In Russia there are followers of many different religions including Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism, but by far the largest and most traditional Russian religion is Orthodox Christianity. Most Christians in Russia belong to the Orthodox Church and it is customary for people to go without meat until after the first church service on January 6^th, Christmas Eve. The Church in Russia uses the old Julian calendar and Russia’s Christmas takes place 13 days later than Christmas according to the Gregorian calendar. This is why Christmas is celebrated in Russia on January 7^th.

On Christmas Day hymns and carols are sung. People gather in churches that have been decorated with flowers and lights.

The Christmas Eve service starts at 10 p.m. and during the service all the congregation walk around the church carrying candles, just as their grandparents did long ago. The ‘Krestny Khod’ procession is led by the highest-ranking member of the Orthodox Church. The night is usually very cold and snowy, and the priests are wearing their beautiful gold and white vestments, so the candle-lit procession is a wonderful sight!

After the service, people go home to rest a bit and then they can celebrate. Christmas Eve dinner is meatless, so on Christmas Day everybody is ready to enjoy the festive Christmas dinner, which includes a variety of different meats – goose and suckling pig are favourites – delicious!

A child receiving a gift from Ded Moroz. The tree is a Russian New Year tree. Photo credit: Kasyanova Natalia.

The Russian New Year

There are many holidays in Russia, but the favourite holiday for many Russians is the New Year. Children don’t go to school because of the winter holidays. They buy a New Year tree. This tree, which is called ‘Novogodnaya Yolka’, is decorated like a Christmas tree with glass balls, silver-coloured tinsel strings, small wooden figures and fruits.

Russian Santa, ‘Ded Moroz’, and ‘Snegurochka’, his granddaughter, are the main characters of the New Year holidays. Ded Moroz and Snegurochka live in the Russian town Veliky Ustyug in the north of Russia. In Ded Moroz’s residence, there is the special Ded Moroz Post Office where he reads the letters with kids’ wishes. Traditionally, he wears a red coat and a red hat and mittens, and he has a long white beard.

Ded Moroz and Snegurochka on a pre-1917 Christmas card. Image credit: Wikipedia in Latvian.

Snegurochka is a character from old Russian fairytales. She is a beautiful blonde snow-girl, dressed in a white-blue dress decorated with fur. In one story, she is a daughter of Spring and Frost. She grows up and falls in love with a shepherd named Lel. Her heart becomes hot from love and she melts. In another story, she appears magically in a childless family in an old Russian village. In winter all the children from the village were jumping over the fire. Snegurochka also wanted to play with them and jumped, but she was a snow-girl and she melted.

From the middle of December Ded Moroz and Snegurochka go from house to house to congratulate families on the New Year and give them presents from Ded Moroz’s big red sack.

Russians also follow the tradition of listening to the New Year Speech of the President on the 31^st of December (see the YouTube video below). It is an official part of the holiday.

New Year’s Eve for Russians is a magic time. It’s the time to make a wish. When the main clock on the Spassky Tower begins to strike 12, people write their wishes on a piece of paper, then burn it over a candle, put the ashes into a glass of champagne and drink it. If you do this before the clock finishes striking 12, your wish will come true!

Ded Moroz in a children’s show in Moscow. Photo credit: Kasyanova Natalia.

All the family gather at a large table for the New Year dinner and they have a lot of fun and tell jokes. Adults give presents to children and relatives. There is an old Russian saying: “How you greet the New Year is how you will spend the whole year”, so you should be happy on New Year’s Day.

Just after midnight many people go outside to set off fireworks to see in the New Year.

Article contributed by Kasyanova Natalia, December 2011

While pom-poms are normally used to decorate items of clothing, I think they would also make nice Christmas decorations. You can make a wide variety of pom-poms by changing the color or texture of the wool. You can also make them one color or several colors. Pom-poms can be used to make lots of different kinds of decoration. Here are just a few ideas on how to use pom-poms at Christmas time:

• They could be individually hung on a Christmas tree using either the same wool used to make the pom-pom or a decorative ribbon.
• They could be made into a pom-pom garland to hang on the tree or elsewhere.
• Several white/silver pom-poms could be piled on top of each other and subsequently decorated to make a snowman decoration.
• They can be used to decorate Christmas presents.
• White/silver pom-poms could be hung in the window so as to look like either snowflakes or snowballs, depending on their size.

What you need

• Two sheets of cardboard
• Wool/yarn (one or more colors)
• Scissors

What to do

1. Make two identical rings of cardboard. The hole in each ring should be large enough for a ball of string to fit through. The width of the ring will determine the size of the finished pom-pom. The wider it is, the larger the pom-pom.
2. With the two rings on top of each other, start winding the wool around the rings, passing the ball of wool through the hole. Make sure you wind it tightly around the cardboard. The more wool you use, the more dense your pom-pom will be. In any case, you shouldn’t see any cardboard when you have finished. If you want a multicolored pom-pom, you need to switch wool color from time to time.

   NB. Be aware that the layout of the colors in your pom-pom will be determined by how you have arranged your colors while winding. For a completely mixed effect, go around the complete ring of cardboard with each wool color. If you want patches of different colors, allocate a different color to each part of the ring. If you want a pom-pom that has one half in one color and another half in another color, cover half the ring with one color and the other half with the other color.

3. When you think your pom-pom will be of the right density, stop winding more wool onto the cardboard.
4. Push your scissors between the cardboard rings. You may have to push the wool aside slightly. Now carefully cut the wool that is around the outer edge of the rings. Cut around the entire circumference of the ring. Don’t remove the cardboard rings, and be very careful not to let the pieces of wool fall out of position.
5. Get an extra piece of the same wool used for the pom-pom. Loop it between the two pieces of cardboard, so that it is wrapped around the loose bits of wool. Pull it as tightly as you can and then knot it. All your pieces of wool should now be fixed. If you want to make a loop on the pom-pom so you can hang it up, now is the time. You can either use any left-over wool from tying the pom-pom in place, or you could use a ribbon.
6. Now remove the cardboard rings to reveal a beautiful pom-pom. Keep the cardboard rings to make more pom-poms.
7. If there are any long pieces of wool sticking out above the rest, you may want to trim them.

The Internet allows these displays to be enjoyed by the whole world. Below are a few examples that I’ve found on YouTube! In these cases, rather than the music blasting from the house, the owners have cleverly and considerately arranged for the music to be playing on a radio station, so as not to disturb the neighbors. People pulling up in cars to look at the lights can hear the music via their car radios.

According to the comments on YouTube on this first video, these neighbors are fortunately still good friends!

I love the music in the next two clips….

Here is a list of Christmas gift ideas (to suit all budgets) to help with this problem. If you think of any other ideas, please comment below or contact me.

Gifts for animal lovers

Ecosphere^®

An Ecosphere is a sealed glass ball containing filtered sea water, micro-organisms, bacteria, algae, and tiny shrimp in a stable miniature ecosystem.

There are a range of sizes and shapes (e.g., sphere, waterdrop, pod, and candle) available.

Bird food, feeders, baths, and houses

Any bird lover will enjoy watching birds having a refreshing bath or fighting over seeds hung in containers around the garden. Any of the above items may even attract a new species of bird to the garden! For those new to bird watching, you could also give an accompanying bird identification book.

Pet treats

People’s pets are often considered part of the family. So making a pet happy with a delicious treat or a new toy will make the owners happy too.

Romantic gifts

A unique, self-designed diamond ring

Amazon have an easy to use “Create Your Own Ring” tool. The tool enables you to create a unique diamond ring by allowing you to choose the diamond shape, carat, cut, and color, and setting style, and metal. Make sure you also enter the desired ring size! If you unsure of the exact ring size you need, it may be safer to go for a slightly larger ring because it is often easier and cheaper to reduce the size of a ring than it is to increase it.

A framed photo of you and your loved one

A framed photograph of you and your loved one, perhaps taken during a special trip, is bound to be received well!

Edible gifts

Homemade cookies or candy

Food gifts are always a good option for people who already everything they need. They are also ideal for people who have limited space at home and so don’t want to accumulate clutter. Homemade treats will be especially appreciated as they show that you have put thought and time into the gift. Consider putting the treats in a festive container, such as a pretty jar or tin.

Themed food hamper

These can be made or bought ready made. See the how to make a Christmas hamper page for more information.

Gift jar

Layer all of the (dry) ingredients you need to make a delicious treat (e.g., biscuits or a cake) in a clean jar. Tightly screw the lid closed and, using a festive ribbon, attach a tag with instructions.

Gift cards/vouchers

Cinema, theme park, store, or restaurant gift card

Giving a gift card/voucher for one of the above instead of money will force the recipient to use the “money” for something special, rather than on everyday necessities. Cinemas and theme parks may alternatively offer open dated tickets that can be given as gifts. Make sure to check the length of the gift card or ticket’s validity though.

Amazon gift card/certificate

You can choose to have these emailed or posted to the recipient. Alternatively, you can print the gift card out yourself to give in person. Amazon.com offers the possibility to send the gift card to a Facebook friend via a Wall post.

Giving an experience

Gift experiences

These come in a wide variety of themes, including spa treatments, photo shoots, overnight hotel stays, cookery workshops, and flying lessons.

Subscriptions as a gift

Magazine subscription

Give the gift of knowledge by giving a magazine subscription for Christmas. If you only want to give one year’s worth of magazines, make sure to check whether you need to cancel or transfer the subscription after one year.

DVD rental subscription

There are many DVD rental websites that offer mail-based subscriptions. This means that the recipient receives and returns the DVDs by mail instead of having to visit a particular store in person.

Gifts for keen travellers

Travel guide

If you know of any vacations the recipient has planned, consider buying a relevant destination guide book. If they have been to the place before, you may want to buy a newly released book so that they are unlikely to already have it.

Travel essentials

Consider giving travel supplies, such as a world electrical adaptor, eye mask, ear plugs, mini travel toiletries, or even a suitcase, to anyone you know who has a holiday or long trip planned. You could buy several and make an attractive travel hamper.

Gifts for nature lovers

A house or garden plant

If taken care of correctly, a plant for in- or outdoors will most likely give the receiver pleasure for many weeks, months, or even years! If the receiver is a very busy person, consider buying a cactus.

Bulbs or seeds for planting in the garden

Buying someone perennial plant seeds or bulbs will mean that they will enjoy your gift for many years to come!

Miscellaneous gifts

A newly released DVD, CD, or book

Your recipent is unlikely to have a DVD, CD, or book that has just been released.

A unique Christmas decoration

A unique Christmas decoration will be brought out each year and enjoyed time after time.

Photo frame

Something that everyone can have more than one of is a photo frame! Try to think of the style of the recipient’s home before buying one. You can leave the frame empty or insert a scenic picture or personal photo. With a larger frame, you could make a collage of special photos.

A special souvenir bought whilst on vacation

Even someone who has everything is unlikely to have items similar to souvenirs bought whilst away on vacation.

All year long his elves labour at making toys in their workshop, helped by Mrs. Claus, while Santa cares for Rudolf and the other reindeer. Then on Christmas Eve he magically journeys through the sky on his sleigh pulled by his team of reindeer, led by Rudolf, to the homes of all good boys and girls to deliver his gifts. Each year we hope that, along with the toys, he will bring some of that beautiful snowy weather with him and give us a white Christmas!

North Pole vs. Lapland

Santa’s Workshop by Norman Rockwell (1922). This painting was made for an advertisement that was published in the December 14, 1922 issue of the Clintonville Gazette. Photo credit: WPClipart

Actually, the Geographic North Pole is located in the Artic Ocean and is covered more or less permanently by constantly shifting sea ice, a pretty hostile place for Santa to live! A far more comfortable place for him to have his residence would be on the high snowy mountainous plains, or fell, in Finnish Lapland, named Korvatunturi. The claim that Santa Claus / Father Christmas / Joulupukki (in Finnish) lives here was first made on a radio program ‘Children’s Hour with Uncle Markus’ (translated from Finnish) hosted by Markus Rautio and broadcast by the Finnish Broadcasting Company between 1927 and 1956. Uncle Markus told his young listeners that Santa at ‘Ear Fell’ (translation of Korvatunturi) could ‘hear’ how well they were behaving throughout the year – a deciding factor as regards the gifts they could look forward to.

History of Santa Claus

Saint Nicholas and Sinterklaas

So he comes from the North Pole or Lapland, but where does he originally come from? It is largely agreed that to find this out we must study the story of Saint Nicholas. Through the centuries many stories and legends have been told about this popular saint’s life and good deeds, and although we have few hard facts, he is seen as a protector and helper to those in need. I like to think that he is also the forerunner of Santa!

Legend has it that Nicholas was born in 285 AD at Parara in Lycia, a Roman province in what is now Turkey. He immediately showed signs of being a wonder child in that he could speak from birth! His wealthy, Christian parents had been old to have a child and died during an epidemic when he was still young, whereupon Nicholas proceeded to give away all his money to the poor! According to the legend, the bishop of nearby Myra had a dream one night that the first man he saw walking in through the door of his church would become the next bishop – young Nicholas was the first person to walk in the next morning, and he did in fact become the bishop soon afterwards! In 305 AD he was consequently thrown into jail when Emperor Diocletianus began his vigorous persecution of Christians – the prisons were so full of bishops and priests that there was no space for murderers and thieves! Ten years later he was freed as Diocletianus’s successor, Constantine the 1^st, had converted to Christianity, and Nicholas lived out his life peacefully, doing good works, in Myra until his death on December 6^th 343 AD. (The precise dates of his birth and death seem unsure, but all agree on the day, December 6^th.) When he was buried in his cathedral a strange liquid, manna, like pure water with healing powers formed in his grave, which further promoted the mystique surrounding him, and the anniversary of his death became a day of celebration, St. Nicholas Day. When, more than 700 years later, his remains were transferred to a grave in Bari on the southeast coast of Italy, supposedly a safer place for pilgrims to visit, but possibly stolen by a band of Italian seamen, the mystical liquid continued to form. Bari’s great Basilica di San Nicola still houses his remains and still draws many pilgrims and tourists.

Stories abound of how Nicholas appeared, either in the flesh during his life or in spirit after his death, to help people in trouble or need. Within a century after his death he was declared a saint, and became the patron saint of a wide variety of groups of people. A famous story tells how he stilled the water saving sailors from shipwreck in a storm, so making him the patron of seafarers and voyagers. He is also said to have saved people from famines, spared the lives of those falsely accused, returned kidnapped children safe and sound to their parents, restored murdered students to life and performed plenty of other kind deeds earning him the right to be called the patron of, among others, bankers, pawn-brokers, merchants and even robbers and murderers!

But his actions to help children, making him the patron saint of children, is the line we must follow to get to Santa Claus. On one occasion he was said to have given gold to three poor girls to provide them with dowries so that they could marry and have a respectable life, instead of having to resort to stealing or possibly even being sold into slavery! He threw small sacks of gold anonymously in through a window of their house, and these landed in shoes standing by the fire to dry. So began the custom of children setting out their shoes by the fireplace on the eve of St. Nicholas Day, hoping that a present would appear in them. Sometimes the story mentioned stockings hanging, rather than shoes standing, and gold balls, rather than bags of gold, and these became symbolized by tangerines.

Here we have the origin of Santa’s counterpart in the Netherlands, Sint Nicolaas, also known as Sinterklaas or ‘de Sint’. The custom started for children to leave their shoes by the hearth on the eve of St. Nicholas Day, so in the evening of December 5^th, hoping for gifts from Sinterklaas. The tradition has grown and developed ever since. He still wears his dark red bishop’s gown and hat, carries a golden staff and brings presents, to children in the Netherlands and parts of Belgium and Germany. The modern tradition in the Netherlands owes a lot to a children’s book called ‘Sint Nicolaas en zijn knecht’, written by a Dutch primary school teacher (come poet and author) published in 1850 in which many important details were added. Sinterklaas arrives from Spain each year in a steamboat, together with a band of jolly, brightly-clad black helpers, all called Zwarte Piet, who dance and sing and hand out special cookies, ‘pepernoten’ and ‘kruidnoten’ from sacks they are carrying. The Sint himself is rather a serious, highly revered figure who rides around on a beautiful white horse. It falls to him to check in his big red book for the names of all the children who have been good throughout the year. Originally, any who had been deemed naughty were punished by being spanked with a bundle of sticks, a roe, or in extreme cases, even bundled into a sack and taken back to Spain. Of course, this punishment aspect has died out long ago, and now all children are rewarded. Parents may well still play up the ‘good behaviour’ theme, as the steamship with the eagerly awaited visitors arrives about three weeks before the big day, and children put out their shoes every evening in the hope that Sint and his entourage may pass down their road and pay them a call. They leave carrots, hay or apples in the shoes to tempt Sint’s horse to choose their house, hoping that Zwarte Piet will thank them with a little present! This celebration has become so well entrenched and is so well supported by local councils, that December 5^th is a very important day in the municipal calendar in Holland. The mayor of each town turns out to ceremonially greet Sint’s steamboat, which arrives on most major pieces of water, sounding its steam hooter to announce its arrival, and children and families flock to the scene.

Sinterklaas and “Zwarte Pieten” arriving by steamboat in Vlaardingen (The Netherlands) in November 2006.

Sinterklaas on horseback being greeted on arrival in Vlaardingen in November 2006.

Many teenagers and grown-ups also celebrate Sinterklaas with a party held around December 5^th. As the Sint only brings presents for children who believe in him, the older ones buy presents themselves (often having previously drawn lots to establish which member of the group they will buy for), and these are wrapped up in a very intricate manner, called a ‘surprise’ (with French pronunciation) and accompanied by a rhyming poem about the recipient, often highlighting one of his or her less favourable habits in a humorous way! The accent of the Sinterklaas celebration is on having fun! This frees up Christmas for the more serious business of family reunion with tastefully decorated Christmas trees, a meal with a carefully thought-out menu, and attending church to celebrate the birth of the Christ child.

Back on the trail of Santa Claus! The Dutch were great seafarers and traders, and between 1609 and 1614 an expedition of the Dutch East India Company, captained by Henry Hudson, explored and charted the region around Manhattan island, leading to the establishment of a Dutch colony there. Many adventurous Dutch people began to immigrate to the New World in search of prosperity, taking with them their tradition of the visiting Saint Nicholas. So Sinterklaas travelled across the Atlantic to call at the homes of the settlers of New Amsterdam and put gifts in the children’s shoes.

After just 40 years, New Amsterdam was to be renamed New York after an English duke. The English were also seafarers in search of new lands to take over and colonize, and James Stuart, the Duke of York, was given a package of land, including New Netherlands, by his brother King Charles the 2^nd. Ships of the duke set sail to Coney Island to take possession of his territory, and after much slaughtering of local Indians at the hands of both the Dutch and the English, and much battling between the Dutch and the English, the director-general of the Dutch, Peter Stuyvesant, finally surrendered the city in 1664. The Dutch briefly won it back in 1673 calling it ‘New Orange’, but with the French surprisingly helping the British, in 1674 it once again became and remained ‘New York’.

With the new English culture, Sinterklaas gradually evolved. He ceased to be a bishop, but during the centuries that followed, his appearance ranged from tall, thin and serious to short, fat and jolly. His home changed from sunny Spain to the North Pole. Travelling from these cold northern parts, he seemed to become influenced by the legends of Norse gods, especially Thor the god of thunder and fire (incidentally, Thursday is named after him). Supposedly, he was a cheerful, friendly and heavily built old man with a white beard, who travelled on a chariot pulled by two goats, Cracker and Gnasher, making the noise of thunder, and came down chimneys into his element, fire. The emerging Santa’s clothing varied in colour; in his Thor-like depictions he was dressed in the animal skins of a hunter, despite Thor’s symbolic colour being red, from fire. In 1862, during the civil war, the cartoonist for ‘Harper’s Weekly’, Thomas Nast, drew Santa as a rather creepy elf-like figure who supported the unionists, but during the next 30 years that he drew for this magazine, he changed, among other things, the colour of Santa’s outfit from the tan animal-skin colour, or green as it was sometimes depicted, to red.

Modern-day Santa Claus

Modern-day Santa Claus. Photo credit: Julia Freeman-Woolpert

Most people agree that the final appearance and clothing of the modern-day Santa is derived from Coca Cola advertising from the 1930’s onwards. Coca Cola wanted to get away from the image of its drink being only a summer drink, and decided to link up with the icon for winter, Santa Claus. Actually, they were not the first soft-drinks company to do this as ‘White Rock Beverages’ had used Santa to help sell their mineral water from 1915. Anyway, in 1930 the artist Fred Mizen was commissioned by Coca Cola to make an advertising poster featuring Santa drinking a bottle of cola in a crowd in ‘Famous Barr Co.’ department store in St. Louis. However, it was the famous series of oil paintings by artist Haddon Sundblom (in one of which Santa, watched by a little girl, is raiding the fridge for a cola) that really established the modern image of our fat, jolly Santa. To some extent, Sundblom drew on features of Santa mentioned in Clement C. Moore’s famous poem, ‘A visit from St. Nicholas’ (sometimes called ‘T’was the night before Christmas’), written in 1825: ‘His eyes – how they twinkled! His dimples so merry’, ‘He had a broad face and a little round belly that shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly’. Also thanks to this poem, Santa travelled on a sleigh pulled by his team of reindeer, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen – (interesting that ‘donner’ and ‘blitzen’ are the Dutch words for thunder and lightning!) So, as in the case of Sinterklaas, details were added via literature.

The ninth and lead reindeer, Rudolph came later in 1939 as a character in a story and song ‘Rudolph the red nosed reindeer’ by Robert L May. He wrote this as an assignment for his employer, Montgomery Ward (a large chain of department stores in America, also the first ever mail-order company and now an online retailer, Ward Retail Limited) who had been buying and giving away colouring books for Christmas each year as promotional gifts, and realized that they could save a lot of money by producing their own book!

Well, the story is complete as, since 1939, although very many things have changed dramatically in our world, it seems that not much has changed with Santa, except that the presents have increased in number, size and cost! Maybe we have our answer to the title question. Sorry it has been a rather long story – I hope Santa will reward you for your perseverance in ploughing through it! You deserve a medal, let alone a gift from Santa!

If you manage to write a nice poem or set of song lyrics using some of these words, consider sending it to us! We will happily publish it on this site, along with your name and personal website link.

• fire, choir, higher
• night, sight, light, good night
• star, far, afar
• holly, jolly
• ice, nice, slice, price, twice, mice
• tree, glee
• glisten, listen
• charades, parades
• dinner, thinner
• fatter, chatter, clatter, matter
• gift, lift
• scene, green, been
• merry, sherry, berry, cherry, very
• ring, sing
• dashing, crashing, smashing
• snow(ing), blow(ing), throw(ing), glow(ing), go(ing), tow(ing), flow(ing), slow(ing), show(ing), know(ing)
• snow, below, bow, and the examples above
• sleigh, yay, tray, play, grey
• fly, sky, good bye, bye, hi, high, nigh
• spices, slices, crisis
• elf, self
• twinkle, sprinkle, tinkle, crinkle, wrinkle
• hat, fat, splat
• glove(s), love(s), shove(s)
• romance, chance, chants, prance, dance
• cake, bake, make
• birth, earth, worth
• manger, stranger
• Prancer, Dancer
• Vixen, Blitzen
• sled, bed, red, read, sped, fled, fed, led, said
• cold, old, gold

I, as I’m sure are other visitors to the site, am really curious to know what people have for breakfast on Christmas day. So, please consider sending me a little note or leaving a comment below, telling what you or your family have at breakfast on Christmas morning. Whether it is as simple as coffee and toast, or a festive recipe passed down the generations of your family, I’m interested to hear it! Stating your country of origin/residence would also be nice, so that we can see if there are regional differences. Any photos you’ve taken are also most welcome. I’ll post all of your replies here, so that others might be inspired to do something new for breakfast! (If you don’t want your name shown, please let me know.)

I am from Ottawa, Canada. A tradition that I had since childhood, and my wife and I still observe to date with our children is to open the Christmas stockings first, then sit down to a big Christmas breakfast. Often we sit for close to an hour, so there is a lot of excitement building as the Stocking is really a bit of a tease knowing that many more gifts await under the tree.

Usually, our breakfast is an oven omelette, bacon, hash browns, toast, muffins, coffee, and juice. The oven omelette is made from eggs, ham, onions, green peppers, and cheese.

As with all of our holiday meals, from Turkey on Christmas Eve to a buffet for Christmas dinner (meatballs, seafood, etc), Breakfast is an important part of our celebration and is centred around a social family gathering and involves lots of food (and calories).

- Jeffery Barrett

• Watch your favorite Christmas movie.
• Stroll around your local area looking at Christmas lights. Consider going with family or friends. Afterwards, invite everyone in for a hot chocolate or mulled wine.
• See a pantomime or Christmas play.
• Do some Christmas baking or make Christmas candy.
• Wrap gifts.

• Listen to Christmas music.
• Decorate your home, garden, and even your car or bicycle.
• Start making and/or writing your Christmas cards. You may want to use a Christmas card kit.
• Make a miniature Christmas garden.
• Make or buy an advent calendar and remember to get it out on the first of December. A candle advent calendar is a nice option for adults.
• Go to a Christmas carol service in a local church.
• Wear festive jewelry. For example, a Christmassy brooch/pin on your coat.
• Wear a Christmassy wrist watch. See Whimsical Christmas Watches for a lovely selection.
• If there is snow, build a snowman and/or write Christmas messages in the snow.
• If there is frozen water or an ice rink, go ice skating.
• Put bird food out to attract robins.
• Contact someone you have lost touch with. Christmas is a great time to reconnect with long lost friends and family.
• Check your local cinema program to see if there is a Christmassy film on. If so, go and see it!
• Go Christmas shopping.
• Treat yourself to a Christmas lunch or dinner out. Many restaurants have special Christmas menus in December.
• Wish people a “Merry Christmas” or, if you prefer, “Happy Holidays”.
• Go to or help at a Christmas bazaar.
• Read a Christmas story to yourself or out loud to others.
• Wear green and/or red clothes.
• Browse the Internet for Christmas-related sites. This can be done as early in the year as you like. Start by checking our links page.
• Host a Christmas party.

Some of these suggestions can of course be done simultaneously! If you can think of any others, please leave a comment here or contact me with your ideas.

The poem has a similar style to Clement Clarke Moore’s “`Twas the Night Before Christmas”.

‘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.

- Author unknown

Portrait of Charles Dickens in 1842, by the American artist Francis Alexander. This oil painting is currently (2010) housed in Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.

Born into a relatively affluent family in Portsmouth in 1812, Charles Dickens experienced both a comfortable life style during his childhood and a most uncomfortable one after his father was punished for living beyond his means by being thrown into a debtors’ jail called Marshalsea (as in “Little Dorrit”). Charles was sent to work at a rat-infested ‘blacking’ warehouse, where he had to work long hours putting tops onto pots of black boot polish under appalling conditions. What he witnessed there, as well as on the streets of London, and when he visited the Cornish tin mines made a great impression on him and deeply influenced his writing in later years. The many vivid, and often nasty characters who appear in his stories are largely based on people he encountered during this period of his life. His experiences in England, and also in the USA during his first visit in 1842, made him determined to expose the shocking gulf between wealth and poverty and to fight, not only for an improvement in living and working standards of the poor, but also for the abolition of slavery in America.

Going back to our image of an idyllic Christmas in Britain in Charles Dickens’ time, the mid 1800s, this is definitely that of the rich. Actually, in the early 1840s, the celebration of Christmas, (which was a combination of the Christian celebration of the birth of Christ, together with remnants of the Roman festival Saturnalia and a Druid ceremony marking the winter solstice) was waning in popularity. This was partly on account of Oliver Cromwell’s puritanical disapproval of the merrymaking of Christmas, and the fact that the poor had neither time nor money for it anyway! Being concerned, as he was, about the plight of the poor, Dickens must have been especially moved by the hardship of the disadvantaged at Christmas, supposedly a time to celebrate and make merry!

In 1843 Dickens wrote the first of his Christmas stories, “A Christmas Carol”. There can hardly be anyone who needs reminding of the story of Scrooge, as it is the most performed as play, musical, opera, ballet or pantomime, and the most filmed of any of Dickens’ works – IMDb.com quotes more than 25 major feature or TV films of this name, ranging from the 1910 version, to Robert Zemeckis’ latest 2009 IMAX 3D experience, animated film, with an all-star voice cast, including Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman and Colin Firth. Click on the amazon widget on the right to hear the soundtrack of the latter. IMDb.com also quotes many, many other variations on the title, including Flintstones, Barbie, Sesame Street, and Muppet Christmas Carol! If we were to include all of the amateur productions of this story (amateur dramatics groups/schools/clubs, etc., etc.) together with the countless professional ones, the numbers would run into thousands! There is a rendering of Dickens’ story to suit everybody. Reports on Zemeckis’ latest spectacle, using a highly advanced form of performance capture animation, range from how utterly amazing the visual effects are, to how very dark and sinister it is (well justifying its PG rating in Britain – scary for young ones) but all agree that it is pretty impressive!

Briefly, Ebenezer Scrooge, despite all his money, was a miserable, unhappy man and a hard, cruel boss to his clerk Bob Cratchet, who was a kind, lovable man, despite his circumstances. Scrooge begrudged him even one day free per year to celebrate Christmas, and made him work long hours in a freezing-cold office, paying him a pitence, on which medical help for his sick son, Tiny Tim, was out of the question. As the story unfolds, Scrooge is visited first by the ghost of his late partner, Jacob Marley, warning him to change his miserly ways before it is too late, and later by a succession of three spirits. The first one, “The spirit of Christmas past” shows him how lucky he was as a child; then “The spirit of Christmas present” shows him what a miserable soul he has become and the circumstances of others, and “The spirit of Christmas yet to come” shows him the dire consequences unless he does something about it. Between them, they succeed in changing his heart and mind, such that he discovers the joy of giving and sharing, as well as receiving: the joy of Christmas!

Why did Dickens choose the name “A Christmas Carol”? Well he wrote his story in five ‘staves’ instead of the normal ‘chapters’ implying that he wanted it to read like a piece of music, perhaps a carol, rather than just a story. There is also a mention of a lone, brave carol-singer attempting to sing a carol to Scrooge through his keyhole on the Christmas Eve in question, and being driven away by the wielding of a threatening ruler by Scrooge. The singing of carols was definitely a community-minded activity, precisely not something for Scrooge!

Illustration by John Leech (‘Punch’ magazine cartoonist) showing Jacob Marley’s ghost visiting Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ (first edition, published by London-based Chapman & Hall in 1843).

The character Ebenezer Scrooge was very likely based on a real-life, eccentric gentleman, John Elwes, whose biography by Edward Topham published in 1790 instantly became a national bestseller. Dickens was a well-read man and would most certainly have read it. Elwes, born Meggot, assumed the name Elwes on being named heir to his bachelor uncle, Sir Hervey Elwes. He was never short of money as his father Robert Meggot was a wealthy brewer. Elwes was a patron of architects and was responsible for building half of Georgian London: the most part of St. James’s, Mayfair, Picadilly, Portland Place, Baker Street, Marylebone, and Oxford Circus. Despite being a millionaire, in later life he became a famous miser, dressing in rags and eating food full of maggots. He and the fictional Scrooge had other things in common, such as a jolly nephew and a skinny face with a pointed nose. However, there was one enormous difference: John Elwes inflicted his miserliness only on himself, always being kind, loving, and charming to others, and everybody adored him! A big difference, but still, the inspiration could have been there.

“A Christmas Carol” was not Charles Dickens greatest work. He completed it within six weeks just before Christmas 1843 to booster his faltering income from his novel “Martin Chuzzlewit”, which was being published in monthly installments. He was having big problems with his publisher, and he badly needed some ready cash as his wife was expecting their fifth child. On publication, which he ended up paying for himself, the book received a flood of criticism from powerful industrialists for being an indictment of industrial capitalism of the time. So why, despite not being his greatest masterpiece and its poor initial reception by “the people who mattered”, did “A Christmas Carol” go on to become probably his most popular book, and to even being credited with bringing back the merriment of Christmas?

Well, Christmas comes but once a year (once too often, some cynics might say), while for those of us who love Christmas, this annual event, including the build-up to, it is something very special! Of course, it is the celebration of the gift of the baby Jesus, born simply in a stable to bring hope and to lighten and brighten our world, with all its bad news. It is also the time to enjoy being with our loved ones (if at all possible), giving, sharing, eating and drinking and hopefully relaxing together, no matter how much or little money we have to spend on it. Not to forget the annual ritual: the sending of Christmas cards, which helps us reconnect with old friends and family members who we don’t get to see too often – very nice that the multitude of charity cards now help us to remember the disadvantaged at the same time. So the fact that Christmas comes round faithfully every year gives this story a head start. Like the pop stars with their Christmas hits, if Dickens were still alive he would be able to cash in on the royalties of his story each year, with all those countless performances, not to mention the book, which has apparently never been out of print! A charming children’s pop-up version of the book, illustrated by Victor G. Ambrus and published by Methuen in 1986, is certainly out of print but good second-hand copies are still available from used-book sellers.

A fun, children’s pop-up version of “A Christmas Carol”, illustrated by Victor G. Ambrus (published by Methuen in 1986).

So what can account for the allure of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”? Partly we may feel that we have to thank Dickens for re-energizing the festival which was once flagging and for giving us the nostalgic images of Christmastime in days gone by – but most especially, to my mind, the key is the opportunity given and taken to change for the better (it’s never too late) and the message of love and generosity which is embodied in the joy and wonder of Christmas.

How better to finish than with the original ending!

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!

THE END.