We’re well into December, and into the annual Clothes in Books trope of Christmas in Books – seasonal scenes from random books, for no better reason than I like looking for the pictures, and I and some readers find them cheery and Xmas-y
The Bachelor by Stella Gibbons
published 1944
[excerpt] Kenneth announced that it was time to “have the tree.” Everybody
stood up, and Kenneth and Richard carried the table on which the tree stood
over to the fireplace. It was a well-shaped little tree, decorated with pink
and green balls and little houses and fantastic birds made from fairy-glass, as
the children call it. These toys had been carefully preserved by Miss Burton
from the days when Mrs. Miles’s children had been young enough to enjoy a
Christmas tree, and every year she brought them out and decorated the tree with
them.
Usually this custom was looked upon by her cousins with mild amusement, but this year, as the strangely heart-stirring little tree was set down in front of the fire, and its blue and silver and gold decorations tinkled themselves into glittering stillness once more, Kenneth looked across at her and said with a smile: “A good thing you’ve always saved the decorations, Frankie, there aren’t any to be had this year.”
“I always knew a
time like this would come,” answered Miss Burton, and then Kenneth began to give
out the presents and cries of “Just what I wanted!” began to sound in all their
falseness upon the festal air.
comments: The Bachelor came to mind because of the wholesale
criticism of a different Stella Gibbons book in the comments on a recent post.
Festive
Cheer: Her Heart felt as cold as her hands…
In an entirely proper CiB chain (only what we expect
these days), people discussed the chicken farmers of the between-the-wars era,
as featured in the on-topic book, then moved to other books with chicken
farmers. And one of those is Stella Gibbons The Matchmaker, which then
faced universal condemnation from the blog regulars. Rarely are we so unanimous.
I read it a long time ago, and have it lined up to at least skim through, although
I have been warned it is
throw-across-the-room bad… watch this space.
And if you are still interested in chicken-farming, this phenomenon
(former soldiers setting up a farm with their gratuity, and probably failing)
features in detail in the comments of another
post from recent months.
Anyway, that all reminded me that The Bachelor – a book
I would never throw across the room – has terrific Christmas scenes, which have
featured
before, more than
once. There’s Christmas shopping, and a wintry walk in the woods and the
collection of holly.
And now here is the raising of the Christmas tree, a wartime tree, with saved decorations, and a very charming description, and there happened to be the perfect picture I feel…. Of course, from the Imperial War Museum's Home Front collection:
I am somewhat confused by the comment about how saving the decorations is a good thing this time, because of the war restrictions. Would people generally throw away the (quite expensive) "fairy glass" ornaments every year and buy new ones next Christmas? I don't. My family never did. They were always carefully packed away in tissue in a big box marked CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS which then went into the attic. And this is what I still do every year. (Admittedly I now have two such boxes - three if I count the one marked ADVENT AND LUCIA.) I moved house (flat) just a few weeks ago and am living in chaos since the new place is being painted and papered and having the floor sanded - but I have kept track of these boxes. One must have a sense of priorities.
ReplyDeleteFloors, I mean, in the plural.
DeleteI have come across this division before, in real life, that there are people who save them jealously, and others who assume they will re-do everything next year. And both sides in the argument take for granted that their way is the correct one, and any other idea is mad.
DeleteRegularly you can see people claiming they are being very saving this year, using 'old' decorations as the height of virtue. I had a friend who helped me take down the decos one year, and I caught her putting them in in the bin! I think you can plainly see where I stand on this...
Hope you have a lovely Christmas amid the unpacking! And there will be a St Lucia mention here...
Nearly here. I celebrate by reciting Donnes Nocturnall upon St Lucie's Daye. All others, from all things, draw all that's good... (Lucy)
DeleteOne of my favourite poems of all time.
DeleteYes, I agree. Slightly curious. I too have Christmas tree decorations which come out every year and to which I am sentimentally attached. Good luck with settling into your new home, Birgitta. I have recently undergone the same process. Chrissie
ReplyDeletePS Yes, perfect photo!
ReplyDeleteYes, its not only the sensible aspect of saving them, it's the memories they all hold, and the people who gave them to you, and the children's home-made ones. Part of the tradition here is the 'children', now grown-ups, saying 'cant we get rid of those ones, they're awful' and my saying 'NO'.
DeleteWhat a lovely description of the Christmas tree, Moira! Even when times are difficult, people still gather and celebrate as best they can, and that really shows here. And it's interesting, isn't it, how we keep those things, like ornaments, that we've collected over the years...
ReplyDeleteThat's such a lovely and true description Margot
DeleteNot jumping to the defense of The Matchmaker, but I remember a kind of fashion makeover of one of the characters (late in the book) and some other mentions of clothing. So it might be worth your looking into at least. (It wasn't that I wanted to throw the book itself across the room, but rather wanted to slap the title character senseless.)
ReplyDeleteI have read it again Marty, and there will be a post in the coming weeks.... thanks!
DeleteI like the Matchmaker. Reminds me of Elizabeth Taylor's The Soul of Kindness. But the chicken farmer is OK! Even if he does read books called In Touch with the Transcendent.
DeleteHe was at least a rounded character, with good traits and bad.
DeleteI still have, and bring out every year, a set of tiny glass ornaments that my paternal grandmother bought in the mid-1930s, round about the same time Miss Burton must have bought the ones in the extract above. No defenders of the ‘start afresh every Christmas’ approach here so far …
ReplyDeleteThis struck me as a strangely calm book about wartime - IIRC the characters mostly found the war a great nuisance and inconvenience but there was little sense of active threat, anxiety, fear for the future or for the safety of friends and family in the forces … whereas Joyce Dennys’s “Henrietta’s War” and its sequel, though intentionally comic (and very funny) are full of those anxieties.
Sovay
How nice - nearly 100 years old.
DeleteAnd yes, calm is a good word for it. I said in my previous posts what a good record it was of details from that time, because she is just concentrating on day-to-day life in a matter-of-fact way. I love the Henrietta books too
We have ornaments from my father's childhood although we lost him 9 years ago; my mother cries if one gets broken and I probably will take over those tears when she is gone.
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy descriptions of wartime Christmasses where people make ornaments out of shiny paper and so on. Of course, I can't think of any at the moment. Maybe a Noel Streatfeild?
there's so much history in a Christmas tree ornament.
DeleteYes I'm sure there are such descriptions - in Angela Thirkell also maybe?
I know there was a special Christmas book with Laura Morland, and I think a Christmas ball in another book, but my recollection is that Thirkell generally glossed over Christmas as being a stressful season. Could be remembering wrong, though!
DeleteMarty, I think you’re remembering right! I’ve been reading Thirkell’s “The Headmistress”, in which she disposes of Christmas in two sentences: “Of the blight of Christmas we have spoken from the heart elsewhere and not once but several times. To our former descriptions of that odious and society-disrupting season we have nothing to add.”
DeleteSovay