Christmas Reading

[Scheherazade]

Hello All!
Hope everyone had a wonderful time during the holidays! Here are the links for some of the Christmas reading suggestions:


'Twas the Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore http://www.night.net/christmas/Twas-night01.html

Burning the Christmas Greens by William Carlos Williams http://personal.bhm.bellsouth.net/l/g/lgriner/christmas/burning.htm

The Little Match Girl by Andersen http://www.online-literature.com/ha...n_andersen/981/

Garfield Christmas Cartoons http://www.garfield.com/comics/comics_archives.html

A Christmas Carol by Dickens http://www.online-literature.com/di...christmascarol

Christmas Without Rodney By Isaac Asimov http://www.pdabookstore.com/servlet/mw?t=book&bi=2367&si=4 (avaliable for $0.39)

[Scheherazade]

'Twas the Night Before Christmas
(or A Visit from St. Nicholas)

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads.
And Mama in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap.

When out on the roof there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
tore open the shutter, and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
gave the lustre of midday to objects below,
when, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
but a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles, his courses they came,
and he whistled and shouted and called them by name:

"Now Dasher! Now Dancer!
Now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid!
On, Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch!
To the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away!
Dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky
so up to the house-top the courses they flew,
with the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
the prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head and was turning around,
down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
and his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
and he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.

His eyes--how they twinkled! His dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
and the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
and the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
that shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
and I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
and filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
and giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, 'ere he drove out of sight,

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"


Clement Clarke Moore

[Scheherazade]

Burning the Christmas Greens

Their time past, pulled down
cracked and flung to the fire
--go up in a roar

All recognition lost, burnt clean
clean in the flame, the green
dispersed, a living red,
flame red, red as blood wakes
on the ash--

and ebbs to a steady burning
the rekindled bed become
a landscape of flame

At the winter's midnight
we went to the trees, the coarse
holly, the balsam and
the hemlock for their green

At the thick of the dark
the moment of the cold's
deepest plunge we brought branches
cut from the green trees

to fill our need, and over
doorways, about paper Christmas
bells covered with tinfoil
and fastened by red ribbons

we stuck the green prongs
in the windows hung
woven wreaths and above pictures
the living green. On the

mantle we built a green forest
and among those hemlock
sprays put a herd of small
white deer as if they

were walking there. All this!
and it seemed gentle and good
to us. Their time past,
relief! The room bare. We

stuffed the dead grate
with them upon the half burnt out
log's smouldering eye, opening
red and closing under them

and we stood there looking down.
Green is a solace
a promise of peace, a fort
against the cold (though we

did not say so) a challenge
above the snow's
hard shell. Green (we might
have said) that, where

small birds hide and dodge
and lift their plaintive
rallying cries, blocks for them
and knocks down

the unseeing bullets of
the storm. Green spruce boughs
pulled down by a weight of
snow--Transformed!

Violence leaped and appeared.
Recreant! roared to life
as the flame rose through and
our eyes recoiled from it.

In the jagged flames green
to red, instant and alive. Green!
those sure abutments . . . Gone!
lost to mind

and quick in the contracting
tunnel of the grate
appeared a world! Black
mountains, black and red--as

yet uncolored--and ash white,
an infant landscape of shimmering
ash and flame and we, in
that instant, lost,

breathless to be witnesses,
as if we stood
ourselves refreshed among
the shining fauna of that fire.

William Carlos Williams, 1944

[Scheherazade]

The mood difference between the two poems are so amazing. I hadn't read them until they were mentioned on here and read them several times since then and everytime I feel a little shocked to read the Greens right after the Night. The Night is kind of a poem one can read to children at bedtime to get them into the Christmas mood... while the Green is so grown up. Yet both poems are equally beautiful. Thanks for suggesting those :)

[Jay]

*downloads them so I have something to read on the train* ;)

[Scheherazade]

Finished reading A Christmas Carol. I was expecting to find many religious references and maybe a little preaching but was pleasantly surprised that this wasn't the case. I really like the way Dickens simply concentrates on universal ideas related to Christmas:charity, friendship, kindness without being preachy.
And as usual, he is dealing with the burning social issues of Victorian society;i.e., poverty, inequality, workhouses. However, even without digging deep to analyse, it is a beautiful story for Christmas... One maybe we should make sure the younger generation reads...

.

[amuse]

ooh! what a nice thread.

[Miranda]

When my kids where little, to calm them down on Christmas Eve we used to read the poem 'The Night Before Christmas' in a picture book and it became a tradition. We don't do it now though cos they dont believe in Santa anymore - but I confess, I still have the book and wouldn't part with it. Thank you for suggesting this thread that brought back this happy memory.

Miranda

[Scheherazade]

Quizes on Dickens and A Christmas Carol: http://www.online-literature.com/forums/quiz.php?

[Satine]

You know, last Christmas, I searched for the book "Twas the Night Before Christmas"...looked in bookstores all over the place, and had a tough time finding it, believe it or not. Now, Spongebob's Christmas, Clifford's Christmas, Dora's Christmas, they had those badboys piled up to the ceiling, and yet the classic tale was almost nowhere to be found. I DID get it eventually, but dang...how sad is THAT?!

[Lady19thC]

There are also many other Dickens Christmas stories and short stories, like The Cricket on the Hearth, The Haunted Man, The Chimes, The Battle of Life.

And don't forget two of my favourites:

A Child's Christmas in Wales, by Dylan Thomas

Old Christmas, by Washington Irving

Happy Christmas!! (a few months early!)

[rachel]

Christmas. For me most of the twelve months I live it, breathe it, sing it.My patron saint is St. Nicholas and well since I was a child I have been aware of the grief of man, the lonliness of man, the poverty of man. Christmas is magical, a time where the most glorious things can happen however small to uplift the human heart.
Many years ago my family decided we would tramp the streets around that time of year and find those who could use something beautiful, something special besides the necessary food and warm things of course. It became to us a once upon a time and we have never looked back.
Dickens evokes all those feelings, the harshness and the small flames of kindness and generosity that together make a huge fire of hope leaping and glowing for that short time of year. As Marley said to him "mankind is our business." Whatever ones spirituality if any we can all say yes to that and go out and do something about it.
Burning the Christmas Greens is wonderful and I am fast thinking that if I had to take only a couple of precious things with me on a desert island I would surely grab Scheherazed with me. She is a wealth of jewels of thought. I feel quite bereft and barren in my knowledge along side her. But where there is life there is reading...

"he is a sane man who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head." chesterton

[Psycheinaboat]

The mood difference between the two poems are so amazing... The Night is kind of a poem one can read to children at bedtime to get them into the Christmas mood.... while the Green is so grown up.

Good observation! These two poems could be used to tell the story of the Western child's journey to adulthood. To me, it is not about loss, but about change.

As adults, we are the ones who must do the work. We make Christmas happen; we build it up and take it down. We only really enjoy the holiday through the happiness brought to the children and others who are gladdened by our labor.

How we feel about celebration and what we choose to celebrate may show us most poignantly what we leave behind and what we gain as we mature.