.

Supposing you agree with my estimation of the film's worth (and, if you don't, kindly stop reading and go and do something more satisfying!), it's not difficult to see why it works so powerfully on the heart and mind; it does so – not accidentally – in the same way as does Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol: by touching on a restless sense of longing and a haunting fear of loss that is universal to humankind.

And if James Stewart – an actor too easily pigeon-holed as being a charming but lightweight player – ever gave a more nuanced performance than his portrayal of George Bailey, then I don't know of one, not even his barnstorming performance as the benign Jefferson Smith, Capra's All-American Everyman, in Mr Smith Goes to Washington.

At the beginning of the film, Stewart is all wide-eyed optimism and energised hope; filled with a desire to shake off the dust of the archetypical American small town, Bedford Falls, and see the world. But as the story progresses, he registers disappointment and disillusionment not in a melodramatic way, but in a subtle – often unspoken – portrayal of a man forced to accept the burdens of duty, the need to trade-in his dreams in order to be able to stand by his family, friends and neighbours.

From that turning-point onward, Stewart shifts his performance through a state of happy resignation with his lot in life to one of uncontrolled rage and nihilistic despair. That is when the heartwarming, some might say hokey, portrayal of small people nobly and courageously living out their small lives against all odds takes a darkly dramatic turn and the hero becomes a haggard, worn-down, tragic figure, ready to believe he would be better off dead.

What is, perhaps, most surprising about the film – and is evidence of Capra's genius as an auteur – is the shape of the narrative, with two-thirds of the running-time devoted to establishing the characters, major and minor, and ensuring that we, as viewers, have an emotional investment in them all. 

 

So it is that when George is given the gift of being able to see what the world would have been like if he had never been born, we care not just about George's own reactions to the terrifying revelations, but also about all the other, by now beloved, characters whose lives have been embittered, shriveled or destroyed by influence and interventions of this man who has come to sees his life as futile and valueless.

Stewart's central role is surrounded, supported and enhanced by his fellow players: Donna Reed as the ever-loving, ever-caring wife, Mary, and Lionel Barrymore – famous for years for his annual radio portrayal of Ebenezer Scrooge – perfectly cast as that other "squeezing, grasping covetous old sinner", Henry Potter.

Then there's Thomas Mitchell as the absent minded Uncle Billy; Beulah Bondi as George's mother; H. B. Warner as the town druggist, Mr. Gower; and, of course, Henry Travers, as Clarence Oddbody the "angel second class" who is a heaven-sent emissary determined both to prevent George from committing suicide, and helping him see – despite all the vagaries and setbacks – that it truly is a wonderful life, and, by so doing, win his angel's wings.

With its visions of Past, Present and a shockingly revisionist glimpse into the future, along with the spirit of goodwill to all men, we are definitely within the territory of Charles Dickens' celebrated "ghost story of Christmas".

A Christmas Carol has inspired – or, if you prefer, spawned – hundreds of derivatives, but none has been more enduring or more deserving of celebration than It's A Wonderful Life.

 

 

[This post is a revised version of one posted on 21 December 2018.]

A 'RADIO TIMES' CHRISTMAS

Remember those days in the Twentieth Century when the arrival of the Christmas Issue (later 'Bumper Issue') of Radio Times signaled the true beginning of seasonal festivities? 

Historically, Radio Times was always a showcase for the work of some of the finest graphic and illustrative artists of the age and examples of their work is showcased in this very personal selection of classic covers from before-my-time, but by artists whose work I love – John Gilroy (he of the classic Guinness posters), Rex Whistler, Edward Ardizzone and Eric Fraser; from my childhood and adolescent years – C. Walter Hodges, J. S. Goodall, Ronald Searle, Rowland Hilder, Victor Reinganum and, again of course, Eric Fraser; and, lastly, from more recent years – the impeccable art of Tony Meeuwissen and a wonderful cavalcade of Santas and Snowmen by my friend, Mick Brownfield. 

Among the later are his Father Christmas and Dalek cover and the alternative variant Strictly Come Dancing version for families with tiny tots who were scared of Doctor Who's inter-galactic, mechanical nemesis!

 Rex Whistler, 1931

Edward Ardizzone, 1932

 

John Gilroy, 1940 

 

J. S. Goodall, 1946

Ronald Searle, 1947

 Edward Ardizzone, 1948

 

 Eric Fraser, 1949

C. Walter Hodges, 1950

 

Rowland Hilder, 1951

(inspired by The Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1965)

 

J. S. Goodall, 1953 

 

 

Monica Walker, 1956 
  

James Hart, 1957 

Eric Fraser, 1958

 Victor Reinganum, 1959

 

Eric Fraser, 1962

 

Tony Meeuwissen, 1970

 

Mick Brownfield, 1991 

 

Mick Brownfield, 1993

 

 Mick Brownfield, 1993 

Mick Brownfield, 1995

 

Mick Brownfield, 1997

 

 Mick Brownfield, 2009

 

Mick Brownfield, 2009 (variant) 

 

 

O, CHRISTMAS TREE

However pagan its origins, I have never lost (and I hope I shall never lose) my affection for the Christmas Tree: real or artificial it seems to me to be an enduring symbol of enduring life in midst of the bleak death of winter-tide. 

 

Until 2019, our Christmases were for many years celebrated in Venice where our Christmas tree was this small glass tree (hung with Father-Christmas-decorations) made by the skilled craftsman of F.G.B. di Bubacco Giorgio, a little shop occupying the bottom part of a former campanile in Campo Santa Maria del Giglio, just in front of our Venetian home-from-home, Hotel Ala.

 

 

This year our little Santa-tree sits the alongside a Klimt Friendship Tree, made on the Venetian island of Murano, that was the last Christmas gift from a very dear Venetian friend who passed away a few months ago.

 

Knowing that Covid was going to keep us from our much-loved La Serenissima this December, we invested in a new artificial tree which decked out in baubles and other dangling odds and ends looks like this...

 

 

I am especially fond of a set of plastic birds that are now approaching 70-years-old and have been part of Sibley Christmases since I was a very small child. I think they came from F W Woolworth Company, now long-gone but once a popular fixture on pretty much every British high street. 

I dare say, at the time, these birds cost no more than a few pence each, but as they 'fly' around the tree, catching the lights, they bring back so many memories of Christmases long gone: some happy, some sad; some wonderfully celebratory and others, truthfully, better forgotten and laid to rest...

 

 

Every family Christmas tree is, I suppose, a totemic symbol: memorializing in the present, events from the past and carrying them softly, happily – occasionally regretfully, but always hopefully – towards the next new year; the next, as yet unwritten, pages of our future...

AWAY IN A MANGER

 

 

Dating from circa 1954, when I was about five years old, this was my first-ever concept of the Nativity. 

It was – and still is – a cheap, naively designed, gaudily and crudely painted, and indiscriminately glitter-splattered plastic product of the type of Christmas decorations that were, at the time, ubiquitously 'Made in Hong Kong'. 

However, to my young eyes, it seemed – and, oddly, still seems – a simply conceived and roughly presented icon that represents the uncomplicated, yet infinitely mysterious truth at the heart of the Christmas story. 

There is the Stable, the Star, Mary, Joseph, the Baby and, for good measure, a newborn lamb or two.

And the tree? Well, possibly (though certainly beyond the imagination of my five-year-old self) a symbol, in its livid greenness, of life and growth; or, perhaps, a nod to the Old Gods of the Greenwood or to the Christmas tree of our modern Western era (the forest wildness tamed and brought into our homes to die as sacrifice to the season); or, again, if not too uncomfortable a concept, an evergreen foreshadowing of the harsh-grained Wood of the Cross...?

 

A WONDERFUL KNOCKER!

 

The knocker caught [Scrooge's] eye. 

"I shall love it as long as I live!" cried Scrooge, patting it with his hand. "I scarcely ever looked at it before. What an honest expression it has in its face! It's a wonderful knocker!"

 

DICKENS 'OTHER' CHRISTMAS CAROL

 

Before Charles Dickens wrote his much-adored masterpiece, A Christmas Carol in Prose: Being a Ghost Story of Christmas (1843), he had composed 'A Christmas Carol' in verse and included it The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, otherwise known as The Pickwick Papers (1836).

In Chapter XXVII of that book – titled 'A good-humored chapter' – the Pickwickians visit Dingley Dell and spend the Christmas holiday with Mr Wardle and his family. During the ensuing jovialities, their host – "a  merry old gentleman" – sings 'A Christmas Carol' in praise of the season in, the author reports, a good, round, sturdy voice".

In 1890, many years after Dickens had written those verses and had gone on to use the phrase 'A Christmas Carol' as a title for his story about the reformation of the miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, publishers Marcus Ward & Co. Ltd., extracted Mr Wardle's song from its context within the setting of the Dingley Dell celebrations and issued it as a slim book in its own right, with illustrations by the Irish painter, Frank Bindley.

Here it is: one Dickens' rare poems, but significant in that it was written in celebration of that time of the year of which the author was such a passionate advocate...