On December 17th
of 1843, Charles Dickens published his iconic holiday tale, A Christmas Carol. Everyone is familiar with the details and
characters: Scrooge, Marley, Tiny Tim, and the visits of the three ghosts,
Christmases Past, Present, and “Yet to Come.”
The initial printing of 6,000 copies sold out in a few days and has been
popular ever since. Dickens received
credit for helping revive interest in old Christmas customs, including Christmas
trees and the recently introduced Christmas cards. However, another tale hovers around the edges
of Christmas reading – “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” by Dylan Thomas. This prose work, originally written for
radio, was recorded by Thomas in 1952.
It takes a nostalgic view of Christmas from an earlier, simpler time.
Thomas was born in
Swansea, Wales in 1914, and dropped out of school at 16. He first worked as a journalist, but his poem,
"Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines" in 1934, laid the foundation for
his literary reputation. Thomas and his
family lived hand-to-mouth in the Welsh fishing village of Laugharne. He found it difficult to earn a living as a
writer, so he turned to radio and speaking and reading tours. “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” became his
most popular work, along with the poem, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good
Night.” Thomas’ Christmas tale is warm
and pleasing to the mind. He begins the
story like this,
“One Christmas was
so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now […] out of
all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment
before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six
nights when I was twelve, or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights
when I was six” (296).
Thomas then begins
his nostalgic recollections, “Years and years ago, when I was a boy, when there
were wolves in Wales, and birds the colour of red-flannel petticoats whisked
past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in
caves that smelt like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlours, […
and while…] we rode the daft and happy hills bareback, it snowed and it
snowed. But here a small boy says: ‘It
snowed last year, too. I made a snowman
and my brother knocked it down, and I knocked my brother down, and then we had
tea’.” (297-298).
He continues, “For
dinner, we had turkey and blazing pudding, and after dinner the Uncles sat in
front of the fire, loosened all buttons, put their large, moist hands over
their watch chains, groaned a little, and slept. Mothers, aunts and sisters scuttled to and
fro” (301).
Sure sounds like
many of my childhood Christmas memories at my grandparent’s home. Start a new tradition and read Dickens and
Thomas’ “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” around the tree on Christmas Eve. 5 stars
--Chiron, 12/16/13
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