A Pearl of Great Price
I spent last evening rereading some of the Christmas stories I've come to treasure over the years. They're all short so it was an easy matter to enjoy these four books in a single sitting.
The first was the poem 'Twas the Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore. In all honesty, I'm not an especially big fan of this classic (and often parodied) Christmas verse. But when the kids were little, it was Christmas Eve tradition for my mother to read them this poem before bed so I read through it for old time's sake. We have the pop-up book version that's cute. Moore supposedly wrote this poem in 1822 for his two daughters. Now, however, there is some debate about the true author.
The second book was Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. I'm a huge Dickens fan and I love his depictions of Victorian London, the characters, and the cunning intrigues. While A Christmas Carol is well-known to late-night TV viewers - Alastair Sim and (surprisingly) George C. Scott with his undisguised American accent, are excellent incarnations of Scrooge - it is always worthwhile to go back to the original source material. Only Dickens can do the masterful job of transforming Scrooge from curmudgeonly Christmas apostate into a believably better man. (One bit of trivia: Dickens got paid big bucks travelling around the US at holiday time performing readings of A Christmas Carol to large audiences.)
Runner up on my list is The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree written by Gloria McClendon Houston and illustrated by Barbara Cooney. Set in North Carolina during World War I, this children's book tells the story of how Ruthie and her mother make sure their family provides the traditional town Christmas tree, the one Ruthie's father picked out before being called off to war. Someone - sadly I've forgotten who - gave this book to our family when the kids were little. I think I'm the only one in the family who finds this story affecting so I reread it occasionally. The story is simple and sentimental and the illustrations are first rate. It's hard not to get a lump in your throat by the end.
My favorite Christmas story is The Story of the Other Wise Man by Henry Van Dyke. For me this is a true Christmas story and one that I've enjoyed for many years. The story is little known today probably because it has no Christmas trees, grinches, ghosts, or Santas. It concerns Artaban, a certain wise man or magus, who sets out with great treasures to join three other magi. The four are to travel to pay homage to a newborn king who comes from God. Artaban gets detoured for a time, thirty-three years to be exact. He ends up in Jerusalem and uses the last of his treasure for the king to ransom a slave without, he thinks, ever meeting the king. He considers his life a failure but then learns the path we end up on is not always the one we started out on. This story is a gem as we wait and watch during Advent.
If you've got favorite Christmas books, stories, or movies, I'd love to hear about them.
K-
We always read the Night Before Christmas to the urchins. My grandmother gave us the book right after Howard was born, and my parents and grandparents always read it to my brother and me. They also like The Polar Express.
We all like A Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol with George C. Scott, and the older version with, I reckon, Alastair Sim. (I definitely need to read it again, and read it with the urchins). A Christmas Story is our all-time favorite--I know it's popular to like that one now, but we've watched it for years. One of my last good memories of my FIL is when the Hunter, Howard and I got him to watch it his last Christmas, and he laughed so hard he almost sounded like his old self.
I've never seen A Christmas Story (although Roger Ebert gives it a 4-star rating). I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the recommendation.
K-
My son is 6 so most of my favorite Christmas stories at the moment are his age. "This is the Star" and "The First Night" are his two current favorites. I'm intrigued by the Fourth Wiseman book and plan to look for it at my local public library.