Kathy Martin's Blog - Posts Tagged "christmas"
Christmas highs and lows in literature
I always enjoy reading about Christmas in novels. I suppose this isn’t surprising, given that I am and always have been a massive cheerleader for the season of goodwill. A part of my enthusiasm for this time of year stems from the fact that my birthday falls four days after Christmas. However, it is mostly due to my wonderful Austrian mother who instilled in me an abiding appreciation for the magic of Christmas. She mixed the central European customs of her childhood with familiar British traditions to create fabulous Christmases that still shine in my memory. After her premature death on 21st December, 1974, the festive season became a difficult time for my father, sisters and me until we learned to embrace those special memories instead of running from them. Now, once again, I am able to enjoy pretty much everything about the run up to Christmas, although I still dash out of shops to avoid hearing ‘Lonely This Christmas’, the song that was No. 1 in the UK pop charts the year Mother died.
But that’s the thing about Christmas – for some it will be a time of jollity and plenty while for others it will be bleak and full of heartache. Both ends of the spectrum are represented in the descriptions of Christmas that feature in some of my favourite books. In 'Demelza', the second in Winston Graham’s Poldark saga, the eponymous heroine’s selfless act of kindness at Christmas results in a terrible personal tragedy. Kindness also leads the March family to donate their much-anticipated Christmas breakfast to the impoverished Hummels in Louisa M. Alcott’s 'Little Women'; their generous act earns them the approval of their rich neighbour who rewards them with a sumptuous supper of ice-cream, cake, fruit and French bonbons. It is a happy time but even so, those familiar with the book know that the seeds of future sadness have been sown in the girls’ interaction with the Hummels.
At the joyful end of the spectrum, there can be fewer more ecstatic reactions in literature to the receiving of a Christmas gift than that of Anne Shirley in L.M. Montgomery’s 'Anne of Green Gables'. When Matthew Cuthbert presents her with a new dress, the unexpectedness of the gift, the fashionable cut of the dress and, above all, the glory of its puffed sleeves overwhelm Anne to such a degree that she is temporarily rendered silent, a rare occurrence with the garrulous child. Rapture also awaits the three Fossil sisters, the central characters in Noel Streatfield’s 'Ballet Shoes', the Christmas after they start learning to dance. Pauline, Petrova and Posy receive several presents, the most exciting being wrist-watches with straps of different colours for each of them, but the highlight of their day occurs when a group of caped and hooded carol singers arrive carrying lanterns. Standing beneath the girls’ window, they sing a selection of carols so beautifully that the Fossils give them fifteen shillings for a children’s hospital. Before the arrival of the carol singers the girls had been feeling flat because Christmas was nearly over but the beauty of the singing raises their spirits. It is a simple, understated yet lovely scene.
Finally, in Maeve Binchy’s 'Light A Penny Candle', one of my all-time favourite novels, Christmas in 1940s provincial Ireland is portrayed as a time of bewildered happiness for a lonely English child experiencing the warmth and generosity of her surrogate family; and of tears and violent drama for a transgressing daughter of that same family. If you haven’t read 'Light A Penny Candle', give yourself the gift of it this Christmas. It was Maeve Binchy’s first novel and much as I loved some of her subsequent books I don’t think she ever surpassed this one.
But that’s the thing about Christmas – for some it will be a time of jollity and plenty while for others it will be bleak and full of heartache. Both ends of the spectrum are represented in the descriptions of Christmas that feature in some of my favourite books. In 'Demelza', the second in Winston Graham’s Poldark saga, the eponymous heroine’s selfless act of kindness at Christmas results in a terrible personal tragedy. Kindness also leads the March family to donate their much-anticipated Christmas breakfast to the impoverished Hummels in Louisa M. Alcott’s 'Little Women'; their generous act earns them the approval of their rich neighbour who rewards them with a sumptuous supper of ice-cream, cake, fruit and French bonbons. It is a happy time but even so, those familiar with the book know that the seeds of future sadness have been sown in the girls’ interaction with the Hummels.
At the joyful end of the spectrum, there can be fewer more ecstatic reactions in literature to the receiving of a Christmas gift than that of Anne Shirley in L.M. Montgomery’s 'Anne of Green Gables'. When Matthew Cuthbert presents her with a new dress, the unexpectedness of the gift, the fashionable cut of the dress and, above all, the glory of its puffed sleeves overwhelm Anne to such a degree that she is temporarily rendered silent, a rare occurrence with the garrulous child. Rapture also awaits the three Fossil sisters, the central characters in Noel Streatfield’s 'Ballet Shoes', the Christmas after they start learning to dance. Pauline, Petrova and Posy receive several presents, the most exciting being wrist-watches with straps of different colours for each of them, but the highlight of their day occurs when a group of caped and hooded carol singers arrive carrying lanterns. Standing beneath the girls’ window, they sing a selection of carols so beautifully that the Fossils give them fifteen shillings for a children’s hospital. Before the arrival of the carol singers the girls had been feeling flat because Christmas was nearly over but the beauty of the singing raises their spirits. It is a simple, understated yet lovely scene.
Finally, in Maeve Binchy’s 'Light A Penny Candle', one of my all-time favourite novels, Christmas in 1940s provincial Ireland is portrayed as a time of bewildered happiness for a lonely English child experiencing the warmth and generosity of her surrogate family; and of tears and violent drama for a transgressing daughter of that same family. If you haven’t read 'Light A Penny Candle', give yourself the gift of it this Christmas. It was Maeve Binchy’s first novel and much as I loved some of her subsequent books I don’t think she ever surpassed this one.
The Subversive Power of Superstitions
There’s a room in my house that is currently off limits to visitors and for once it’s not because I’ve been lax with the housework. Instead, it’s because I don’t want anyone to see the Christmas angel that I forgot to pack away with all the other decorations on Twelfth Night. The sensible thing, of course, would have been to take the angel down the moment I realised it was still there but I couldn’t do that because of an old superstition that says that having missed the official take-down day of January 6th, ill-luck will befall me if I remove it before February 2nd, which is the Feast of Candlemas.
The odd thing about this is that I don’t consider myself a particularly superstitious individual. I don’t carry lucky charms, am sceptical about the supernatural and like to think I have a healthy disregard for old wives’ tales. And yet, on closer examination, it becomes apparent that much of my life is governed by them. If I see a lone magpie in my garden, for example, I feel compelled to ask it ‘where’s your wife?’ on the grounds that a ‘married’ magpie will not be alone and as we all know, a lone magpie signifies bad luck.
Perhaps more bizarrely, if I am out and about and notice a monkey puzzle tree, otherwise known as a Chilean pine, my immediate reaction is to touch my collar and say out loud the name of any dog I know. This is because a long time ago someone told me that monkey puzzle trees are bad luck but their damage can be averted by the collar-touching, dog-naming technique. Quite why this perfectly harmless tree should be considered a portent of doom I cannot say, nor why canines and collars should have any power to combat their ill-effects. In any case, I’m fairly certain I have some of the salient details of this particular superstition muddled up but none of this prevents me from leaping into action the moment I catch sight of the Chilean pine’s distinctive branches.
Then there’s the matter of salt. If I happen to spill some salt I can’t just wipe it up and get on; oh, no, that would be far too easy. What I feel I have to do is draw a cross in the salt, scoop some of it up and then hurl it over my left shoulder. It makes no sense at all and in fact just exacerbates the mess caused in the first place by the salt spillage. Nevertheless, that’s what I do because when I was a child I saw someone else do it.
Much the same applies to my tradition of bashing in the bottom of a boiled egg to ensure that ‘the witch can’t go to sea’. I don’t know who the (presumably minuscule) witch is, or why she’d be reckless enough to attempt an ocean excursion in my discarded eggshell, but it’s something I did as a child and old habits die hard. In fact my octogenarian father still practices witch-marine prevention whenever he eats a boiled egg so there’s probably little chance that I’ll ever kick the habit.
Do I genuinely believe that anything bad will happen if I fail to observe any of these superstitions? No, of course I don’t because despite all evidence suggesting the contrary, I am a rational human being. All the same, that angel isn’t coming down a day before Candlemas. Just in case.
The odd thing about this is that I don’t consider myself a particularly superstitious individual. I don’t carry lucky charms, am sceptical about the supernatural and like to think I have a healthy disregard for old wives’ tales. And yet, on closer examination, it becomes apparent that much of my life is governed by them. If I see a lone magpie in my garden, for example, I feel compelled to ask it ‘where’s your wife?’ on the grounds that a ‘married’ magpie will not be alone and as we all know, a lone magpie signifies bad luck.
Perhaps more bizarrely, if I am out and about and notice a monkey puzzle tree, otherwise known as a Chilean pine, my immediate reaction is to touch my collar and say out loud the name of any dog I know. This is because a long time ago someone told me that monkey puzzle trees are bad luck but their damage can be averted by the collar-touching, dog-naming technique. Quite why this perfectly harmless tree should be considered a portent of doom I cannot say, nor why canines and collars should have any power to combat their ill-effects. In any case, I’m fairly certain I have some of the salient details of this particular superstition muddled up but none of this prevents me from leaping into action the moment I catch sight of the Chilean pine’s distinctive branches.
Then there’s the matter of salt. If I happen to spill some salt I can’t just wipe it up and get on; oh, no, that would be far too easy. What I feel I have to do is draw a cross in the salt, scoop some of it up and then hurl it over my left shoulder. It makes no sense at all and in fact just exacerbates the mess caused in the first place by the salt spillage. Nevertheless, that’s what I do because when I was a child I saw someone else do it.
Much the same applies to my tradition of bashing in the bottom of a boiled egg to ensure that ‘the witch can’t go to sea’. I don’t know who the (presumably minuscule) witch is, or why she’d be reckless enough to attempt an ocean excursion in my discarded eggshell, but it’s something I did as a child and old habits die hard. In fact my octogenarian father still practices witch-marine prevention whenever he eats a boiled egg so there’s probably little chance that I’ll ever kick the habit.
Do I genuinely believe that anything bad will happen if I fail to observe any of these superstitions? No, of course I don’t because despite all evidence suggesting the contrary, I am a rational human being. All the same, that angel isn’t coming down a day before Candlemas. Just in case.
