Christmas is Creativity.
It is found in the story of the Nativity, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and film stories like The Polar Express.
It is found in poems such as A Visit from St. Nicholas (probably better known as The Night Before Christmas) by Clement Clarke Moore and In the Bleak Midwinter by Christina Rossetti.
Then there’s Christmas music. Gustav Holst’s work turns Rossetti’s poem into one of our best loved carols. Carols from Kings is a highlight of many people’s holiday viewing and to those of us of a certain age Christmas songs must include Slade’s Merry Christmas Everybody and Cliff Richard’s Mistletoe and Wine. I am that certain age!
I’ve not really entered the Christmas season until I’ve baked my Christmas cake, first but definitely not last batch of mince pies, heard Cliff and listened out for Noddy Holder’s shouting “It’s Christmas” at the end of Slade’s most famous hit.
Then there’s the decorations, both those put up at home (thanks to my husband and son) and the ones I see as I walk the dog. The lights cheer me up. December is such a dark, drab month without them.
Christmas stories
The Nativity, like any really good story, has a wide ranging plot. It is full of surprises. Nobody expects angels to turn up. I’ve never been surprised by the angel in While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night telling their audience to “Fear Not”. The shepherds would’ve needed telling (as indeed would I!). I wonder how long it took them to stop being scared but I digress…
Then there’s the joy of Jesus’s birth. Rosetti’s line of “only his mother in her maiden bliss worshipped the Beloved with a kiss” conjures up images for me of Mary soothing Jesus to sleep with a kiss, images repeated daily before and since with mothers worldwide soothing their babies. Then there’s the unexpected visitors – and who doesn’t get these at Christmas! Okay most of us don’t play host to shepherds and magi but how did Mary and Joseph feel when they turned up?
Then there’s the horror of the slaughter of the innocents by Herod followed by the relief of the Holy Family’s escape to Egypt. The Nativity stirs up the whole gamut of emotions.
A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens, like Christina Rosetti and Clement Charles Moore, has the rare honour of adding something to our celebration of Christmas. It is my favourite Dickens’ novel as I love stories of redemption and a good ghost story so can’t lose here.
My favourite film adaptation is The Muppet Christmas Carol with Michael Caine as Scrooge. It is one of his finest roles (though for me nothing can beat his role in The Italian Job). It is faithful to the book and recommends viewers read the book at the end (well done, Muppets!).
It has also led to a great piece of radio comedy as the I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue team did a wonderful send up of this some years back. Well worth a listen and available on CD. Laughs guaranteed.
The Polar Express
I highly recommend this and think it one of Tom Hanks’ best roles. The animation is life like and it is one of those rare Christmas films which isn’t overly sentimental. As a result this film is suitable for a wide age range. There is a sceptical, sharp edge to it and the film leaves you wondering whether the children involved will come to believe in Father Christmas again or not (and the outcome is by no means certain).
The Night Before Christmas
A fantastic poem written by Clement Charles Moore for his children. Both the poem and the reason it was written invoke the spirit of Christmas. We know the names of Santa’s reindeer thanks to this man! What’s not to like? I find it nigh on impossible to read this poem without a smile on my face. A timeless classic.
In the Bleak Midwinter
This is one of my favourite carols. The imagery in the beautiful words always moves me. As well as the quote above, I love the ending – “What can I give him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb. If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part. Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.” Christians see Jesus as God’s ultimate present to the world. This verse reminds us we can give back to God but it must be motivated by love, as Jesus himself was.
Family memories
Morecambe and Wise feature heavily here. My mother insisted Christmas dinner was finished and washing up all cleared so we could sit down to watch Eric and Ernie in the days long before video recorders and where the UK’s finest comics regularly achieved audiences of over 25 million. And they are still funny.
In Christmas 2013 they were repeated in short half programmes by the BBC and still gaining the viewers. My favourite clip? The boys with Andre Previn and the Gregg Piano sequence. Previn’s look of frozen horror is comedy perfection.
Baking!
You can’t beat the smell of fresh home-made mince pies, Christmas cake etc. I enjoy baking (fortunately my family enjoy what I bake!) and this is a vital part of Christmas for me.
Creativity in Christmas
Creativity is written all over Christmas. From the written word to music to comedy to home cooking! I hope everyone has a creative, peaceful and enjoyable Christmas.
I think Harry Brown was one of Michael Caine’s finest roles/films.
My husband likes Harry Brown though I admit I find the story depressing. For action films with Michael Caine, I prefer The Ipcress File, which reminds me I ought to look that out again.
I saw Harry Brown for the first time last week and have to agree with Hazel that Michael Caine was wonderful in the film. The Death Wish series of films by Michael Winner had a similar storyline, but depended on mass vengeance on a mass killing scale. Harry Brown’s character was far more sympathetic and believable.
The pedant in me doesn’t like the first verse of “in the bleak midwinter”. It probably wasn’t midwinter , and even if it were – do they really get snow and hard frosts in the Holy Land? However, the remaining verses – especially the last – do make up for this.
Best Christmas Carol film – surely the one with Patrick Stewart playing the role of Scrooge. There was also an adaption by Quantum Leap back in the 1990s which I enjoy – especially the twist at the end (no plot spoiler, but you’ll know it when you see it).
I haven’t made a Christmas cake for years. When it got to the stage that I was still eating it at Easter I thought that maybe the time had come to let that tradition go.
Yes, Patrick Stewart is magnificent as Scrooge (though I admit I like practically any film/TV show he appears in).
I heard a lovely rendition of In the Bleak Midwinter by Annie Lennox on Radio 2 yesterday morning. So lovely that I bought the album.
Many thanks for the tip. I like Annie Lennox’s unique voice so will listen out for this.
Three years ago, I sang In the Bleak Midwinter in a school choir at Winchester Cathedral. (The kind of ‘Everyone can sing, no audition required’ Christmas carol service, and that was how I got in). It was one of the most beautiful moments. I was told our voices travelled beautifully – thanks to the architecture of the cathedral. (People who know architecture could explain how cathedrals were designed to carry music as an integral part of church service.)
While I was sitting on the stage waiting for the service to start, watching people flowing in, I took this picture.
p.s.: It was freezing cold in the choir area.
Winchester Cathedral is always lovely to visit. Highly recommend getting a year ticket as it doesn’t cost much and then you can go as and when for 12 months.
Margaret Owens is a Friend of Winchester Cathedral, and Sally works there as a volunteer. Their articles published on Chandler’s Ford Today are worth a read.
Ruby, may I thank you for the Annie Lennox tip. I’ve just heard her version of In the Bleak Midwinter and it is absolutely lovely.
She produced an album, A Christmas Cornucopia, about four years ago – that contains a dozen or so Christmas songs.
This rendition by Annie Lennox gave me such a shock ▶ Annie Lennox In The Bleak Midwinter 2010. I felt the beginning was a bit bland, too ‘masculine’, but then I slowly got used to her interpretation, and liked the ending, and her powerful voice.
My favourite is Sissel’s interpretation: ▶ Sissel – In The Bleak Mid-Winter .
What Christmas means to me.
Wherever I look at Christmas among all the decorations there is frequently a baby lying in a crib. This is not just for the ‘Aah’ factor but because it says something fundamental about God.
To see God as an all powerful Being located outside Time and Space is to see only half. The other half is a new baby born 2,000 years ago. This baby is God. God not just a voice shouting to us from above the tops of the mountains but God fully present in the material world. God growing from a baby to a boy to a man. Christianity is a very earthly, fleshly, materialistic faith.
It seems to me that if you take God out of the world and either put him way out in space or eliminate him entirely you are left with empty meaninglessness. Or you have make a leap of faith to put something in his place.
The morality atheistic humanism offers is based on a leap of faith. If the source of humanity is that we are descended from apes purely by blind chance and random selection, how can that make humans morally distinctive? Because we are rational? Are rational people more valuable the irrational ones? Atheistic humanism offers a moral framework but has nothing to ‘stand on’ so makes a leap of faith.
This God/man Jesus said he was come to give life, and life more abundant. Any moral demands God makes are to enrich our lives not inhibit them. To be frank it must be admitted that too often the churches get that bit wrong and Christianity is seen as life threatening whereas God intends faith in Him to be Life enhancing.
When, amongst the tinsel and glitter, I see the baby in a crib, I am reminded that Christianity offers the most robust and meaningful form of Humanism.
Wonderful thoughts. Thank you.