I started loving The House Without a Christmas Tree when I was in highschool. Eleanor Perry wrote the screen play for this made-for-television movie back in 1972, winning an Emmy in 1973. The Christmas special was followed by The Thanksgiving Treasure also called The Holiday Treasure (1973), The Easter Promise also called A Dream for Addie (1975), and Addie and the King of Hearts (1976). The related books by Gail Rock were published in 1973, 1973, 1975 & 1975, respectively.
Naturally, the Christmas story is the best of the series! I watched it religiously for several seasons; and then it seemed to disappear. I was so happy when it reappeared in my life, first on VHS and now on DVD. I had not read the books until a few years ago, when I got the gift idea of giving copies of the book along with copies of the movie and felt I should read before sending.
While reading House Without a Christmas Tree, I could see the movie playing in my mind's eye and hear it in my mind's ear -- I guess if we have a "mind's eye," then we also have a "mind's ear," right? The voice-over narration that accompanies the movie and much of the dialogue comes word for word from the book. My usual pattern is to read the book first and think of the movie as a visual aid; but in this case, it's the opposite, the novel serving as script / reference work. Well, that works too.
What I always liked best about the movie were the transitions before each commercial when the final scene would freeze and then morph from realistic to a cut and paste bulletin board version of the same image: Dad's truck, the night kitchen, the Christmas Star. Does anyone else remember that?
After the commercial break, the sequence would occur in reverse: the construction paper school building, Grandmother in the kitchen, and the Nativity Stage slowly becoming real as the action resumed. Even now, we wait for the moment of our favorite changes and try to guess which one is coming next. You'd think we'd have them memorized by now -- but maybe not, if you're only watching once a year. Of course, that's part of the charm.
Another old favorite from the 1970s is "The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas," one of the best holiday cartoons ever. Narrated by Tommy Smothers, Barbara Feldon, and Arte Johnson, with some old "Laugh In" jokes thrown in for fun, it also features the endearing, rarely played song, "Where Can I Find Christmas," not often included on any other Christmas album or CD, though I can't imagine why not, when it's so beautiful! Still waiting for the DVD of this darling, pun-filled animation.
Most beloved from early in my memory is The Birds' Christmas Carol (1887), the story of beautiful little Carol Bird, who was born on Christmas morning as the choir boys were singing "Carol joyfully . . . Carol merrily" and, sadly, dies on Christmas night ten years later, to the faint strains of "My ain countree": "A wee birdie to its nest . . . To his ain countree."
How I loved having this book read aloud to me by my mother, or by her mother -- my Grandma Lindsey, especially Chapter Four, when the next door neighbors, "the little Ruggleses" get ready to attend the dinner party that Carol is hosting in their honor. Bath time, etiquette lessons, the feast, the presents -- it was all so much fun! And then came the sad ending.
Wiggen's best-known heroine, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, was a nice girl, but she never won my heart the way Carol Bird did. There are antique copies to be had, floating around on the used book market, and also a lovely reissue, illustrated exactly as the original. I have one of each, a new one from amazon and an 1892 treasure -- a gift from my mother.
I only recently discovered another Christmas story by Kate Douglas Wiggen, The Romance of a Christmas Card (1916), containing a plot about breaking into the greeting card business (something I've always wanted to do myself) and a subplot about mothers and children and childbirth. Wiggen has a lovely name for Christmas Eve, calling it " . . . the Eve of Mary, when all women are blest" ( 74). She is also amazingly astute in her description of post-partum depression, when one character advises another not to be too critical of her sister - in - law's lack of interest in her newborn twins: "Eva's not right; she's not quite responsible. There are cases where motherhood, that should be a joy, brings nothing but mental torture and perversion of instinct. Try and remember that, if it helps you any" (37). Insights such as that more than make up for any sense of datedness.
Recent additions to my collection include . . .
~ something new ~
Santa Lives!
Five Conclusive Arugments for the Existence of Santa Claus
by Ellis Weiner
"But while we often like to comfort or flatter ourselves
with the thought that the future is now,
the brute truth is, the future is not now.
The present is now. The future is later --
in some cases much later."
~ Ellis Weiner, from Santa Lives
A delightfully droll and witty philosophical mock - up, including The Ontological Argument, The Causal Argument, The Argument from Design, and so forth. My older son Ben gave it to me for Christmas last year because he has just been assigned to read it in his philosophy class at Purdue. I gave several friends a copy this year, along with Yiddish with Dick & Jane and The Joy of Worry, also by Weiner and equally clever!
~ something old ~
Sleigh Bells for Windy Foot
&
Maple Sugar for Windy Foot
by Frances Frost
Thanks to my cousin Maggie for introducing me to Windy Foot last year, calling my attention to these books, and sharing her memory of reading them aloud with her mother (my Aunt Frances) every Christmas as she was growing up. Sleigh Bells is a charming story of getting ready for a rural American Christmas in the late 1940s.
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