The Christmas CollectionPoetry, Prose, Tales & Song inCelebration of the Holiday Season Christmas brings out the best and the worst in us. Certainlythere can be no richer seam to mine for an anthology. Among what Thomas LovePeacock calls the ‘many poetical charms in the heralding of Christmas’ thereare eulogies by saints and diatribes from curmudgeons. This collectionoffers Christmas expounded by divines, sung by rustics, deplored byphilosophers, made mystical in stories and summed up in a line: ElizabethJennings: ‘The hush, the star, the baby, people being kind again’. It includes complete versions of such old favorites as TheLittle Match Girl, The Night Before Christmas, Ring out Wild Bells andChristmas Day in the Workhouse, but also much that will, I hope, be unfamiliar.It moves from the simple pleasures observed by John Clare (‘And children,‘tween their parents’ knees … Sing scraps of carols o’er by heart’) to themiseries endured by Kilvert (‘I sat down in my bath upon a sheet of thick icewhich broke in the middle into large pieces whilst sharp points and jaggededges stuck all round the sides of the tub like chevaux de frise, notparticularly comforting to the naked thighs and loins’). It tells of how the ‘superstitious time of the Nativity’ wasmade a political pawn in the time of John Evelyn and of dissentersover-indulging themselves with ‘plum porridge’. Of the shortages andcontrivances of Christmas on the Home Front, and the wartime truce during whichGerman and British forces exchanged carols and cigarettes. There is, inevitably, much mention of food, as befits theday which C. Day Lewis calls ‘a coral island in time where we land and eat ourlotus’. There are ancient feasts and traditional delights; recipes forboar’s head, ‘rare mince pies’, ‘well-spic’d hippocras’ and how to pull blazingraisins from the snapdragon — and how to cook possum. Themes recur. The Christmas tree — ‘a tree of fable, aphoenix in evergreen’. The Yule log, part of which must be kept to tend theChristmas Log next year in order to keep the devil away. Drink, most notablyMr. Pickwick’s ‘mighty bowl of wassail, something smaller than an ordinarywash-house copper, in which the hot apples were hissing and bubbling with arich look and a jolly sound that was perfectly irresistible’. And of coursepresents: explorations of the nature of giving from Martial (‘Gifts are likehooks...’) Betjemen’s ‘sweet and silly Christmas things … Bath salts andinexpensive scent … And hideously ties so kindly meant’ and the mysteriousgreen omnibus in G.K. Chesterton’s haunting tale of The Shop of Ghosts. The Three Wise Men (‘in their stiff, painted clothes, thepale unsatisfied ones’) haunt poets (that was Yeats) and divines alike — veryalike indeed in the case of Launcelot Andrewes’ 1622 sermon on their advent,the words of which, it was a shock to realize, would be borrowed almostsyllable for syllable by TS Elliot: ‘A cold coming they had of it at this timeof the year, just the worst time of the year to take a journey, and specially along journey in winter. The ways deep, the weather sharp, the days short, thesun farthest off, in solstitio brumali, ‘the very dead of winter’. Christmas has its horrors as well as its joys. EdmondGosse’s father savagely rakes the plum pudding secretly made by the servantsinto the ashes of the fire; Southey deplores the social mobility that, he feelssure, will see the end of all the old Christmas customs within a generation. Hewas of course wrong. The bulk of this anthology is a celebration of thegreatest festival of the year, part pagan, part Christian, ambitiouslygenerous, wholly human. But no one summed it up better than Nicholas Breton inhis 1626 Fantastickes. ‘I hold a memory of Heaven’s Love, and the world’speace, the mirth of the honest, and the meeting of the friendly.’ I’ve also included a complete Mummer’s play in memory of theprimary school at East Kennet, Wiltshire where an inspired headmistress used tolay one on annually to the great delight of the children and parents alike: Mrs. Tomlin, the whole anthology is dedicated to you as atribute to those glorious annual Christmases — and the splendid education —you gave so many children for so many years. Notes by Christina Hardyment About the Readers PETER JEFFREY has played Ulysses in Troilus and Cressida andFalstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor for the Royal Shakespeare Company aswell as numerous roles for the Royal National Theatre and the West End. On TVhe has appeared in The Prince and the Pauper, Our Friends in the North,Middlemarch and A Village Affair. JOHN MOFFATT has a distinguished theater career encompassingmany London and Broadway appearances. He has played Malvolio in Twelfth Nightat the Open-Air Theatre, Regents Park, appeared in Ingmar Bergman’s productionof Hedda Gabler, and Married Love directed by Joan Plowright. Film creditsinclude Prick Up Your Ears, and he has been seen on UK television in Love in aCold Climate and Maigret. DAVID TIMSON has performed in modern and classic playsacross Great Britain and abroad, including Wild Honey for Alan Ayckbourn,Hamlet, The Man of Mode, and The Seagull. He has been seen on television inNelson’s Column and Swallows and Amazons, and in the film The Russia House. SUSAN ENGEL has had a varied and accomplished career inthe theater, performing on many occasions for the RoyalShakespeare Company, and Royal National Theatre. Among her West End credits areAn Inspector Calls, Three Sisters and Hamlet. On television she has been seenin Kavanagh QC and Inspector Morse and her film credits include Damage andPeter Brook’s King Lear. SIMON HARRIS has appeared on stage across Britain innumerous plays including Hamlet, Coriolanus, Macbeth and The Dresser. He is also a playwright and his debut playBadfinger opened the Donmar Warehouse “Four Corners” season in 1997. LIZA ROSS has appeared on stage in the West End and inrepertory across Britain, including Wings and The Front Page at the RoyalNational Theatre. She has made many television appearances including After theWar, Poor Little Rich Girl, Two’s Company and The Month of the Doctors. Herfilm work includes Batman and The Shadowchasers and she has worked extensivelyas a voice artist. Benjamin Soames trained at LAMDA. Since then he has appearedin the TV series Sharpe and Absolutely Fabulous as well as the films HeavyWeather and England, My England. He toured worldwide in the acclaimed Cheek ByJowl production of Measure For Measure.