“Peter had spent all afternoon searching and searching for the perfect present for his mum and dad. Something that would stop them quarrelling for just five minutes. Something that would make Christmas the way it used to be, with smiles and songs and happiness in every corner of the house….
“But all the searching had been for nothing. Peter didn’t have that much money to begin with and all the things he could afford, he didn’t want. All the gifts he could afford looked so cheap and tacky that Peter knew they would fall apart about ten seconds after they were handled. What was he going to do? He had to buy something and time was running out….
“Then he caught sight of it out of the corner of his eye. The medium-sized sign above the door said ‘The Christmas Shop’ in spidery writing. The small shop window was framed with silver and gold tinsel and a scattering of glitter like mini stars. At the bottom of the window, fake snow had been sprayed. It looked so much like the real thing that had it been outside the window instead of inside, Peter would’ve been sure it was real snow. A single Christmas tree laden with fairy lights and baubles and yet more tinsel stood proudly in the exact centre of the window….
“He wondered why he’d never seen it before…. Peter looked up and down the street. The few other shops in the same row as the Christmas Shop were all boarded up. Unexpectedly, the shop door opened. A tall portly man with a white beard and a merry twinkle in his eyes stood in the doorway….”
Star over all Eye of the night Stand on my tree Magical sight Green under frost Green under snow Green under tinsel Glitter and glow Appled with baubles Silver and gold Spangled with fire Warm over cold.
“On the hill-side beyond the shapelessly-diffused town, and in the quiet keeping of the trees that gird the village-steeple, remembrances are cut in stone, planted in common flowers; growing in grass, entwined with lowly brambles around many a mound of earth. In town and village, there are doors and windows closed against the weather, there are flaming logs heaped high, there are joyful faces, there is healthy music of voices….
“Be all ungentleness and harm excluded from the temples of the Household Gods, but be those remembrances admitted with tender encouragement! They are of the time and all its comforting and peaceful reassurances; and of the history that reunited even upon earth the living and the dead; and of the broad beneficence and goodness that too many men have tried to tear to narrow shreds.”
“Early December saw the first of the great blizzards of that year. The wind howling down out of the Canadian wilds a few hundred miles to the north had screamed over frozen Lake Michigan and hit Hohman, laying on the town great drifts of snow and long, story-high icicles, and subzero temperatures where the air cracked and sang. Streetcar wires creaked under caked ice and kids plodded to school through forty-five-mile-an-hour gales, tilting forward like tiny furred radiator ornaments, moving stiffly over the barren, clattering ground.
“Preparing to go to school was about like getting ready for extended Deep-Sea Diving. Longjohns, corduroy knickers, checkered flannel Lumberjack shirt, four sweaters, fleece-lined leatherette sheepskin coat, helmet, goggles, mittens with leatherette gauntlets and a large red star with an Indian Chief’s face in the middle, three pair of sox, high-tops, overshoes, and a sixteen-foot scarf wound spirally from left to right until only the faint glint of two eyes peering out of a mound of moving clothing told you that a kid was in the neighborhood….
“Downtown Hohman was prepared for its yearly bacchanalia of peace on earth and good will to men. Across Hohman Avenue and State Street, the gloomy main thoroughfares — drifted with snow that had lain for months and would remain until well into Spring, ice encrusted, frozen drifts along the curbs — were strung strands of green and red Christmas bulbs, and banners that snapped and cracked in the gale. From the streetlights hung plastic ivy wreaths surrounding three-dimensional Santa Claus faces.”
Ho! Ho! Hello!
If you decorate for the holidays, you’ve likely had this experience: After extracting the packed-up boxes of Christmas globbles from the attic or closet you squoze them into ten or eleven months ago, you begin to open them and exclaim, over and over again: “Oh, I forgot about THESE!” In case you didn’t know, this is part of the job assigned by the universe to Christmas decorations: to dim your off-season memory so many things you come across the following year seem new, and delightful, once again.
Something similar happens when I start thinking about the “Days to Christmas” series of posts I first started six years ago, originally as a way of learning more about photography by experimenting with the colors and lights of the Christmas season. Last year, I explained the project in some detail; see Ten Days to Christmas: Peace from 2023 if you’d like to read more about it and how each year I would add some new whatnots to my photography kit just to explore its use it with my Christmas project.
This year, I didn’t buy anything new specifically to shoot for Christmas; but imagine my surprise to discover how useful a variable neutral density filter (that I purchased to control bright sunlight when photographing flowers outdoors) could be when photographing Christmas decorations. You see, I often add supplemental lighting with these Christmas scenes, but that lighting also brightens up backgrounds too much and ruins the mood. With a variable ND filter, though, I can reduce the overall lighting as much as I want then expose the image accordingly; and the actual effect is to keep most of the light I need on the subject but darken the background and create that little sense of Christmas mystery. The photos in this post — the first three inspired by the peaceful but “shapelessly-diffused town” described by Dickens above — were taken with that technique, which enabled me to keep the subject bright and well-focused with accurate colors, while keeping the backgrounds soft and shadowy.
In the rush of the merry morning, When the red burns through the gray, And the wintry world lies waiting For the glory of the day, Then we hear a fitful rushing Just without, upon the stair, See two white phantoms coming, Catch the gleam of sunny hair.
Rosy feet upon the threshold, Eager faces peeping through, With the first red ray of sunshine Chanting cherubs come in view; Mistletoe and gleaming holly, Symbols of a blessed day, In their chubby hands they carry, Streaming all along the way.
Well we know them, never weary Of their innocent surprise; Waiting, watching, listening always With full hearts and tender eyes, While our little household angels, White and golden in the sun. Greet us with the sweet old welcome —
“Merry Christmas, everyone!”
Ho! Ho! Ho!
Below I’ve accumulated all the photo galleries from this year’s “Days to Christmas” series. Click the links above each gallery if you would like to see the original posts and the quotations or poems I selected to go with them.
From “Reindeer Rap” by Sue Cowling in Christmas Poems, compiled by Paul Cookson and illustrated by Sarah Nayler:
Well, it’s Christmas Eve, December 24th, And we’re on our way down From the far, far north. We got Santa in the sleigh With a load of Christmas cheer, We’ll deliver the presents Santa’s worked on all year, So if you think you hear a noise When you’re tucked up in bed, A sorta scritch-scritch-scratching Up above your head, If you hear somebody tapping Way up there on your roof It’ll just be the pawing Of a reindeer hoof!
We’ll be rapping on the rooftop, We’ll be rapping on the floor, We’ll be rapping on the window, We’ll be rapping on the door!
It’s no problem towing Santa Through the dark and snowy skies But when he’s drinking sherry wine And eating all those mince pies We get bored and lonely And we wanna let him know There’s still a job to do —
Hey, man, we really gotta go! No offence to all you people, Just a word in your ear — Maybe you could leave some carrots For his cool REIN-DEER! OR We’ll be rapping on the rooftop, We’ll be rapping on the floor, We’ll be rapping on the window, We’ll be rapping on the DOOR!
From “For the Children or the Grown-Ups?” (author unknown) in Christmas Poems, selected by David Stanford Burr:
‘Tis the week before Christmas and every night As soon as the children are snuggled up tight And have sleepily murmured their wishes and prayers, Such fun as goes on in the parlour downstairs! For Father, Big Brother, and Grandfather too, Start in with great vigour their youth to renew. The grown-ups are having great fun — all is well; And they play till it’s long past their hour for bed.
They try to solve puzzles and each one enjoys The magical thrill of mechanical toys, Even Mother must play with a doll that can talk, And if you assist it, it’s able to walk. It’s really no matter if paint may be scratched, Or a cogwheel, a nut, or a bolt gets detached; The grown-ups are having great fun — all is well; The children don’t know it, and Santa won’t tell.
From “Sly Santa Claus” by Mrs. C. S. Stone in Christmas Poems, selected by David Stanford Burr:
All the house was asleep, And the fire burning low, When, from far up the chimney, Came down a “Ho! ho!” And a little, round man, With a terrible scratching, Dropped into the room With a wink that was catching. Yes, down he came, bumping, And thumping, and jumping, And picking himself up without sign of a bruise….
“Ho! ho! What is this? Why, they all are asleep! But their stockings are up, And my presents will keep! So, in with the candies, The books, and the toys; All the goodies I have For the good girls and boys. I’ll ram them, and jam them, And slam them, and cram them; All the stockings will hold while the tired youngsters snooze.”
All the while his round shoulders Kept ducking and ducking; And his little, fat fingers Kept tucking and tucking; Until every stocking Bulged out, on the wall, As if it were bursting, And ready to fall. And then, all at once, With a whisk and a whistle, And twisting himself Like a tough bit of gristle, He bounced up again, Like the down of a thistle, And nothing was left but the prints of his shoes.
“On March 31, 1880, thousands of people gathered in Wabash, Indiana, the first American municipality to be lit by electric lights. Bands played, guns fired salutes, and then the lights sprang to life. A hush fell over the crowd. Some people groaned and fell to their knees.
“They’d moved from dark to light, and no amount of jaded neon expectations more than a century later, can completely obscure, even for us, the wonder of that vigil. For we, too, whether consciously or subliminally, even in the midst of our wildly wired lives, keep that same vigil each year at the winter solstice.
“Solstice: from the Latin sol stetit meaning sun stood still. For six days in the northern hemisphere’s December, the sun ceases its southerly crawl on the horizon and appears to rise and set in almost the same spot. The ancients watched this quiet drama with drawn breath. Would the sun begin to move again? Would the light grow anew on the great wheel of life? Would life itself continue?
“A few millennia and several hundred generations later, our own deepest questions, though not so literal as those of our ancestors, are nonetheless profound…. At the moment of winter solstice, we stand at the brink of external and internal change….
“Now, at the winter solstice, we ask ourselves: What are the private and shared natures of our inner and outer boundaries? What is our place in the great cycle? What are the actions and restraints required of us? Since time out of mind humans have marked the externally vital crossing from dark to light….
“Though we now light our world with bulbs and take for granted not only the external day but often even our food, we still make of the return of the sun’s light a joyful metaphor for social and personal renewal.”
Carols drift across the night
Holly gleams by candlelight
Roaring fire, a spooky tale
Ice and snow and wind and hail
Santa seen in High Street store
Television… more and more
Mince pies, turkey, glass of wine
Acting your own pantomime
Socks hung up. It’s Christmas time!
“Christmas tree lightbulbs have been around since the 1880s, replacing the somewhat dangerous tradition of clipped-on candles, but as cheaper and better electrical lights became available to the American public, not only did trees but entire houses start to illuminate December nights. The world would soon follow suit — the occasionally garish results of which are seen each year. And yet, within them, the seasonal message of light in the darkness remains, and, done tastefully, these displays can be magical.”
