BURNED-OVER DISTRICT, NY—Merry Christmas to all friends (and enemies, too) of Front Porch Republic! Don’t you worry ’bout that quaffer-scoffer in the Quad Cities. Come December 24 he’ll be reading Clement Moore (or is it Henry Livingston Jr.?) to his fambly and then on the morning after he’ll be up in the predawn watching his kiddies eagerly tear the wrapping paper from that homebrewing kit Santa is bringing.
Two suggested short stories to supplement the usual: Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory,” a lovely tribute to Miss Sook Faulk and the best thing the troubled Dill ever wrote, and “Christmas Jenny” by Mary Wilkins Freeman, painter par excellence of the stubborn New England eccentric.
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Also recommended: Booth Tarkington’s “Beasley’s Christmas Party,” an early work, melodramatic but touching.
Try one of Dickens’ lesser-known “Christmas Books” — ‘The Cricket on the Hearth’ or ‘The Chimes.’
Also the 19th century German writer Adalbert Stifter’s disquieting but lovely novella ‘Rock Crystal,’ about two children who get lost in a snowstorm on Christmas eve.
If Dylan Thomas’s “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” be your preference, I recommend less scoffing than quaffing. DT himself obviously preferred the latter.