A summary of seasonal articles

For anyone who is looking for something suitable for the holiday season, here is a summary to date of the articles that feature Christmas and the New Year.  

Christmas articles

King George V's Christmas speech features the first-ever Christmas broadcast by a British monarch. The King's speech was written by Rudyard Kipling.

An unusual Midnight Mass: the real spirit of Christmas?  contains the moving poem Eddi's Service by Rudyard Kipling.

John Masefield and the magic of Christmas Eve is about Masefield's wonderful children's book The Box of Delights. 

Cults and John Masefield’s Box of Delights highlights a a successful resistance to a recruitment attempt.

John Masefield’s Box of Delights and Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather lists some elements that these two seasonal books have in common, including an attempt to ruin the holiday spirit.

The Polar Express: a controversial Christmas film gives some opinions of the film that was my Christmas treat for 2004.  

There is another side to Christmas: it can be more stressful and depressing than enjoyable, and it is often a time when sinister forces are abroad.

Unseen Influences at Christmas has something to say about depression and describes some disruptive incidents at Christmas Eve services.

Depression at Christmas covers some causes of seasonal depression. 

Christmas pictures

Beautiful - and amusing - images can help to raise the spirits.

A lovely picture can be seen in A beautiful Christmas card; another of the bargain cards that I scanned is shown in Another beautiful Christmas card. 

Some more lovely images can be seen in The Three Ships of Christmas; the seasonal article for the following year features The Twelve Days of Christmas.

There are also some seasonal pictures from Frank Kelly Freas. 

New Year articles

Rudyard Kipling's New Year's Resolutions features the amusing poem that he wrote for New Year 1887 about his good intentions for the years ahead.

Ringing out the old year and ringing in the new features Tennyson's poem Ring Out, Wild Bells.

Charles Lamb's sad words about the New Year also mentions bells. This article features his poem The Old Familiar Faces. 

A little New Year poem from Ogden Nash contains his amusing little verse Good Riddance, But Now What?

More pessimistic New Year poetry from Ogden Nash contains a little more of the same.

Another beautiful old seasonal card from my collection:

The Polar Express: a controversial Christmas film

The Polar Express (2004) is a film about some children who take a ride on a magical train to the North Pole to visit Santa Claus and his elves.

It was the first film I ever saw in an IMAX cinema. I went to the drum-shaped BFI one at Waterloo, which has the biggest screen in Britain. This was my Christmas treat for 2004.

I think that this was the first time I ever saw  'uncanny valley' CGI characters too, so there were three new experiences in one outing.

The snowy landscapes in The Polar Express were beautiful, but the film as a whole was rather eerie; it had a weird and dreamlike atmosphere that made me feel uneasy. I did not like the hybrid animated/human characters either: they gave me the uncomfortable, something isn't right, feelings that some robotic people in this world do, people who seem neither dead nor fully alive, people who seem more like ghosts or zombies than real people.

The film was in 3-D; the roller-coaster swoops of the camera made me dizzy!

The friend who came to see the film with me had much the same opinion of it: the IMAX experience was great apart from the times when we had to close our eyes because the vertical drops made us feel seasick, but parts of the film were rather disturbing.

With hindsight, even the 'normal' scenes in The Polar Express, children in their homes for example, seem like fantasy; they look like an alternate version of reality similar to the one in the film Coraline (2009). 

John Masefield’s Box of Delights & Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather

This time last year, John Masefield’s Box of Delights was featured.  The story ends on Christmas Eve, which makes it very suitable reading for the holiday season.

Now it is the turn of Terry Pratchett’s festive fairytale Hogfather (1996). 

The Hogfather is a Discworld character. He is similar to Father Christmas: he is a mythical fat and jolly bearded man who wears red and white and brings presents for the good children of Discworld on Hogswatchnight (December 32nd). He travels by sleigh; it is drawn by pigs rather than reindeer though. 

Although some readers say that Hogfather is Terry Pratchett’s best book, it is not at the top of my list: that place is occupied by his books about the Discworld witches!

There is not much in Hogfather that inspires commentary, however I noticed some interesting similarities and common themes and elements in these two very different seasonal stories and decided to list a few of them.

A few common features
A big metaphysical battle is a major theme in both books.

In The Box of Delights the battle is between good and evil; in Hogfather it is between rationality and belief. It is about logic and rules versus magic and mythology.

Cults and John Masefield’s Box of Delights

I have recently been re-reading John Masefield's children’s fantasy novel The Box of Delights.

I wanted to have another look at the references to Christmas Eve. I was also hoping to find some previously overlooked material about witches, but instead I noticed for the first time that a conversation between two of the characters resonates with what I now know about cults.

This dialogue was written in 1935. It is uncanny how relevant and significant it is when we look at the methods cults use to recruit their victims and what constitutes an effective resistance to these techniques. I missed all this in past readings of the book but can see it now.

Maria Jones and the evil witch

One of the characters in the book is a girl called Maria Jones. She is a friend of Kay Harker, the young hero.

She is just a small child; she is known to everyone as ‘little Maria’. She is blunt, tough and fearless, rather like Joan Aiken’s Dido Twite in The Cuckoo Tree. She loves guns and has gangsters on the brain.

Maria shows that she has more sense than many adults who are manipulated into joining cults or other unethical organisations when the witch Sylvia Daisy Pouncer and her villainous husband Abner Brown decide that Maria shows promise and would be a good acquisition for their gang.

They kidnap and imprison her. Sylvia Daisy tries to persuade her to join them. Maria is not fooled; she is defiant and not at all daunted and she stands up for herself very well.

John Masefield and the magic of Christmas Eve

The writer and poet John Masefield’s two children’s books The Midnight Folk (1927) and its sequel The Box of Delights (1935) have been previously mentioned on here because of the witch Sylvia Daisy Pouncer.

Sylvia Daisy plays a much larger part in The Midnight Folk than she does in The Box of Delights, but the latter book is of interest for other reasons. 

Masefield’s words create beautiful pictures in the imagination - the descriptions of winter and the Christmas season are particularly good - and invoke positive magical influences which are ideal for helping to counteract seasonal depression and the sinister forces that are active at this time of year. 

The story, which features magic, adventure, time travel, sinister wolves, brave children and the battle between good and evil, begins a few days before Christmas with the young hero Kay Harker returning from boarding school for the holidays; it ends on Christmas Eve with a joyful and triumphant midnight service in the Cathedral. 

It is interesting that Sylvia Daisy Pouncer and her evil associates try to prevent this service from being held. As was mentioned in this article, disrupting the midnight service on Christmas Eve is a big coup for practitioners of black magic.

A six-episode BBC TV series was made in 1984. Although for me books are always best and many associated films make me feel furious, disappointed and disgusted, I have found this series to be worth watching. I like the theme music very much.

The Box of Delights series is available on DVD, and some kind person has loaded the episodes onto YouTube.

I may come back to John Masefield’s children’s book again. In the meantime, I hope that this brief description and strong recommendation will inspire people who haven’t already discovered The Box of Delights to investigate this wonderful book and its TV adaption. 

Depression at Christmas

Some of what I said in the article about depression at the autumnal equinox can also be applied to the Christmas holiday season: the winter solstice too may subtly affect us. 

There are obvious additional and external factors when Christmas is involved, however there is sometimes more to it than being overwhelmed and demoralised by practical problems: evil forces may be abroad!

I realised a while back that even if there are no energy vampires, emotional blackmailers and other undesirables in our lives, we can still be influenced negatively by people in general. 

I have found that Christmas is a time when this is particularly noticeable. There is a lot of stress, tension, misery and general bad energy in the air, in the big cities at least, and some sensitive people pick it all up. 

We may be badly affected by the cumulative inner states of both the large numbers of people who are rushing around with too much to do and too little time to do it in and the many unhappy, isolated people for whom this is the worst time of year. 

An unusual Midnight Mass: the real spirit of Christmas?

I like this poem very much. It is based on what may well be a myth, but to me it conveys the essence of Christmas:

Eddi's Service (A.D. 687) by Rudyard Kipling:

     Eddi, priest of St Wilfrid

      In the chapel at Manhood End,

     Ordered a midnight service

      For such as cared to attend.

     But the Saxons were keeping Christmas,

      And the night was stormy as well.

     Nobody came to service,

      Though Eddi rang the bell.

     'Wicked weather for walking,'

       Said Eddi of Manhood End.

     'But I must go on with the service

       For such as care to attend.'

     

     The altar candles were lighted,—

      An old marsh donkey came,

     Bold as a guest invited,

      And stared at the guttering flame.

    The storm beat on at the windows,

      The water splashed on the floor,

     And a wet yoke-weary bullock

      Pushed in through the open door.

     

    'How do I know what is greatest,

      How do I know what is least?

    That is My Father's business,'

      Said Eddi, Wilfrid's priest.

     'But, three are gathered together—

      Listen to me and attend.

     I bring good news, my brethren!'

      Said Eddi, of Manhood End.

     

    And he told the Ox of a manger

     And a stall in Bethlehem,

    And he spoke to the Ass of a Rider

     That rode to Jerusalem.

    They steamed and dripped in the chancel,

     They listened and never stirred,

    While, just as though they were Bishops,

     Eddi preached them The Word.

    Till the gale blew off on the marshes

      And the windows showed the day,

    And the Ox and the Ass together

     Wheeled and clattered away.

     And when the Saxons mocked him,

      Said Eddi of Manhood End,

     'I dare not shut His chapel

      On such as care to attend.'

This poem is in the public domain and can be found online in many places, including Project Gutenberg.

Unseen Influences at Christmas

I don’t enjoy this time of year very much. Seasonal depression prevents much enjoyment and turns necessary tasks into impositions; painful memories and feelings surface and thoughts of what might have been become overwhelming.

People are stressed and I pick up a lot of the tension and unhappiness that are in the air.

Even though I am not a Christian, I hate the way that consumerism and secularism have taken over what should be a religious festival. 

Despite not being religious, I did go to a Christmas service once. It was at the suggestion of a neighbour. One fateful Christmas Eve many years ago, I went for the first time ever to a Midnight Mass. It was held in Westminster Cathedral, and I went just for the carols and the spectacle.

The outing was pure delight from beginning to end. I felt very well, euphoric even; I had the feeling that something wonderful was on the horizon; the weather was very mild; we saw some happy looking policemen driving around in a car that was covered in Christmas decorations.

I enjoyed the lights, the surroundings and the music inside the Cathedral very much. Just as midnight was striking, I wished very hard for a good cause to support and a new and exciting interest in my life for the coming New Year. 

The expression “Be very careful what you wish for as you may well end up getting it” is becoming a platitude but is very relevant here. A ‘chance’ meeting with a stranger on New Year’s Eve brought me exactly what I had wished for. For good or evil? I still don’t know. It led to some of the best and some of the worst moments of my life, including a Christmas that I still can’t bear to think about.