It is so easy this time of year to get caught up in the frenzy of activity, especially when you have children: extra rehearsals for concerts, the concerts themselves, parties, baking and cooking for various events, Christmas shopping, decorating, writing the annual Christmas letter, addressing cards (yes, I still do this by snail mail), packaging up parcels for faraway friends and family, "etcetera. etcetera, etcetera", as the King of Siam is known to have said. It is all fun and definitely worth doing, but it can be exhausting if I do not take a little time every day to just sit and relax. Reading seems to be the perfect antidote to the wearying effects of a busy day.
As I think I've mentioned before, I like to soak in a hot bath before I go to bed at night. I find it a challenge to keep warm in this damp climate in winter, and if I get into bed cold it can take me a long while to get sufficiently warm enough to sleep. I look forward to my evening soak and always take a book with me. I have just begun reading a book my parents gave me years ago called A New Christmas Treasury edited by Jack Newcombe. It's a fat tome filled with short stories and poems, but I have yet to read much that I would describe as 'cheerful and heartwarming' in it. So far I have read two rather chilling ghost stories that happen to take place on Christmas Eve and Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Fir Tree', which is more of a cautionary tale than anything. Fortunately, I also have read the story 'The Rescue' by Cleveland Amory, which is a sweet story about the Christmas Eve rescue of a starving and injured cat by an animal welfare agency, so there is hope for the collection yet!
The other night, my nine year old daughter asked me to read her a book. She is a voracious reader herself, but she seems to have rediscovered the coziness of sitting on my lap under a blanket and listening to me read a favourite story. She is participating in something called The Reading Challenge at school. The group has to read five novels over ten weeks and then attend an event where they go up against other schools in the district answering questions that test their comprehension of what they have read. To break up the monotony of reading books that have been prescribed by someone else, she is nightly hauling out all the Christmas picture books we have collected over the years and enjoying them greatly. This particular night it was a little past her bedtime, but she must have known if she asked me to read her the book she held in her hand I would give in. Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas by Russell and Lillian Hoban is a favourite story that I knew as a film before I knew it as a book; the inimitable Jim Henson made a sweet and funny Muppet-tale of it when I was a youngster. Now we own a DVD of the film, which my girls love, and a copy of the book. Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas is everything a Christmas story should be. It is about some characters that have very little in the way of material goods, but everything in the way of love for each other, and its storyline is similar to The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry. In the story, the mother otter and her son risk everything to give each other a very special gift for Christmas, which does not work out very well, but results in something infinitely better for not only the two of them, but for some of their friends, too. It is the kind of story that brings me back to my roots and to the true origins of gift giving. It also kind of counteracts what I heard in a store the other day. I was buying an amaryllis as a thank-you gift and the woman who works at the shop offered to take off the price sticker off the plant's container for me: "Or I could leave it on. That's what I do when I give something expensive to my sister, so she knows how much to spend on me in return."
When one has the means to "make Christmas and keep it all year long", in a material sense, it can, I find, make life a bit intense at this time of year. In my family, we are not big on expensive gifts, but we do put a lot of thought into choosing presents for each other. We have traditions from both sides of the family, special foods we cook, special treats we bake, decorations buried for eleven months of the year we unearth and dust off, and the house to clean and make ready for guests. We do all of this because we can, but there are many that cannot, or have lost the will to try. Christmas can be incredibly hard for some. When I read a variety of stories from a variety of writers who all keep Christmas in a different way, it opens my mind and expands my view. It makes me incredibly grateful for the love I am so fortunate to have, the life I am so blessed to live, and gives me a deeper sense of the true nature of this magical Season. It also gives me faith that if I were to lose everything I have, I might still be able to celebrate, if only in my heart and imagination. Which is no small thing.
Having been involved with several reading programs at school I can appreciate the reading challenge your daughter is enjoying. One of our Christmas traditions as my two daughters were growing up was exchanging illustrated children's books. We have dozens of high quality books we gave each other for ten years or more. What to do with them all? The grandchildren may get a good dose of reading material in the future.
ReplyDeleteI wondered the same thing, thinking my daughter was perhaps getting too old for picture books. I'm glad I didn't get rid of any of them now!
ReplyDeleteThis was just what I needed to read to get me in the holiday spirit. The whole post was warm and cozy and full of good cheer.
ReplyDeleteIf you want a real head-wreck of a novel try The Metamorphoses of Apuleius. Years after you've read the thing you will be going 'OH yeah' so that's what he was on about.
ReplyDeleteDFG: Glad to oblige!
ReplyDeleteVince: Who is the author?
I think last years book post was the one of the first of yours that I read. I was surprised, and still am, that you manage to read in the bath. For one thing, I don't bathe, I shower. And when I do bathe, I can not imagine being able to read with out getting the whole thing wet, or letting my shoulders get cold, which would make me want to get our quickly, so there would be no point in taking the time to read. Do you see?
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas, a little early. Though feel free to keep the cheer coming. Thank you for still being here. :)
Apuleius
ReplyDeleteTracey: It's all in the practiced skill - I grew up with only a tub, no shower, so reading in the tub is a family tradition. Besides, my bath water is pretty hot so I don't get cold. My mom can even add more hot water to the bath by turning the faucet with her toes.
ReplyDeleteMore cheer coming your way tomorrow, so stay tuned!
Vince: thank-you.