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We went to the Christmas concert today - it's a cliche but I don't think there was a dry eye in the house watching all those tiny tinsel bedecked angels, cuddly shepherds and small people dressed up as donkeys and sheep. They were amazing - kids aged four to eight sang, danced and told their tales with the kind of easy confidence adults would die for. This is what it's all about - precious moments like that.
If you're not feeling the magic yet, Vince Guaraldi's soundtrack for 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' always does it for me. The least schmalzy of all the Christmas tales thanks to good old Charlie Brown's lugubrious nature, it pretty much sums up everything that Christmas is really about. Misssy has a great post about the best ever Christmas films (see the sidebar) - what are your favourite seasonal TV shows? In this house I'm banned from cracking open the Christmas CDs until Dec 1st (and this year it's been so busy haven't even found the boxes yet). Once this album is playing, Christmas will have officially started.
TODAY'S PROMPT: What are the smells you associate with Christmas? Why not jot as many as you can think of down in your journal - like a scent essay, an evocation of Christmas. One of the things I love about unpacking the decorations each year is finding the clove studded oranges from the year before. They've normally dried out so much their ribbons are loose and the cloves crumbling away, but there's still a magical fragrance. If you've never made them why not have a go with your children? Loop a ribbon around an orange dividing it into four quarters - tie tightly with a loop at one end to hang. Stud the four sections with cloves (you may need to poke holes with a skewer before giving the orange to the kids!) You can score lines, make patterns, even string oranges up with cinammons sticks to make garlands. A fraction of the cost of the chichi garlands in design stores and all the pleasure of doing it yourself. The smell is incredible - that and a little Vince G and I'd defy the Grinch's heart not to grow a little.
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19 comments:
I've been quietly hoping that someone would mention Charlie Brown in the Christmas film comments box. I've asked for the collected Peanuts cartoons for christmas. Love them.
I seriously wanted to call my son Linus for a day or so when I was pregnant. Meeester talked me out of it.
Funny you should ask.. I have a Frankincense candle burning and it has helped to put me in the mood.
I love Charlie Brown.
Sx
I just want to say that Linus's speech ALWAYS gets me. every single time.
Yes, nothing is quite like watching homonculi enact a costume drama. Natural performers who respond to plaudits with such unaffected pleasure.
Christmas for me this year means I am redundant. I got the christmas tree down from the attic and started crying thinking I would have to decorate it and untangle the lights etc. Then my 7 year old and her friend took over decorating and did a wonderful job. Heaven is having kids who love to do this stuff!
Ah Emma, I'm the sort of Mum who doesn't want the kids near the tree when it's being decorated. But I have to pretend it's OK- let them put some stuff on it in skew-whiff fashion, wait for them to go to bed and then take it all off and redecorate it my way.
Misssy - Linus Martini has a ring to it (perhaps you could sneak it in as a nickname??)
Scarlet - sounds lovely. Personal favourite is the cinammon Yankee candles - mmmmmmmm
VodkaMom - I know ... reduces grown men to quivering wrecks
Mr B - are there little Bananas I wonder? (Though perhaps Gorillas are above tinsel halos)
Emma - phew thought you meant literally for a mo. Wow - put your feet up with a glass of mulled wine and direct from the sofa eh? Something to look forward to ...
Misssy - reminds me of that episode of Friends where Monica let the others decorate the tree. Of course it was all over the place - once they'd finished she just turned it round to reveal the perfectly decorated half she'd done earlier!
Christmas is the best sense memory exercise ever...
I love the movie "A Christmas Story." Watch it every year, sometimes twice, love it every year. As a writer I'm intensely drawn to the writing - 'you'll shoot your eye out kid.' Love it!
Hi Kate
Just found your blog via Megan Taylor on Burning Lines. I've been reading your backposts and I'm so with you on it all. I only have one, two and a half, and a husband who is around most of the time and I am definitely a stressed out slummy mummy. I am also now very cynical about publishers/agents but I'm still pursuing, always pursuing (should def try to live in moment more...realise I am v lucky really but the DREAM always seems out of reach.)
Did put the Xmas tree up yesterday pm (mainly as distraction therapy for tantrumming toddler waking from nap screaming and me 'come and see what's downstairs' - it didn't work, he wasn't impressed, he kept screaming...)
I'll bookmark your blog - it is talking to me...
Keep writing, keep smiling, keep wiping that yoghurt off your jeans!
Shanta x
Something weird happened to me regarding the Peanuts animated cartoons. Weird because (a) I'm pretty shamelessly sentimental about Christmas, and (b) I loved the strip -- used to buy bound collections, going back to the earliest days. So I should've been a natural audience for the TV specials.
Somehow, though, I seem to have been distracted or something when they all became popular. Never saw them when they were first broadcast and missed them for years afterwards; when I finally caught one I was feeling all sophisticated and cynical that day, and it didn't "take."
Now I'm stuck. People both younger and older than I are crazy about them, especially the Christmas special. I stand in the middle of the whooping crowd, scratching my head.
Smells: rum, and fruitcake. (Which -- don't scream -- I do love.)
A Charlie Brown Christmas is THE Christmas album. Although I might have heard Bing sing White Christmas one time too many, Guaraldi's music never gets old. Bought two box sets of Charlie Brown DVD's on Amazon last year - great stuff.
When I grew up in the 50's/60's in the States it was traditional to watch The Wizard of Oz at Christmas. Don't know why, it has nothing to do with Christmas as such. I loved it, though. Eerie, mystical and beautiful at the same time. Chemical-free psychedelia for the wee ones.
Must do those orange/clove pomander balls. Thanks for the reminder.
Must do those orange/clove pomander balls. Thanks for the reminder!
Hi Lindsay - isn't it just? That's the thing as a writer you always are looking at the dialogue (or searching for a pen mid movie to jot down an idea!)
Welcome Shanta - thanks for reading! Ha! You know what we are all there. Don't give up, don't feel cynical - keep writing and keep wiping that stuff off your jeans (you don't even want to know what's on mine after this evening's walk with the hound but it involves badgers). x
Jes - pour yourself a glass of rum and cut a slice of fruitcake. Settle down and watch Linus ... feeling it yet?
Son - I know! Lots of mothers flinch when I say our 6 year old loves Wizard of Oz. Charlie Brown though - what's not to love.
Hello Magpie - how are you doing?! Yes - that smell, and the kids love them x
Charlie Brown Christmas is my all time favorite. Each time I watch it I fill up with tears when he thinks he's killed the tree and then all the kids make it special for him...it's just such a sweet moment.
I rode the subway downtown today listening to Vince G and somewhere between 59th Street and Grand Central I found it...thanks for the post
cinnamon, nutmeg, pumpkin spice, pine, snow (it does have a scent) and apple.
in paris there is a huge festival going on up and down the Champs Elysees, with potatoes and sausages and waffles with chocolate or marron (chestnuts) and roasted nuts and cafe and a million other blissful scents.
they are so powerful
Natasha - Grand Central? One of my all time favourite places in the world. Great to think of you there.
D'Arcy - are you back yet? What a wonderful thought ... hope you had/are having a magical time!
Scuse me Kate, while I shamelessly corral all your readers but...
All those with Christmas love in their hearts (and I'm sensing a few here) would do worse than enter their favourite Christmas movies into my little radio research project.
http://misssymartin.blogspot.com/2008/12/every-time-bell-rings-angel-gets-its.html
I grew up in Florida and so a warm day can feel like Christmas to me. All I need to think of Christmas is the smell of tangerines. They were always the best at Christmas time.
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