It was Christmas Eve, babe: 23 epic Christmas Eve-nts from the Nativity to Nakatomi

Tags

A Christmas Carol, BBC, carols, Christmas, Dickens, Truce, Washington Irving

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the past, we’ve been busy doing all sorts of key, important, vital, ridiculous, epoch-changing things on this day.

The below dates are partly harvested from my book Hark! The Biography of Christmas but also from my time-frittering website The Movie Timeline. (Oh and Wikipedia and Google and things, but we never need acknowledge them, right?) In reverse chronlogical order, here’s what happened – in reality and in movie-land – on December 24th…

1995 – In the film Toy Story, on Christmas Eve ’95, Andy receives a puppy named Buster. His baby sister Molly receives a Mrs Potato Head.

1990 – John McLane foils a terrorist attack at Dulles International Airport, Washington DC… THE VERY SAME DAY that in Chicago, young Kevin McAllister stops two burglers from robbing his house via bunch of ingenuity and no care for the welfare of others (according to Die Hard 2 and Home Alone)

Yippee-ay-Merry Christmas

1988 – John McClane battles international terrorist Hans Gruber in the Nakatomi Tower. The same day that TV boss Frank Cross is visited by the Ghosts of Christmas. AND the same day that Evelyn Salt’s parents are killed in a car accident. (You may not have seen Salt. But hopefully you’ve seen Scrooged and Die Hard…)

1968 – Back in reality, the crew of the Apollo 8 become the first see the dark side of the moon (not the Pink Floyd album) – here’s the message they transmitted, which included readings from Genesis (not the band).

1945 – George Bailey of Bedford Falls decides that yes, life is worth living, because it’s a wonderful life.

1944 – The first US performance of The Nutcracker by the San Francisco Ballet, who’ve performed it every Christmas Eve since. Most ballet ticket sales each year are for The Nutcracker.

1941 – Churchill and Roosevelt light the White House Christmas tree for last time for 3 years, due to wartime energy restrictions.

1922 – In the BBC’s first year of transmission, the first original radio drama is broadcast on Christmas Eve: ‘The Truth About Father Christmas’, starring ‘Uncle’ Arthur Burrows.

1918 – King’s College Cambridge relaunch the Nine Lessons and Carols after the Great War. Ever since, they’ve ‘owned’ it, broadcasting it when technology allowed – even without the stained glass during the Second World War, and without the name ‘King’s’ attached so that the enemy couldn’t quite place where it was coming from.

1914 – One of the most famous Christmas Eve events, the Christmas Truce of the Great War sees French, English and German troops unite in No Man’s Land – largely thanks to the widespread recognition of Silent Night/Stille Nacht. Without the English troops recognising the Germans singing it, there might not have been that moment of peace, handshakes, tobacco trading… and football the next day. I’ve got plenty more on this event in my book, or on this post.

1906 – A great unsung hero of broadcasting, Reginald Fessenden gives the first transmission of any radio entertainment programme on Christmas Eve 1906. It’s a one-man impromptu carol service courtesy of this Canadian inventor and amateur violinist. He transmits a demonstration to ships’ radio operators (“sparks”) from Brank Rock, Massachusetts. Instead of the usual Morse code weather updates and time signals, receivers hear a brief burst of Fessenden reading Luke’s Nativity account, performing “O Holy Night” on violin, singing “Adore and Be Still”, and playing Handel’s Largo on vinyl. He signs off wishing his audience (not knowing if he had one) a Merry Christmas and asked that if anyone has heard him, to get in touch about the quality of broadcast. Sparks on ships from hundreds of miles away wrte to him of its success – and a little crackling is always expected at Christmas.

1880 – The first Nine Lessons & Carols takes place in Truro Cathedral, the idea of Bishop Benson – who also had the idea for classic Christmas ghost story, The Turn of the Screw. More on him and the service on this blog post here.

1865 – Ku Klux Klan forms. The less said about that the better, but insert your own joke about a White Christmas here.

1843 – Scrooge is visited by apparitions and sees the light. Dickens didn’t mention the year of the events, but many film adaptations but it as that very Christmas the Dickens released it. Oh and seven years earlier on Christmas Eve…

1836 – Jacob Marley dies. He’s as Scroogish as Scrooge, but he dies before seeing the error of his ways, so he’ll wander the spirit for seven years, then haunt Scrooge and play compere to three exciting ghosts. No idea why he waited seven years, but maybe he was waiting for Scrooge to get properly miserly, or waiting for Dickens to write him up.

1822 – “‘Twas the Night before Christmas, and all through the house…” …of Clement Clarke Moore, preparations were readying. We don’t know if he gave his children this poem on Christmas Eve on Christmas Day – but this poem was written just one day earlier by the Hebrew scholar.

1820 – Around this year, the writer Washington Irving experiences a Christmas Eve at Aston Hall in Birmingham, with the Watt family (whose name would adorn lightbulbs one day). Irving writes it up, exaggerates, spoofs and harks back to Christmas of old, in a travelogue tale ‘Christmas Eve’ as well as other festive writings. He talks of the old tradition of twelve days, of an uninspiring season of Christmaslessness, of the warmth of winter holiday celebrations, of the joy of carriage rides and fireside games, of the benefit of looking back to old customs… Irving explains mistletoe and its kissing custom to Americans, and tells of an English Christmas of church, carols, nostalgia and rosy-cheeked children. Dickens later reads this and is inspired to write of the Cratchit family Christmas in A Christmas Carol. So yes, the cosy rosy English Christmas was sold back to us by the Americans. More on Irving and Dickens here.

1818 – Another classic Christmas Eve moment: when church mice (apparently) ate through the church organ of an Austrian village church, causing the priest and the organist to write a new song against the clock, to debut at Midnight Mass that night. The man who came to fix the organ then saw the song written down, and took it with him around other churches as he travelled. Your organ breaks? You get it fixed, you learn Silent Night, that’s the deal. More on it and other carol origins here.

1777 – James Cook discovers Christmas Island. During Christmas! What are the chances…?

1223 – St Francis of Assisi stages the first live Nativity scene, with a stone Jesus, his Franciscan monks as shepherds… and hopefully an audience if the rural Italian villagers turn up (they do).

1166 – King John is born. It means that when he reigns, he’ll celebrate Christmas AND his birthday in a blow-out of a feast, that will inspire and enthuses hungry monarchs to come.

100 AD – Midnight Mass starts being celebrated on Christmas Eve roundabout nowish. But in secret, in homes. (The smell of the incense probably gave it away though.)

1BC/ADish – Well, more than likely somewhere in the decade around then, Joseph and Mary arrive in Bethlehem, but find little room available due to the census dragging all of J’s extended family to the locality too. So they end up in the lower room, or the cave, or the cowshed…

…and the rest is history. The rest is his story…

Hark! The Biography of Christmas is available now.

 

Advertisements

12 reasons that A Christmas Carol is even better than you think

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Books, Charity, Christmas, Dickens, Family, Mulled wine

Alright.

One last Dickensian post in this Yule blog.

I know I’m a Christmas obsessive, but I’m in great danger of becoming a Dickens obsessive too.

But he gave us so many Christmassy things! The new film picks up on one nickname in the later years of his life – ‘The Man Who Invented Christmas’ – and though much of that is right place/right time stuff (industrialisation, new middle class, aspiration, London as the world’s biggest and most influential city at the time…), he did one heck of a lot for the Christmas season. And it’s pretty much entirely contained in that one little novella, that you could (if you had mind to) read in one sitting. A Christmas Carol.

Dickens’ own notes on his own copy of his own book, ahead of his public reading.

Yes you’re more likely to watch the Muppets’ version this year, but here are a dozen reasons why Dickens’ original is even better than you thought (and you probably thought it was quite good).

1. Dickens wrote it to make a difference. After glimpsing America’s slave trade, the conditions of Cornish tin mines and the poverty of industrial Manchester, Charles decided to write a political pamphlet to enact change and encourage generosity amongst his well-to-do readers. Dickens canned that idea in favour of a Christmas ghost story, a genre that he noted had “twenty thousand times the force… [of] my first idea”.
2. It put family at the heart of Christmas. …helping re-focus the season on children and family. Children’s carols, like ‘Once in Royal David’s City’, appeared in the years that followed. For Dickens’ part, he’d started painting the picture of the cosy family Christmas in his first book, The Pickwick Papers, which included a description of a perfect Christmas at Dingley Dell. Dickens adored Christmas. One of Charles’ sons wrote that “my father was always at his best, a splendid host, bright and jolly as a boy and throwing his heart and soul into everything that was going on… And then the dance! There was no stopping him!”
3. It gave us the White Christmas. Charles’ first eight Christmases were white ones, born as he was at the end of the Little Ice Age. The Thames froze the year before and two years after his birth – the last time the tidal section would do so, giving London its last great Frost Fair, held on the river. England suffered some of its snowiest weather for 300 years. The world climate was so bleak in 1816 that it was known as “The Year Without a Summer” or rather macabrely, “Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death”. The sunless summer forced a gaggle of writers to accept Lord Byron’s challenge to write a ghostly tale instead of enjoying European sun: Mary Shelley emerged with Frankenstein; John William Polidori wrote the first vampire story. As for Dickens, when he grew up he recalled the white Christmases of his youth, and wrote it into his festive tale, published in the tenth mildest December on record… but readers his age remembered the snowy Christmases of their youth too, and nostalgia gave us the white Christmas.
4. It gave us mulled wine. Alright, mulled wine was already ‘out there’. But by including one his favourites, ‘Smoking Bishop’ (made from port, red wine, citrus fruit, sugar and spice), Dickens ensured its future. As a child, Dickens enjoyed a glass or bowl of this concoction – yes it was alcoholic, but probably safer than drinking water.
5. It gave us Humbug. You knew that. Bah! It also popularised ‘Merry Christmas’ as a greeting (see previous blog)… though its first reference in the book has Scrooge respond: “Every idiot who goes about with a ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.” Humbug to that…
6. Dickens self-published, in a fit of desperation. His previous book Martin Chuzzlewit, had bombed. The writer and the publisher had lost money on it. So this time, Dickens gambled on a cut of the profits being wiser than taking a lump sum. But printing costs were high, so it needed to sell well to turn a profit. No problem there – it was reprinted within a couple of weeks. Ever the perfectionist, Charles even binned the first edition with its ghastly olive endpapers, instead requesting a red cloth cover and golden pages to reflect the colours of Christmas.
7. He wrote it in just six weeks. When I wrote my Christmas book Hark! The Biography of Christmas (that all these blog posts are based on), I spent eighteen months on and off, receiving strange looks in the library and in coffee shops, reading Christmas books in March, April and May. No such problem for Charles Dickens. He wrote his Christmas book entirely in November and December. Once he had the idea, it was a rush to get it out for Christmas, and it was only finalised two days before publication the week before Christmas. While creating this story, Charles walked “fifteen or twenty miles many a night when all sober folks had gone to bed”. He wrote obsessively, and while writing, “I wept and laughed, and wept again.”
8. The book changed Christmas, utterly. Although Dickens was certainly a Christian (he wrote The Life of Our Lord for his children, and Tolstoy called him “that great Christian writer”), his book helped shift attention from the Nativity to charity and family. Today those who say that we shouldn’t forget “the true meaning of Christmas” often seem to mean the Dickensian Christmas: the importance of family, or the joy of giving. That said, at his time of writing, there wasn’t much attention at Christmas on the Nativity either – people were just as likely to be drunk in the streets as in church at Christmas. Some things never change…
9. The book changed people. This was one of the few books to notably improve the behaviour of those who read it. One American factory-owner read it on Christmas Eve and closed his factory the next day, instead giving a turkey to each employee. Whether inspired by the book or not, four years after A Christmas Carol Queen Victoria ensured extra funds for Christmas dinners at workhouses across the country. Robert Louis Stevenson read it and commented: “I want to go out and comfort someone; I shall never listen to the nonsense they tell one about not giving money – I shall give money; not that I haven’t done so always, but I shall do it with a high hand now.”
10. The book was published the same week as the first Christmas card. Just down the road too, in Sir Henry Cole’s art shop. That week, Sir Henry sold a thousand cards at a shilling each. On that day alone, A Christmas Carol sold six times as many for five times the price.
11. The book made Dickens’ fortune… not by writing it – but by performing it. While plays and musicals based on the book appeared within a few weeks of publication, Dickens took a few years to bring it to the stage himself. When he did, he was pretty much the first writer to give public readings. Performing the tale and embodying the characters made him millions in today’s money. His first reading came from this book – and his last. On March 15th 1870, he gave his final performance, ending with the words: “From these garish lights, I vanish now for evermore, with a heartfelt, grateful, respectful, and affectionate farewell.” He died three months later, aged 58. Almost as he was giving his final few performances, Thomas Edison and his fellow brainboxes were working on the first sound recording devices – so tragically, we all missed out on hearing Dickens’ own recording by just a few years.
12. There has been over a century of film adaptations. Ah what I’d give to hear Dickens read it himself… We’ll have to make do with Jim Carrey, Alasdair Sim and Gonzo instead. The first screen adaptation came in 1901 – and with a new film out about the making of the book this very Christmas, we can’t seem to get enough of Scrooge and co. Altogether: “Marley was dead, to begin with…”

Hark! The Biography of Christmas is available by clicking this collection of words.

Got this version? Might be worth a few quid as it’s the first edition. In fact just click Print, same difference…

The (3 Wise) Men Who “Invented” Christmas

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Christmas, Christmas tree, Dickens, Germany, Mulled wine, Prince Albert, St Nicholas, Victoria, Washington Irving

There’s a new film out this week, telling the story behind A Christmas Carol – and it’s one heck of a tale. Such a tale in fact that I’ve been pitching around an idea for a film based on the story behind A Christmas Carol for the past year or so. Ah well. They beat me to it.

Such writerly misfortune – right idea, wrong place, wrong time – is the sort of thing that lies behind Dickens’ festive tale. As for the title, Dickens was known in his later years as ‘The Man Who Invented Christmas’. When he died, so entwined was he with the festive season that a Covent Garden barrow-girl was heard to say: “Dickens dead? Then will Father Christmas die too?”

Cheer up, Charlie.

But invent Christmas? Yes alright, that’s a little far. He certainly helped revive it though. He gave us little bitesized Christmas presents, by popularising mulled wine in his book, giving us Scrooge and ‘humbug’, as well as one of the first printed greetings of ‘Merry Christmas’. (Earlier still was the “Merry Christmas” in the song “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”, sung door-to-door in the mummers’ tradition of performing for money (or figgy pudding. No one quite knows when that song came about, though it pre-dates Dickens. Possibly the earliest recorded use of the greeting was in 1565 as “Mery Christmas”, though the more satisfying fuller phrase, “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year”, first appears in a 1699 letter written by an English admiral. There’s then a gap, then Dickens brings the greeting back in his 1843 book. By chance that very same week, the greeting was also revived for the first commercial Christmas card.)

He gave us bigger presents too – refocusing the festive season on family and charity. His book was so influential, that The Gentleman’s Magazine attributed a boom in charitable giving to A Christmas Carol. One American factory- owner read it on Christmas Eve and closed his factory the next day, instead giving a turkey to each employee. Vanity Fair author William Makepeace ackeray noted that, “A Scotch philosopher, who nationally does not keep Christmas Day, on reading the book, sent out for a turkey, and asked two friends to dinner – and that is a fact.”

But there were bigger Christmas changes afoot. Industrialisation was the big influencer: workers flocked to the cities, changing the focus of Christmas from village customs to urban ones, and household ones, as people sought to recreate the festival in their homes rather than the village greens. It meant people travelled home for Christmas for the first time (on trains rather than across fields). And it meant a new middle class, which meant that aspiration became a thing. The poor looked to the keeping-afloat, and their mid-sized Christmas trees, who were looking to the upper classes and their big Christmas trees, who were looking to the royals and their…

Ah yes. That’s where Prince Albert comes in.

See, I think that in terms of people there were three wise men of the Victorian period who changed Christmas celebration beyond recognition. So here are our three kings of the nineteenth-century Christmas, and the gifts they bring:

Washington Irving. The world’s first international bestselling author… and inventor of ‘knickers’

✧  WASHINGTON IRVING… The American brings the modern Christmas in from the cold. Irving was the world’s first international best-selling author, bringing us Rip Van Winkle, Sleepy Hollow, the word ‘knickers’, the pudding ‘Knickerbocker Glory’, and the New York nickname ‘Gotham City’. It was on the same visit to the East Midlands (rather backward) village of Gotham that Irving also swung by the West Midlands manor house of James Watt (of the ‘Watt’, yes). Here he was treated to a cosy stately home Christmas, and so Irving wrote it up in exaggerated fashion in the early nineteenth century, and the world read of the cosy classic English Christmas of roaring log fires, party games, carriage rides and family joy – even if Irving was making it up a bit. He also wrote a separate book helping to revive the Dutch settler St Nicholas tales, of flying over rooftops and delivering presents. So Irving’s our Ghost of Christmas Past. Our wise man who brings a sweet warm reviving feeling to Christmas: mmmmmyrrh.

✧ CHARLES DICKENS… The Englishman adored Irving’s writings: “I do not go to bed two nights out of seven without taking Washington Irving under my arm upstairs to bed with me.” Easy, Charles. Dickens was inspired by Irving to write his Christmas classic (see below, when they met.) From the pages of Dickens’ novella, you can almost inhale the scent of Cratchit cooking, the chill of crisp snow underfoot, and the homely aromas of Fred’s Christmas party. So the gift of Dickens – our Ghost of Christmas Present – is a Christmas that tingles our senses. If you don’t agree, frankly I’m incensed.

✧  PRINCE ALBERT… The German brings old-world charm and nobility, to be emulated by all royal-watchers. So beloved is the Prince Consort that the customs he enacts, from Christmas trees to gingerbread and fruit and candle decorations, are copied throughout the land. Christmas cards with the royal couple’s image are the height of fashion. When Albert skates at Christmas (rather well actually, certainly far better than Her Majesty), everyone skates. He even once rode a sleigh from London to Slough (of all the places – one hopes it was just so they could call it a Slough Ride…). He even helped revive turkey (not a turkey – there was no reviving that…). So Albert, paving the way for home decoration and celebration for centuries to come, is our Ghost of Christmas Future, and his gift is the sparkling royal Christmas that we all crave: pure festive gold.

Uncle Albert (to his nephews)

 

PS:

They all met, you know. Just not all three together. Here – true story – are the times our three wise men met each other:

✧  WHEN ALBERT MET DICKENS… The Prince Consort was a fan of Dickens, but the feeling was not mutual – simply because Dickens was in love with the Queen. On the royal wedding night at Windsor Castle in 1840, the already-married Dickens protested beneath the newlyweds’ bedroom window by rolling around in the mud. Not surprisingly it was ineffective. In further protest, Dickens rudely refused all royal requests for an audience for the next three decades. The royal couple attended some of his performed readings, but Charles continued to turn down offers of honours, or a request to contribute to Albert’s memorial fund after his demise. The Queen and the writer finally met, holding a cordial conversation, just weeks before Charles’ death.

✧  WHEN DICKENS MET IRVING… The two writers admired each other greatly, and Dickens stayed at Irving’s house in New York on 1 February 1842, during his American speaking tour. Dickens was inspired by the American’s tales of the classic English Christmas, as well as by the horrors of the slave trade that he glimpsed while on tour. So he felt moved to write something to help England’s poor; visits to Cornish tin mines and Manchester factories followed, then an attempt at a political pamphlet, before he had the idea to write a ghost story – but it began at Irving’s home, ‘Sunnyside’.

✧ WHEN IRVING MET ALBERT… The consummate traveller had grown a little world-weary by the time he attended a royal ball in London in May 1842, but his overwhelm at the sight of the regalia was classically American. Adoring the pomp and ceremony, he was impressed by Prince Albert, whom he noted “speaks English very well”. Ever the observer, Irving perceived that the Queen looked flushed and bothered by the entire event, continually adjusting her crown.

All this is from my new book Hark! The Biography of Christmas. Do buy.

The 15 best Christmas movies (+ the stories behind them)

Tags

A Christmas Carol, bing crosby, Christmas, Films, Hollywood, Movies, Santa, Snow, TV

It’s time.

I’ve called it.

This weekend, I’m allowing us all to start watching Christmas films.

God bless us, every Muppet.

Not all at once. Build up steadily. A few days ago a comedian pal tweeted a screenshot of her spreadsheet: A Muppet Christmas Carol and Elf are saved till Christmas Eve, It’s a Wonderful Life and Get Santa are scheduled for early December. I might kick off this weekend with Die Hard.

But do you know which classic movie was based on a Christmas card, and may be responsible for a lot of asbestos poisoning? Which Santa film was released in May? Which action film was a literary sequel, meant to be starring Frank Sinatra?

The most fun I had writing my new Christmas book was delving into twentieth century pop culture – although it’s worrying that now counts as ‘history’. We’ll save festive telly and pop songs for another time, but here for your viewing pleasure (and viewing planning pleasure) is my countdown of the Undisputed Greatest Christmas Films of All Time (and some stories behind them).

15. Jingle All the Way… Arnie’s finest. Alright his finest Christmas movie. Alright his only Christmas movie. American cinema has always done the “Christmas shopping” film far better than Britain, because they do the consumer Christmas better than anyone. When Britain tried it… well 1954’s shop-based The Crowded Day wasn’t memorable.

14. The Polar Express… This was the world’s first all-digital capture film. And it kinda shows. I mean, how many Tom Hankses do we need to see in a film? Actually with the state the world (and Hollywood) is in, maybe just cloning Tom Hanks a few dozen times is the best we can hope for in a film.

Hanks for the (weird) memories.

13. Miracle on 34th Street… This Santa-based classic had an unusual May theatrical release, since the studio doubted that Christmas would yield much box office. To lure summer moviegoers in, the original posters and trailer hid all the festive elements – even though the entire plot concerns one Kris Kringle claiming to be the real Santa Claus.

12. The Sound of Music/The Great Escape/The Wizard of Oz… Say what now? Christmas? Well, they’re always on the schedules. In fact it’s only through Christmas repeats on TV that some of these garnered classic status. Alright, none of them have anything to do with Christmas, but somehow it wouldn’t feel festive without someone (a nun/Steve McQueen) being chased by Nazis, or a virginal singer (Dorothy/Maria) surrounded by little people (Munchkins/the Von Trapps). Yes I’m lumping these films together, so they can be watched in one easy 10-hour session.

11. Gremlins… We’d had Bing Crosby. We’d had schmaltz. By 1984 we were ready for something more, well, 1984y. George Orwell thought there’d be a Big Brother and a Room 101 and the Thought Police (he was just a couple of decades out) – so surely our Christmas films can take a darker turn? Gremlins certainly did. You might recognise many of the sets – Kingston Falls, the cinema – from Back to the Future, which was shot just after with a bit of a redesign.

 

Can’t decide what to watch?

10. Scrooged… Early festive cinema was dominated by remakes of A Christmas Carol. The first adaptation was just a generation after Dickens’ death, and we can’t stop making it ever since. Only this Christmas, you can know see in cinemas the story behind it in The Man who Invented Christmas (more on that in the next blog post). Alastair Sim’s Scrooge was pretty definitive, but Bill Murray did a cracking job at reinventing the character for the 1980s, giving Ebenezer a gentle nudge from miser to cynic.

 

9. Bad Santa… Things got properly cynical by this film’s release, though if your heart was softer, you could have seen Elf or Love Actually in cinemas at the same time. (Wow, moviegoers were spoilt that Christmas.) Jack Nicholson was first to be signed up for the lead role, then Bill Murray… when they both dropped out for other roles, Billy Bob Thornton stepped in – and claims to have been largely drunk throughout.

8. Home Alone… The highest-grossing live action comedy of all time (until The Hangover II came along). The team behind it met on another festive film: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Roger Ebert’s review on release noted that the film contained “the kinds of traps that any 8-year-old could devise, if he had a budget of tens of thousands of dollars and the assistance of a crew of movie special effects people”. Fair point.

7. Joyeux Noel… My pick for Best Christmas film You’ve Probably Never Heard Of. It’s in French, English and German and tells the story of the Christmas truce, that we talked about in the last post on this very blog (that wasn’t an intentional last post pun, but I’m leaving it in).

The film is not about this place.

6. Holiday Inn… The film that spawned an industry – not just heralding future festive film releases, but also containing Bing Crosby’s ‘White Christmas’. Don’t be fooled by TV schedules trying to get you to watch Bing in White Christmas – that’s the sequel. Go for the original. Irving Berlin wrote the famous ditty – now the world’s bestselling of all time – in tribute to his snowy Colorado home, that he was missing being stuck in Hollywood for Christmas.

5. Love Actually… I saw this film twice in the cinema – once with some cynical friends, and I agreed with them it was rubbish, and again with some upbeat friends and I realised all the good stuff I missed first time round. I’m clearly easily led. The very first copy of my Christmas book to reach me was the same morning I bumped into Colin Firth at a radio studio, so I gave him the first copy. “Can I give you the first ever copy of this… because you’re in it…” I said. He replied: “Oh of course! The history of Christmas? Yes, I must be in it for Love Actually.” I assured him no. “Oh, for Bridget Jones then? Because I started that Christmas jumper craze…” Finally I told him he’s in the book because of The King’s Speech, which doesn’t mention Christmas, but George VI’s reluctance to stammer through a royal Christmas message – then his will to continue anyway – was worth including.

Wrong film, Colin.

4. Elf… A fine fun film. Buddy’s 12-second belch was a real belch, provided by the guy who voiced ‘The Brain in Pinky and The Brain. That’s all he did for the film.

3. Die Hard… Weirdly this is a Christmas movie, and weirdly Frank Sinatra was earmarked for the John McClane role – after all he played the role in the original. Yup, this is technically a sequel to 1966’s The Detective, and based on the book Nothing Lasts Forever. Arnie was offered the lead role too, before eventually they gave Bruce Willis ago – at the time he was mostly a TV comedy actor. Looks like he was worth a shot…

2. It’s a Wonderful Life… Frank Capra’s classic began life as a short story in 1939 – writer Philip Van Doren Stern struggled to publish it, so turned it into a Christmas card of all things… which handily ended up on the desk of a Hollywood producer. The movie made a loss on its 1947 release, and like many other festive favourites, it took another two or three decades to become a fixture of Christmas TV schedules. One innovation from Capra’s film was a new snow effect. Till now, movie snow largely had been comprised of corn flakes painted white – a little crunchy underfoot. So Capra instead threw 27,000 litres of a soapy foamite substance at a wind machine. Fake snow became big business at homes across the Western world, especially since Bing’s “White Christmas” popularised the idea when there was little snowfall to be seen. Unfortunately a lot of the early mixtures were made from rather lethal asbestos.

Beware the snow.

1. The Muppet Christmas Carol… Up against Home Alone 2 at the festive box office, this certifiable classic may be the only version of Dickens’ book we ever need. It’s pretty true to the book too, thanks to Gonzo and Rizzo’s narration filling in all lots of the prose. It was also the first Muppet film after Jim Henson’s death, so the debut of new Kermit actor Steve Whitmire. No pressure then…

(Oh and it’s the best Christmas film of all time.)

 

Have I missed out your favourite? Sorry. Add it in the comments because you’re probably right… (oh and make sure you’ve got a copy of Hark! The Biography of Christmas in case your TV breaks over Christmas).

 

Dickens hosts Christmas (& a book launch…)

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Books, Charity, Christmas, Dickens, Family, Hark, Mulled wine, Snow, Victoria

Tonight I’m officially launching Hark! The Biography of Christmas in London’s glittering just-to-the-east-of-West End. I’ve particularly chosen the nearest bookshop to Dickens’ house and museum – because where better than within sight of “the man who invented Christmas”…

If you’ve not been to his house/museum, I thoroughly recommend it. I pondered it as a venue for the launch itself – though sole hire was a little pricey for little ol’ me, so the Blackwells/Caffe Nero a couple of streets away seemed as good a place as any.

Charles Dickens (accurate depiction)

In tribute to, as Tolstoy called him, “that great Christian writer” (even though, yes, Chuck D’s version of Christmas almost pushed out the Christian Christmas – with values of charity, family and snow dominating most festive households), here’s a sample from the book that’s all Dickensian, like. Through the book I’ve pinpointed the 12 dates of Christmas becoming more like our current Christmas, so…

 

…On our ninth date of Christmas… (London, 19 December 1843)

As Mr Dickens steps into the London street, he can almost feel the snow beneath him – except this year he’ll have to imagine it. Sadly the weather has not played snowball with his wintry novella; London’s Christmas 1843 is the tenth mildest December on record. Still, the seven-degree day means that the streets are busier, and more are out seeking his book on its day of release. Perhaps as they read they’ll hark back to white Christmases of yesteryear – after last year’s even warmer winter, those wintry days may be behind us for good. Thankfully for us, Charles’ first eight Christmases were white ones, so for him and his generation, that’s what a Christmas should be, even if they’ve become rarer as he’s grown older.

The writer cannot help but smile as he hears a boy advertise his wares: that he has stock of Mr Dickens’ latest work, A Christmas Carol. He’s well-known but his star has been fading a little – perhaps he spent a little too long touring America. The written works too may not have quite delivered as promised. The recent Martin Chuzzlewit left Dickens and his publisher out of pocket after sales failed to match the success of Oliver Twist.

So Dickens is self-publishing this new book, hoping that a cut of the profits will prove wiser than taking a lump sum. Those printing costs have been high though, so this book needs to sell well to turn a profit. The look of this edition appeals to Charles, ever the perfectionist: the red cloth cover and golden pages reflect the colours of Christmas – far better than the ghastly olive endpapers originally printed. It was only finalised two days ago.

Many are parting with their five shillings for a copy. Profiteering aside, Charles’ travelling has given him a new perspective on his career – more cultural commentator than writer-for-pleasure – and this is the first major publication since adopting this new role. He has campaigned against slavery in the United States, and following trips to Cornish tin mines and impoverished industrial Manchester, he has been determined to make a difference. In particular, Charles wishes to provoke his middle- and upper-class readers into action by highlighting the social injustices under their noses. After a faltering start turned this passion into a political pamphlet, Dickens has instead opted for a Christmas ghost story, a genre with “twenty thousand times the force… [of] my first idea”.

Christmas is a family occasion for Charles, and he’s looking forward to the two official days off next week with his four young children, wife Kate, and Kate’s sister Georgina who lives with them to support the house. What better time to commune with the family than Christmas, when the children can enjoy a parlour game or be baffled by his latest magic trick? One of Charles’ sons will later write that he adored this “really jovial time… my father was always at his best, a splendid host, bright and jolly as a boy and throwing his heart and soul into everything that was going on… And then the dance! There was no stopping him!”

He passes house after house, where later carollers will doubtless be reviving their tradition of singing for money. Charles smirks: he has a carol of his own. His novella is fully titled A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost-Story of Christmas. He’s no composer or lyricist, but was keen to add his voice to the carol renaissance of late, and he’s even written “staves” (or stanzas) instead of chapters.

The tale of Ebenezer Scrooge’s transformation from miser to philanthropist is a deliberate morality lesson of warmth amid snow, of hot turkey and family cheer. There are glimpses of a middle-class Christmas with party games like Snap Dragon and Blind Man’s Buff, as well as a barely struggling working-class dinner with a roast goose and Christmas pudding. There’s even mention of a mulled wine called “Smoking Bishop”, made from port, red wine, citrus fruit, sugar, and spice. Dickens enjoyed a glass or bowl of Bishop at the upper-middle-class Christmases of his youth, even as a child; after all, alcoholic punch is a safer bet than drinking water.

This bishop is smokin’…

The book features nostalgic trips to past Christmases – essential in this fast-moving world of railways and factories – as well as a timely reminder to be truly present at our family festivities. There are, of course, ghosts; perhaps the Christmas ghost story will become a trend. Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Present is based on the Roman god Saturn, figurehead of their Saturnalia festival.

Dickens is fond of pacing these streets. While creating this story, he walked “fifteen or twenty miles many a night when all sober folks had gone to bed”. He wrote obsessively, starting just two months ago, and while writing, “I wept and laughed, and wept again.” Six weeks later the book was complete, with the last pages finished in early December. Already he is mulling discussions for New Year stage adaptations – several different productions will crop up within the month, with his backing or not.

Charles is recognised by one well-wisher out delivering an envelope via the new “Penny Post” system, established just three years ago. Perhaps one day Charles’ books may be delivered by similar means – though surely not for a penny. Dickens wonders if that envelope contains one of the brand new Christmas cards, on sale just a few streets away in Sir Henry Cole’s art shop. Time will tell if the enterprising experiment works. By Christmas, Sir Henry will sell 1,000 at a shilling each, while today alone, A Christmas Carol will sell six times as many for five times the price. Selling out in a day, more books will be printed to keep up with Christmas demand.

For now, Charles enjoys his walk through London. Next week he will take his young family through these streets to the toy shop in Holborn, for their annual custom of choosing one present each. Hopefully the book will sell well – Kate has a fifth child on the way. If he were visited by a Ghost of Christmas Future, he could be told that within a few years they’ll have ten children.

As for the book, its influence will be immediate. Within a few months, The Gentleman’s Magazine will attribute a boom in charitable giving to A Christmas Carol. One American factory-owner reads it on Christmas Eve and closes his factory the next day, instead giving a turkey to each employee. Vanity Fair author William Makepeace Thackeray says of the book: “A Scotch philosopher, who nationally does not keep Christmas Day, on reading the book, sent out for a turkey, and asked two friends to dinner – and that is a fact.”

 

I adore A Christmas Carol. I know it’s early in the season, but plan to read that between now and Christmas. Oh, and plan to read this.