Wandering With the Ghosts of Christmas Past at the Geffrye Museum

This weekend is the last chance to observe Christmas celebrations over the past 400 years at London’s wonderful Geffrye Museum.

It’s a splendid privilege to wander from one decade to another simply by waltzing down a corridor along a row of rooms.  Even better is seeing those rooms decorated for Christmas in the vastly different styles of the ages—some with barely a sprig of holly adorning the top of a picture frame and others looking like an inviting scene on an elaborate Christmas card.

After years of meaning to do so, I seized the opportunity last new year to visit the Christmas Past Exhibition at the Geffrye Museum, based in wonderfully restored Grade 1 listed 1714 almshouses that form an oasis directly behind Hoxton station.  The museum specialises in the history of the English domestic interior and lets you nearly step into those bygone days as you are subtly informed most delightfully about social history.  At this time of year, they decorate the rooms as they would have looked at Christmastime in that period, with an extra sign added to tell you how the day would have been spent then (such as with the maid helping to buy holly, snacking on anchovies and olives while having music, giving only educational toys to the children, or the family usually eating out).  Some rooms show surprisingly few signs of the festive season as that simply wasn’t done back then, and others seem to be the epitome of the old fashioned Christmas that people picture so fondly.

Even in these times when social history is enormously popular on television, either through period dramas or unexpectedly educational shows like Who Do You Think You Are?, I learned quite a bit that was new to me.   Spread amidst the rooms are little exhibitions of objects such as porcelain or tea caddies from that period, samples of fabrics used for floor coverings, details on techniques used at the time such as ‘Japanning’ (a 17^th century type of black furniture finish), and illustrations or photographs of what the outside of the house would have looked like—and the difficulties faced when building them--and where the various servants and family members would have spent most of their time. 

Amongst the informative timelines—showing when important books were published, new legislation passed, famous exhibitions held, and new technology (such as railways) established--are snippets of information about, for instance, how the ‘middling classes’ would have behaved and how crucial newspapers once were, giving businessmen all they needed to know about grain prices and foreign news, and telling people of the comings and goings of ships, tides and socialites.  There are also details of how the popularity of gardening ‘as a fashionable leisure activity’ grew in the 18^th century, along with the ‘pleasing London custom of dressing…windowsills with pots of greenery’.

But the highlights are the period rooms.  We see decorations with rosemary and bay and learn how friends who stopped by would be offered jellies and wine as the family sipped cordials. The rather bare 1630 hall shows little evidence of the holiday other than a green garland draped over the mantelpiece and a modest feast on the table, and we read that Christmas was banned by Parliament during the Civil War owing to Puritan values. 

Coming to a gorgeous Wedgwood blue 1830 drawing room with only a few sprigs of holly evident, I hear a man on his way out behind me comment that he likes the wallpaper but it isn’t very Christmassy, as though the museum—or the occupants of the house—would completely re-paper the room just for a couple weeks and then change it back. 


A panel tells how a small family party ‘is about to take place’ on Twelfth Night, when a king and queen would be chosen for the night based on who found a dried bean or a pea in their traditional Twelfth-Night cake, bizarrely with even the servants allowed to play so their master could end up serving them on the night.  During the revival of the Christmas celebration in the 19^th century, that type of game became more like the modern day charades.  There was no mention, however, of any medieval game that led to Twister, which was the traditional Christmas Eve game in my family.

The museum has some audio exhibits that enable you to listen to readings from letters and books of the late 18^th century and early 19^th century, including a letter from Jane Austen about moving house, advice to servants about setting the table for a tea party, and a description of dinner with a rector.  Some 19^th century advice manuals are on show, with panels telling us that ‘taste’ and debates about it in terms of home furnishings came in to play at this time.

Nearby is the wonderful Victorian drawing room from 1870, with Yuletide sheet music on the piano, different busy fabrics draped over chairs as well as covering the floor and windows, mistletoe hanging from the light fixture, and a toy farmyard set up on the table near a stunning live Christmas tree.   It’s a Christmas card into which I’d like to climb.  A poster teaches us the history of Christmas cards and says that, by this time under the burden of the new seasonal flurry, the post office began to warn people to post their cards early, which at the time meant on the morning of Christmas Eve.  That reminded me of reading the puzzling passages in the Mapp and Lucia books where people purchased their cards late on Christmas Eve and seemed to post them on Christmas for delivery that day.  Things are a wee bit different now, I mused as I thought of having to post my stepsister’s gift by the recommended date of 4^th December, and it still arrived in late January last year.

Through glass doors, the new extension’s dazzling open architecture draws you towards more modern room displays, including one influenced by Japanese culture that was the rage then, a suburban Edwardian ‘Arts and Crafts’ period room with holly in a vase, and a great many samples of chairs through the ages.  

My favourite room was here, a room of a purpose built 1930s London mansion block flat, my obvious choice as I adore Art Deco and modernist architecture and anything of the period.  On show were muted colours and furniture I’d love to have today with a rather pathetic sprig of a Christmas tree on a table, but everything decorated cheerfully, albeit artificially, which was the practical fashion of the time in urban homes.  The room was set for the Christmas Eve cocktail party, the poster said, and then the couple would motor down to the country for Christmas Day with relatives, before the already firm recent tradition of hearing the King’s Christmas broadcast on the wireless at 3pm.

The 1970s room surprised me by tugging at my heart a bit, presumably touching some suppressed pleasant memory as a child, although we never decorated our contemporary (American) home for Christmas as we always travelled to my grandparents’ more traditional home in the north for the festivities. Perhaps it was the discarded Christmas wrap on the floor, although the toys it had covered were duller than what we were getting at the time, although I suppose it was later in the decade when we were getting the earliest video games and that flashing light Simon game.

Even the 1990s are covered, which could make you feel a bit old, but we are marching ever further from that decade so it might as well be in a museum. The display is a bright sparsely decorated flat with wooden floors, no doubt in a regentrified Docklands warehouse, with one of those tiny bedroom lofts that would have me too terrified to sleep for fear of rolling off in the night and falling to my death on the colourful Conran dining set below.

In the middle of the almshouses stands the original little chapel, a delightful path on your journey through the decades. It is a rather understated chapel given its location in charitable homes for the poor, with just a few pews.  On the wall are passages from Exodus Chapter 20 (including the commandments) and the Lord’s Prayer from the Gospel of St Matthew. There is also a memorial to Sir Robert Geffrye (and wife), the former Lord Mayor and Master of the Ironmongers’ Company who died in 1703 aged 91 and left the bequest that enabled the almshouses, principally for ironmongers’ widows, to be built.   The Geffryes are now buried in a small courtyard in the period gardens out back, which are not open in the winter, but which look beautiful through the wide windows of the curved, cozy garden reading room behind the chapel.  There is a statue of Sir Robert in the outside wall of the chapel facing the front gardens, which are always open.

Downstairs in the new wing was an exhibition called ‘who once lived in my house?’, which I accidentally got caught up in for an age given the lack of time I had left.  It followed certain real houses through the ages—the landowners who commissioned them, where the original owners came from, who passed them to their daughters when they married, whose children all died so they sold it to a more affluent man as the area changed or when their business went belly-up–that sort of thing, telling you often amazing facts and even showing photographs of the various real residents right up to modern day, and of course giving particular mention to the resident ghost when there was one.

The contemporary wing also houses a collection of 20^th century paintings of interiors, which draw you in far more than you would expect, as does the whole museum. I generally have no interest in interior design and barely notice things like carpeting and curtains, and my own home is a cluttered disgrace decorated by a previous owner with an apparent nod towards a dingy Blackpool B&B, but this museum was fascinating and informative about so much, so I was pleased that Yuletide pleasures drew me to it.

As I went late in the afternoon and didn’t want to disturb others with a flash, my photographs are dark and blurry, so you will need to go see things yourself.  If you can’t get to London, the museum’s website has virtual tours and loads of detail about period pieces and décor, so you can wander through now.

I emerged from this wonderful visit to a past I never knew feeling reluctant to leave its magic, but smiling after a happy stroll through it.

The museum also has a tasteful café and areas with activities for children, reading rooms that are full of books you can sit down and look through, decorated with lovely portraits showing people in their homes including party scenes of yesteryear. The charming gift shop has some marvellous

Christmas cards and ornaments as well as fun books on the past and décor as well as objects and jewellery resembling antiquities.  [My only bad experience at the museum was a ‘nose-powdering session’, when I entered a loo that seemed the type to have a new Dyson hand dryer but instead had me standing amidst scary, smelly pools of liquid, and I had to struggle so long to get a square or two of tissue out of the holder that I started seriously considering how I might remove the screws, as disassembling then reassembling it seemed a quicker option to access the necessary stuff. But shame on me for mentioning unmentionables.  It had been a worrying first impression of the museum, but happily everything improved greatly from there. Perhaps the cleaners had been off for the festive period or they wanted us to experience the austerity of the past before people could pop down the road for a value pack of Velvet.  If the museum relies on grants and donations, then I guess they wouldn’t concentrate their valued funds on penny-spending.)

If you are in London on the Twelfth Day of Christmas, 6^th January, the Museum holds at 3.30pm its annual ‘traditional burning of the holly and the ivy, with carol singing, stories about Epiphany and a taste of mulled wine and Twelfth Night cake’ in the front garden. It lasts until 5pm and admission is free.

Admission to the general museum is also free, although obviously donations are always welcome.  The Geffrye is opened Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 5pm, and the Christmas exhibition ends on 3 January (but will return).  The museum also has some restored almshouses that are only occasionally opened and for which there is a £4 charge to adults and timed entry.  Details can be found here .  Do go.

The Ghosts of Christmas Past

(I thought this had been posted on New Year’s Eve, but somehow it wasn’t….and it’s another meander through my memories, a leftover Christmas decoration, so enter at your peril….)

If I don’t take down the holly wreath on my door before midnight, does that scupper my lottery win?

I really need a lottery win now as I’m in dire straits, though I realise I only have a marginally greater chance of winning if I bother to buy a ticket than if I don’t. But in America, we believe that if you leave your Christmas decorations up after New Year’s Day, it’s bad luck. We don’t—at least on the East Coast where I lived—observe the 12 days of Christmas and wait until 6 January as you do here in the UK.

I say 6 January, as that seems to be what’s observed, but when you actually count the days, making what I think is a safe assumption that 25 December is the first day of Christmas when the partridge in a pear tree arrives, then surely your last gift of 12 drummers drumming would arrive on 5 January. …But a bit of quick research says that the focus is really 12 days after Christmas, generally considered to begin on Boxing Day (26 December), the feast day of St. Stephen, with the festivities lasting until the day before Epiphany on 6 January, although others start counting from sunset on 24 December, as in centuries past. Then churches add to the confusion by sometimes leaving their decorations up until the following Sunday so they have the crib out for their Epiphany service.

Anyway, growing up in America, the 12 days of Christmas were merely lyrics in a carol. So as soon as Christmas day was over, we’d be keen to get the decorations down and feel as though we never wanted to hear another carol. As we didn’t celebrate Boxing Day, many of us were back at work on 26 December.

One reason we were keen to put Christmas away was we’d be sick of it all by then. We in the States tend to put up our decorations sooner than you do in the UK. The day after Thanksgiving, which is also a ‘bank holiday’, is the biggest shopping day of the year because most people are off work and then realise that, with Thanksgiving out of the way, it’s time to start thinking of Christmas, so they go out and shop like mad in a world full of sales. If someone came home with a Christmas tree on that fourth Friday in November, it would not be absurd, although waiting another week might be more practical needles-wise.

Going to a Christmas tree lot—sizeable ventures that would turn up on designated land each year, with all sizes and types of beautiful Christmas trees—is a regular, exciting part of the Christmas season. Rather different from grabbing a tiny, dead-looking tree fit for a table from the Asda car park, wrapped tightly in netting so you’re basically buying a surprise package, nailed to wooden planks. Everyone I knew always got real trees, the truly noble getting trees you could re-plant.

Indeed, my Grandmother had a whole row of evergreens of varying heights lining the hill behind her house, years of Christmas trees past. And she would have more than one Christmas tree each year, in addition to the the trees out front and all along the deck that were decorated with lights. She had a main Christmas tree in one of the living rooms and another on the screened-in porch (which isn’t like the 4x4 tiny porch I have in London where I can just about shelter from the rain whilst searching for my door keys, but something bigger than my bedroom, with a great view of the gardens on two sides of the house). Her trees would have different themes, and they were stunning yet somewhat Spartan affairs, certainly not the hodge-podges of random decorations collected over the years that my trees were. And never, ever would they have that tacky (as I was brought up to see it) tinsel or strands of silver ‘icicles’. As a result of my upbringing, I find myself allergic to the purple and silver foil decorations that were draped across my office every year.

But my grandmother was the queen of decoration creation, and with a friend developed ‘critters, angels and stars’, even writing a book on how to make them. They were wonderful critters such as reindeer, owls, mice, mini Santa Clauses (celosia for the suit) and angels and stars made only of natural materials that she generally gathered from the road side: teasels, Queen Anne’s Lace, berries, pods. Her decorations were amazing, and my only motivation for getting a Christmas tree in past years when I certainly didn’t have the space or money was to display the many critters my grandmother had sent me, which I will cherish until they crumble.

Critters created by my grandmother, her friend and many volunteers decorated a White House Christmas tree one year when Ronald Reagan was president, and my grandmother appeared on American breakfast television showing Maria Shriver (a Kennedy and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ex-wife) how to make them. They also appeared on the covers of Time and Newsweek, something of which she was very proud.

Every year, these critters decorated several trees spanning three levels in the excellent Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, PA, which houses a spectacular collection of work by Andrew Wyeth, his son Jamie Wyeth and his father illustrator N C Wyeth, Howard Pyle and a few others. At Christmas, the museum was transformed. Apart from the magnificent critter-decorated trees, one floor of the museum had thigh-high Victorian dolls posing in different wintry scenes, wearing blue velvet coats with big ribbons in their hair. It was charming and Christmassy even if you’re not into dolls.

Even better, the next floor was turned over to model trains at Christmastime. Dozens of model trains traversed the massive round floorplan, through tunnels, past model stations, watched by miniature people and real people, constantly travelling around…it was utterly delightful. At a young age, I decided that once I had a house with a basement (or spare storey lying around), I would also somehow dedicate it to many different model trains, running all the time. Sadly, I’ve not managed it yet; life is unfulfilled.

But the pleasure of seeing these trains, the Christmassy Victorian dolls and the critter trees at the Brandywine River Museum was a big part of my childhood Christmases. Another tradition was to go to an evening church service on Christmas Eve--an earlier Anglican equivalent of midnight mass—and en route, the family would drive its convoy of cars through the Longwood Gardens car park. Longwood, created by a DuPont on farmland once owned by William Penn, was gorgeous by day at Christmas, but at night, outside, the many dozens of trees scattered amidst their ginormous car park were decorated with 500,000 Christmas lights. A parade of cars cruise through each night filled with occupants spellbound by the spectacle, which seems better than fireworks. As a child, I found it particular fun to approach a tree that looked like a Christmas-tree-shaped fir from a distance only to find that it was perhaps an Oak, but with the lights strung in such a way to create an optical illusion. I dearly miss this important tradition of my youth, but it is still there for anyone in the Brandywine River Valley (Pennsylvania/Delaware) to enjoy.

We’d return to my Grandmother’s house for the Christmas Eve celebrations, which for my family were the main sha-bang. Christmas Eve is, after all, full of that magical feeling, that tingly, tangible anticipation, such tremendous excitement that you’d almost reached the most important day of the year. And, when you’re a young kid, you can’t wait to see what Santa brought you.

We de-glamourised things in a hugely consumerist way, in that we grandchildren were tasked with distributing the many, many presents to everyone’s assigned station, mine being a sofa generally bestowed with a huge stack of gifts as I was “easy to buy for”. My grandfather had a certain high-backed chair, my mother a nearby ottoman…..the same places every year. If we came across a gift addressed to “mom” in unfamiliar handwriting (sometimes the gifts were from pets), we’d choose the mom with the fewest gifts, although that often led to bafflement at an inappropriate gift until things were sorted out.

The distribution mission accomplished, with exciting piles of gifts on every chair, we children were then allowed to open one present on Christmas Eve. We would scrutinise our piles and try to select what might be the most exciting gift. It was tremendously disappointing if you wasted your Christmas Eve gift on, say, a summer top or indeed any clothing.

We’d then play Twister, which can only really be played at such a big gathering. No charades for us; I think that’s just an English tradition. It’s odd that there seem to be no photographs of our regular Twister games, relatives stretching oddly across each other to reach certain colourful dots, but then back when film was expensive and one might have to buy separate flash cubes for cameras, then not know ‘til the photos were developed when you finished your film months later if the pictures turned out….well, people took far fewer photographs.

During this family Christmas Eve party, we’d have the main Christmas meal. No turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce for us, as we’d have just had that at the end of November for Thanksgiving. My grandmother would put out a buffet of her various marvellous dishes, the main feature always being tender thick slices of roast beef, which doesn’t interest me as a veggie, but always went down well with the others. For dessert, there were pumpkin and pecan pies—not mincemeat, a description I always took literally so I welcomed its absence. Perhaps this Christmas Eve tradition followed that belief that Christmas began at sunset, but no one ever mentioned why we did things that way.

When it got late, my brother and I would go to our room and try to sleep, although we could hear the grown-ups upstairs still enjoying the party. We would normally wake about 5.30am, and we were allowed to go upstairs to the main part of the house to get our stockings, which we could take back to our rooms and play with whatever we discovered there, leaving the tired grown-ups undisturbed for many hours. As we retrieved out stockings, now leaning against the side of the fireplace as they would be so laden, we could also see what Santa had left. We knew the presents we’d distributed the night before were from family, but obviously, Santa Clause would have come in the night and left the big presents, such as the longed-for electric organ I got once, or skis.

We’d take our stockings downstairs and find them filled with little pocket games and puzzles that we could play with until everyone else woke up, plus maybe magazines or small books, and always candy, particularly an unusual tradition of jewel-coloured hard candy in the shape of boots, which we always had in our stockings, the only time we ate it. Why they were boots, I’ve no idea, and never thought to ask.

Eventually, the adults would wake, and we would begin opening our piles of gifts, carefully recording each one on a notepad so we could write a proper thank you note later. We’d all progress through our piles at the same time as though in a race, but sometimes calling out ‘Oh, I love this! Thank you, Grandmommy!’, or if it was something awful, you could just quietly put it down without offence and move onto the next item. My Grandmother would usually wander around, salvaging any pretty wrapping paper that she might want to reuse (as a pioneer of recycling, she’d also use the front of Christmas cards as gift cards the following year. Mind you, Christmas cards were nothing like as popular over here, and the people who bothered to send them would often just have a photograph taken of the family and let a SnappySnaps equivalent send out the photo postcard with a generic ‘Marry Christmas’ message to everyone they know. Rather cold and too easy, I always thought, although it’s interesting to see how distant people look these days if you don’t often see them.)

We’d then have a subdued brunch, I think with eggs benedict and scrambled eggs, English Muffins—that sort of thing. Friends of my grandmother would pop in to say Merry Christmas and perhaps have some (ugh) egg nog before going on their way, and some years we’d be joined by our cousins, who would have already had a Christmas present extravaganza at my aunt’s house.

And then it was pretty much over. We had no big family meal, all sitting around the table. No, we’d collect our haul and try to jam it into our suitcases. Then my brother and I would head to our father’s house for a more subtle Christmas (with an artsier stocking that might include a Portuguese phrase dictionary and tinned frogs’ legs) with a few more gifts to open, whilst my mother, Grandmother, and Aunt would usually go out for a Chinese meal, as they were the only restaurants open on Christmas, and often catch a film in the afternoon. In the cinema, not on television.

Television played absolutely no part in our Christmases. I remember once going to a pre-Christmas party where my grandmother’s friends put all the kids in a room to watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on the telly, but that was the only time I can ever remember seeing any of the goggle box at Christmas. That would explain why, when watching the Andy Williams Christmas Show on BBC4 recently, it was unfamiliar to me although it wasn’t cancelled until I was 8. Telly had no place in our lives during the holidays. Nor did anyone give a thought as to what song topped the charts that week. Why would you?

At my father’s house, we’d sit and read and read in the peace of the day by a roaring fire and gorgeous tree, waiting for the evening meal, which still was not turkey. My step-mother was an artist so the long dining room table was always impeccably, creatively decorated, with baubles, holly, pine cones and even teddy bears featuring in the centrepiece. Everything was beautiful and calm.

After that, we’d return to our lives in North Carolina, and you’d not want to see anything Christmassy again. The decorations would come down, the trees be discarded or replanted. We would not celebrate Boxing Day, although there were still often sales. I remember from my days in retail management that the stores would open early, painfully for the staff on the day after Christmas, and there would often people queuing outside to return unwanted Christmas gifts. Before 8am on 26 December! They were the ultimate Scrooges….

So whilst I can look back and feel a bit disgusted by the consumerist attitude with such a focus on so many, many presents, I mainly feel warm and fuzzy inside when remembering my childhood Christmases. The piney, spicy scents, gorgeous decorations, the warmth and safety of family, the joy of anticipation and the delight when dreams are fulfilled—it was all so stunningly beautiful and stoked my happy Christmas memories for many years. One day, although my grandmother sadly died in April so it will never be the same, but one day, I shall have to go back to Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, just to see Longwood and the Brandywine River Museum at Christmas. They always will be a huge part of Christmas for me, even from so far away in distance and time.

Art and Sparkle in Piccadilly

This will be a meandering little blog about a meandering little walk I had in Piccadilly the other day. It’s been quite a sorrowful Christmastime, but just that little wander managed to lift my spirits. I love London, and I love how, even though I’ve lived here for over 20 years, I still come across undiscovered pockets and new surprises that make me smile, particularly because parts are always changing.

On this day, I was headed for the Criterion theatre in Piccadilly Circus as I had an extremely cheap ticket to the matinee of 39 Steps, which I’ve wanted to see for ages. My dreadful financial state (I was made redundant some months ago) means I rarely go out now, feeling the need to devote my time to more productive measures principally involving tweaking my c.v. and finding places to send it, then re-calculating my mass outgoings to see what else I can cut rather than lose my precious cats and my home. Still, I missed the theatre, and it was a really cheap seat. And, as you can probably imagine, I missed just leaving the house and briefly not focusing on the impending doom.

As the train wasn’t as late as usual, I arrived with time to kill and headed for the always surprisingly quiet and pleasant Starbucks on Piccadilly near St James’ Palace, taking a quieter route to avoid the Christmas crowds. First, I passed through Trafalgar Square and eyed the ever-present oddities there surrounded by entertained tourists, in this case men dressed as Batman and Charlie Chaplin, and someone with comical repartee on a tall unicycle in front of the National Gallery. I also snapped the famous Christmas tree from Oslo, a warming sight but somewhat muted (although muted is preferred when compared to some ostentatious or bizarre trees….see the South Bank Centre at the end of this entry.)

Even when I am barely celebrating Christmas, as is the case this year, and am thus a bit Scrooge-y, I find that I always enjoy Christmas lights. It does break the monotony of walking down a plain street, after all. It can be an added beauty, or at least a bubbly bit of sparkle even if it’s not to my taste. I paused again across from the entrance to the Royal Opera Arcade (and later the Burlington Arcade) to admire its Christmas garnish for drawing in the shoppers and making things a bit more special, before continuing on my walk.

Always keen to pass through a leafy square when I come across one (weak pun intended), I entered St James’s Square and was drawn to a huge contemporary sculpture that set off the nearby traditional hero-on-horse. It was certainly different and made me think of that Beatles album cover with severed doll’s heads. I loved how offbeat it was for this staid setting.

My general high speed walking and lack of patience has not, I’m afraid, adjusted suitably for my current state of unemployment, so I rushed through the square when I really should have paused to absorb the picture. Or at least to take a decent one--I did snap away with my bad handbag camera, but I was a bit inhibited by a burly security guard type nearby and signs around it warning people off. I can imagine it would otherwise be quite an adventure for a child prone to climbing, as the bronze is a massive five metres by seven metres, a bit like a scaled down ship in the Square. American Paul McCarthy's sculpture is called 'Ship Adrift, Ship of Fools 2010-2011' and is apparently part of his 'The King, The Island, The Train, The House, The Ship' exhibition at the Hauser & Wirth gallery in Piccadilly, which runs until 14 January. The St James’s Square sculpture remains until the next day. Naturally, the gallery’s website describes that artwork thus: “The massive new sculpture is a contemporary rephrasing of a medieval allegory, depicting a world of power without principle as the ship and its denizens hurtle obliviously towards their own destruction.” That’s pretty much what I was thinking when I went past. But if you’re in the area of Piccadilly shortly, do make your way through this peaceful square and enjoy this unusual sight.

Next, rushing up St James’s Street, something caught my eye in a pocket of concrete space on the right, which I initially assumed to be private but then realised it was open to passers-by. So rather than pass by, I cautiously went up the stairs to find myself in what is called The Economist Plaza, a small paved yard outside the publication’s office that seems to be used for temporary art installations. It is currently inhabited by several Antony Gormley-like figures, seated on benches and emerging from plinths. I only stopped briefly and, still with only my low-quality handbag camera, snapped some blurry images of the delights, which I’ve added here.

The mostly cast-iron figures form an installation by Icelandic sculptor Steinunn Thorarinsdottir called Situations, here since September with its run extended from early November owing to popularity, although I don’t know until when. The ‘show’ has been curated by Peter Osborne of Osborne Samuel Gallery . I won’t attempt to evaluate them artistically here or muse as to their meaning; I just admired them, particularly as I came across them unexpectedly. I was alone in a crowd of them for a bit and loved it.

In this day of dreadful theft of public art for scrap metal—such as the Barbara Hepworth’s Two Forms (Divided Circle) and Diane Gorvin’s Dr Salter's Daydream —it is wonderful to see that people have not yet shied away from the concept, and that not all of it has disappeared. Sadly, Steinunn’s website shows that she is not immune, as her Voyage was stolen from a four-metre high plinth in Hull in July and has not been recovered despite arrests having been made. One hopes that CCTV and new restrictions will curb this deplorable practice. One hopes. The scrap metal dealers out there who accept as scrap an obvious artwork and hand out cash for it (as they do railway cables and lead from church roofs) should be ashamed, but clearly have no shame. Or sense of value.

Anyway, despite my drifting onto a depressing flint of reality there, what I saw that morning uplifted me. It is marvellous that people go to great efforts and expense to make such treasures available to us for free, when most of us pass by unaware that it is there. But those who stumble across it are privileged with a secret illumination. And London is full of these treasures; they are everywhere.
When I managed to reach Starbucks on Piccadilly, I barely had time to pour the Chai Tea Latte down my throat as I’d been so pleasantly distracted on my journey. I ended up racing through the crowds on Piccadilly to reach the Criterion and take my place at the utterly wonderful production of 39 Steps, which I highly recommend—it’s delightful, amusing, fast and fun. I may witter on about that specifically another time. But do go.

After snapping a vague shot of the lights of Piccadilly Circus and the Regent Street Christmas lights after the grand show, I made my way to Covent Garden despite the awful rain because, suffering from Unemployed Syndrome, I mistook the day for Thursday (the days can run together without structure and meetings) and hoped to see a Thursday food market. Instead, I joined the tourists and shoppers in admiring the massive Christmas tree and reindeer in front of the market buildings, the giant baubles decorating the main parade, and the topiary candy canes hanging from the Central Avenue, to the tunes of a talented busker.

After that, I rushed to the train station to head home, feeling tremendously better than when I had left home, which I should try to do more often, even though I have so much to do there now. But London always lifts my spirits, just wandering around the streets, even without the Christmas lights.

I did mention the South Bank Centre Christmas trees, which I saw a week later when I met a friend there for lunch (which we had to abandon as all the restaurants were packed with families, so we crossed the river to the Strand and had a lovely lunch there instead). There were some beautifully plain ‘real’ trees outside donning only white lights, like my grandparents used to have on their deck and all around their house. But there were also white ones and bright red ones—I don’t mean the lights but the trees—and trees decorated with flags, and one adorned with pigeons, of course—fake pigeons. Quite awful, but still welcome as they were festive. And different. And, I like to imagine, a little bit tongue-in-cheek. So until my next meander that moves me, I shall leave you….Do go have a meander of your own. I am sure you will always be rewarded with some delightful discovery if you keep your eyes and mind aware.

(Incidentally, I would update my blog more often if Google would let me without repeatedly insisting that I clear caches, allow cookies from any stranger, and shut off all my security software just to sign into my account! Everyone else can cope without making such demands; it makes me wonder what Google is up to….)

Breakfast Club Re-workings....

Several times today and over the next fortnight, the channel Movies24+ is showing a film called The Christmas Card, which has made me delve a bit into my past and look up some old acquaintances—in the modern way without actually contacting them, but instead doing a Google search. The Christmas Card is a pleasant enough, indeed warmly likeable Hallmark-style television film about a family-less Army Sergeant stationed in Afghanistan who receives a Christmas card from a stranger in northern California who, as part of a church charity drive, sends encouraging cards to soldiers. He was so moved by the card and the description of her life and beloved town that, when his senior officer rather oddly convinces him not to sign up for another tour of duty just after a colleague dies in his arms, but instead asks him to go lead a civilian’s life and start by delivering that soldier’s dogtags to the ‘widow’ (though I’m sure the previous dialogue established her as his fiancé, but hey, it’s television). He ends up in the town described in the Christmas card and within minutes of arriving bumps into the sender of the card, of course, and falls in love with her. But she’s engaged, and it’s complicated…. Still, he sticks around, gets a job working for her family’s logging firm and even stays in her family home, naturally after saving her father (played by Ed Asner) from getting hit by a car. All sweet with many improbabilities, but it’s all rather endearing if you just accept it.

The plot is not what drove me to look backwards. None of that relates to me. I initially wasn’t even watching it so much as having it on in the background as I worked on the PC, but I turned to see that the hero was someone I recognised as being a well-known child star, because his mouth was unmistakably familiar. I could easily picture it simpering in some wimpy way, perhaps in an 80s sitcom or some big Home Alone –type film as it—more than the rest of the man—was so well known to me. I can place actors quite quickly—even if it’s just from an appearance in a Poirot I’ve seen a dozen times, but this time, I had to resort to the Internet Movie Database.

I scanned the list of films and other appearances, which included some well known programmes like Desperate Housewives and Melrose Place, neither of which I had watched. None of the films were the household names I had been expecting. He was in Alive, playing one of the survivors of an air crash who ate the others, but I hadn’t managed to face seeing that yet (though it’s now on order with Amazon). I’d rather watch something fuzzy and warm like The Christmas Card.

I was baffled. What did I know him from? Then I saw that he was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where I grew up. How funny! I thought , but that still didn’t lead me down the obvious path as loads of people are from there, many of whom are decent entertainers—James Taylor, Loudon Wainwright III, Ben Folds, Squirrel Nut Zippers, the dBs and others I can’t think of now, but seriously, there are loads.

Then I saw he was only a few months older than I am. Hmmmm…… So I got out my 1982 yearbook and looked up John Newton in my class and, sure enough, there was the face of the ‘child star’ with the simpering mouth that I was thinking of, but on a skinny boy who looked vastly different. So I was remembering the child, not the star. He certainly wasn’t a star then. In fact, whilst I really can’t picture where he fit into the scheme of things, and I can’t recall whether he’s someone I’d say hello to if I passed by, I definitely think of him immediately as being a bit of a, well, the word dweeb comes to mind but I can’t be certain why. When I searched for clues in the yearbooks of those three years at Chapel Hill High School, looking for his appearances other than his official class photo, I only found him once as a member of the small Dive Club, which I didn’t know existed. Much to my surprise, I seem to be on every page, in every club even though I also volunteered at the hospital until I was old enough to work and then I had a busy job in a department store. I thought I led a quiet existence where I wasn’t noticed too much, but it looks like I was busier than I recall, and my yearbooks are filled with passages written by (often merely vaguely recalled) people thanking me for being such a great friend, even though I usually left the school early to go away so often didn’t get time to pass ‘round my yearbook for many signatures.

It’s all a frustrating mystery. In a sense, I’d quite like to have a day to go back in time and wander around my high school as an observer at that time. I wouldn’t want to find myself, like one of those Disney films, suddenly in my high school body expected to deal with everything thrown at me by everyone and pass exams I hadn’t studied for because I’d been a 43-year-old woman the previous day. No thank you. But I’d like to walk around invisibly beside that me and observe who she interacts with and try to place everything, given that I don’t have the technological record of it all that kids these days do with their mobiles uploading videos to their facebook pages and all that. So I’d just like a refresher course, plus it would be interesting to see what people were really thinking now that I know how to read them better. And see what I was really like because I never seem to have had a real clue about that, or how others saw me.

As I married an Englishman and left the country as soon as I finished University, I lost those ties that many people who stay in the same town retain. Fortunately, a close high school friend is now living in the New Forest so I was able to ask her if she remembered this John Newton. She recognised his name immediately—more than I can say—but when she googled him and saw the photos of this fairly attractive chap who’s in shape and has great hair, she understandably couldn’t place him as a fellow high school student. That’s because, looking at him, you would assume he’s always been attractive, that he was the big man on campus, perhaps the star quarterback. Nay.

That’s what pleases me so much. I really can’t recall precisely what I thought of him, but looking at his fellow Dive Club members, there’s one guy I remember well who was, well, not widely respected as a winner, and I think John probably hung around with him and was judged by that company, plus I think he probably didn’t carry himself with the mature social skills that some of the real Big Men on Campus did. So I’m thrilled for him that he moved on from that and carved out what seems to be a much better life for himself and I hope he’s happy with it.

It seems that, not long after leaving high school where probably not enough of us noticed him or gave him any credit (or just plain thought he was a loser, because we’re all cruel at that age), he was ‘discovered’ and cast as the lead in the series Superboy. Okay, I never knew there was a series called Superboy. But looking at the DVD covers on the Amazon.com site, he really fits the bill even then. He looks like a young Superman, and I can see him playing Clark Kent as well (I would always prefer Clark Kent, though bumbling can be a turn-off). He’s quoted on his IMDB page as having taken up martial arts and the spirituality that goes with it after he left school, and that’s no doubt what led to the fuller body and Superboy look. Again, good on him.

Now he’s a jobbing actor with a wife and I hope he’s happy. He could go back to the high school reunion, if they have those, and no doubt draw a crowd of drooling women who had ignored him then, and—well, not pay them back in a Carrie-like manner, but just get his own back perhaps in the satisfaction that he’s made something of himself (mind you, most people but me seem to have done so!).

Go John! And, as my friend says, seeing him in that 2006 film looking quite good and youthful also reassures us that we’re not as old as we might sometimes feel. I might just watch the film again tonight. The whole reason I had it on to begin with was I’m trying to convince my system that Christmas is on its way, and far too quickly. It was somehow September one minute and now that massive holiday is with us in just a matter of days, which is terrifying. So I could do with a bit more Christmas spirit, and indeed in the film, Christmas seems to be going on for a few weeks.

Flicking through the yearbook briefly, I saw photos of a few boys who I had crushes on for an age (usually until they asked me out, at which point the interest evaporated, a cruel curse I’m not sure I’ve shaken), of people who I have heard are microbiologists and other impressive doctor-y sorts now, and a few other memorable souls. There were members of The Pressure Boys, the great local ska group (who copied Madness’ trademark group walk, and whose Mitch Easter co-produced fine 80s album Jump! Jump! Jump! I was thrilled to be able to get recently from Amazon on MP3 since my vinyl is in the States) and one that caught my eye in particular was Stacy Guess, who was always particularly intriguing—if not a bit out of it—because he was an incredible trumpet player, and I once played the trumpet in the school band, albeit truly dreadfully. He went on to join the fantastic Squirrel Nut Zippers (you must get their Christmas Caravan album and make sure you start any long Christmas journey with Sleigh Ride blaring; it is so tremendously uplifting!) but a few years after leaving the band, he died of a heroin overdose. Very sad.

Another musician in our midst easily caught my eye as I glanced over the class photos: Dexter Romweber. Even at the age of 16 or so, he stands out with his jet black greased paramour rockabilly haircut, and he and similarly coiffed Tony Mayer would always wear distinct long black coats over white t-shirts. They weren’t racing to keep up with 80s fashion like the rest of us; they could care less.

I always liked Dexter. I liked that he looked different and dared to look different. But our paths didn’t cross that often, and I doubt we would have had much in common other than a love of music. I do remember playing some part in our Junior Follies talent show one year, which was thrown to fund the Senior Prom, and sitting with the overseeing teacher, Kip Gerard, auditioning the acts and deciding who would be on the bill and in what order. One band had this drummer I liked (initially because I had a crush on his friend, but then after talking to him a few times I realised he was pretty neat himself, very calm and confident), and I loved that they covered such things as XTC’s Burning with Optimism’s Flame, which ain’t that easy if you want to sound good, and The Romantics’ What I Like About You.

Also on the bill was a noisy rock band I didn’t rate called something about an exit or a motorway, and then The Kamikazes--Dexter and Tony's band. They were special, like having the Stray Cats on our high school stage, but with more of a goth look and less of a pop sound. Everything was black; I feel like Dexter even put black under his eyes like a boxer but I’m probably imagining that. I don’t recall much about their sound now; I just clearly picture Dexter and Tony with their rockabilly-coiffed jet black hair, and Eric Peterson, I think his name was, who really caught my eye with his lovely wilder blonde style (which now brings to mind Sideshow Bob of the Simpsons.) He held more of a fascination for me but didn’t go to our school, as I recall, and I think Tony was younger, but Dexter was in my class.

Around then, Dexter’s sister Sara was finding fame as the drummer in the band Let’s Active, who had a record contract and some great songs, including Room With a View and Every Word Means No, the latter of which I feel certain was used in a film. (There is even a tribute album out for the band, which included Mitch Easter and Faye Hunter). Now Sara's joined her kid brother in the Dex Romweber Duo, and, having had their new album hastily delivered to me by Amazon after stumbling across Dexter again in the pages of my yearbook, I’m so impressed to hear that quiet eccentric-looking kid in my class belting out some of his own songs in such a mature, impressive voice, joined on the album by the likes Cat Power, Neko Case and Exene Cervenka of X (at least two of whom he’s toured with). Rick Miller of Southern Culture on the Skids, another local group, joins in on guitar on the odd track, but I am biased against SCOTS (not Scots though, you understand) as one of their past bassists who idolised Tina Weymouth worked with me at a department store and convinced naïve foolish me to lend her my photos that I took from the front of the Talking Heads concert during their Stop Making Sense tour, negatives and all so she could get reprints (back in the old timey camera days), and she STOLE them all, the absolute cow. I hate her for life and am glad she’s no longer in the band and hope she’s now employed scrubbing the toilets at her old school.

But back to Dexter, he sounds so incredibly mature on this album….but then, we are 43-ish, and he’s been in the business since he could walk. On some songs, he sounds like Tom Waits, others Nick Cave, sometimes even Johnny Cash. Many are covers and I liked quite a lot of them. And apparently Jack White (I’m not a fan but I know everyone else is) is a big fan of Dexter’s and suggests he wouldn’t be where he is today were it not for Dexter’s influence, particularly from when he was in Flat Duo Jets. I had no idea what to expect from this album—and there are others on their way—but I am terribly impressed, and I’m highly critical. Good ol’ little Dexter.

And me, what have I done? Well, I haven’t made it big yet. I like to ignore the fact that time is passing and I seem to have a dull, miserable job in a place where I’ve been trapped for most of my adult life which is now becoming unbearable (no doubt because they know we must be thankful to have a job now, so they torment us while they can). I have written trillions of songs, a few of them decent, and I have at least two solid books in my head that I need to find the time to write down before I go senile (which I worry will be soon), and several other plot ideas with scribbled bits of paper all around the house to go in them. If only I weren’t working full-time even out of hours at my stupid miserable job. I worry that, the same way that I let the University experience pass me by by working full time during my 4.5 years there, I am letting my destined life and dreams pass me by by working more than full time now. That would be really awkward, to say the least, if I woke to realise that I was 75 and still hadn’t gotten around to dealing with my creative side that I feel really does have something to offer (though everyone believes that about themselves I suppose) if given the chance. But it may well happen…..

Perhaps that’s why I’m all the more supportive and thrilled for the success that these other classmates have accomplished. Maybe everyone hasn’t heard of actor John Newton. Maybe loads of music lovers haven’t yet been exposed to Dex Romweber, though I recommend having a stab at his music. (I know that even a recommendation from someone like Jack White won’t draw in the public when recommendations about Ron Sexsmith from Elvis Costello and Paul McCartney haven’t brought him the fame he has really earned. In fact, he apparently was passing out fliers for his lawn service the day after the Flat Duo Jets played on David Letterman). But, though it’s a bit unlikely, they could one day be on the future equivalent of Parky explaining that, surprising though it seems when you look at them and where they are now, they were not popular in high school and just did not fit in. And those who really did fit in, where are they now? Maybe failing in the society of high school is a good sign as it’s not the real world and it’s best to wait to bloom later when it counts. Some of us are still waiting!

So that’s the long, rambling stroll down memory lane all caused by a Christmas film that I wasn’t even watching……

Recycle Your Cards for the Woodland Trust

I have loads to mention but have had no time recently, so for now I will just refer to a good cause.....

Please do not just throw out your Christmas cards, or even put them in your Council's wastepaper recycling scheme. The Woodland Trust always runs a special Christmas card recycling scheme this time of year, and your cards will end up doing much more good if you recycle them that way.

Just take them with you to WH Smith, Marks & Spencer's, Tesco or TK Maxx, where they all have a special cardboard bin for them. The bins will remain there until 31 January. Your cards will act like donations to help the Trust create 'the largest new native forest in England', Heartwood Forest, or enable the Trust, who will recycle your cards, to plant thousands of trees in four other UK sites, such as Low Burnhall and Cefn Ila.

It's a wonderful scheme, and such an easy gesture to accomplish so much. Go to
http://www.woodland-trust.org.uk/cards/ to read more (or to watch a message in support of the campaign from Clive Anderson wearing a Santa hat).

Alternatively, if there are a few cards that you find really pretty and can't bear to part with yet, but might manage it in another year, you could recycle in the style of my Grandmother, who has always saved the fronts of cards and used them as gift cards the following year, taping the main part of the card to the top of a gift and scribbling on it the gift recipient's name and her signature. Thrifty, but it doesn't plant trees.

Christmas Specials for Flagging Christmas Spirits

I've intended for weeks to post something about recommended Christmas music, as I have a shocking number of CDs and now downloaded Christmas classics and new, alternative songs, but December and Christmas just seemed to appear suddenly after October (and I would have included Loudon Wainwright III's song Suddenly It's Christmas). Even though here in England, you have Boxing Day and celebrate the 12 days of Christmas so might still tolerate carols and the like for a while, we Americans find much of that distasteful after the 25th and see it as bad luck to still have our decorations up on New Year's Day, so I think I'll leave the massive music discussion 'til next year. But as several people are still celebrating Christmas with a houseful of guests that they need to entertain, I thought I might as well highlight a few things worth watching in the spirit of Christmas, which you might already have in your DVD collection, or can download or try to get for next year.

In an effort to get myself in a Christmassy mood last year, given that I rarely feel it anymore, I pulled out all the DVDs I had with a Christmas theme, be they Christmas specials of sitcoms, films set around the Christmas period, or the special animations I grew up loving, most of which I had to source from the States. It occurred to me that some of you might find such a list useful so I thought I'd share. [Given the original purpose of my list, it excludes most of the more recent holiday films that might, for instance, star California Governors or Jim Carrey (sorry but I can’t stand him), or shows like The Royle Family, which have never appealed to me, or things I don't own like The Good Life, which is shown regularly enough on television.]

In no particular order other than sitcoms first, then films, then animated Christmas specials (more or less)....

Knowing Me, Knowing Yule with Alan Partridge – This is included on the DVD of the Knowing Me, Knowing You series, which is absolutely worth getting. As you can imagine, Steve Coogan’s most famous character Alan fronts a Christmas special where everything is awkward and most things go wrong for him, so it’s all delicious.

Ever Decreasing Circles: Christmas Special 1984 (on second series DVD). Martin is put out when Ann agrees to put up 23 of Paul’s guests over Christmas, including Paul, until he gets stuck into organising the challenging sleeping arrangements. Almost nothing happens, just that, so it isn’t worth seeking out, nor is it that Christmassy, but it’s an excuse to revisit the fond old characters if you happen to have this.

Father Ted: A Christmassy Ted. This is fortunately getting a great deal of rotation on the telly, principally More 4, but if you have the series on DVD, which you should, it appears on the Series 2, Part 1 disc. Although there isn’t an awful lot that is Christmassy about it, it is just a total joy to watch, with the usual outstanding characters, a fun plot where Ted wins an award for helping a group of priests escape from a lingerie department where they’d accidentally found themselves and thus avoid scandal, and a mysterious stranger who turns up to steal his award. All brilliant as always, definitely one to enjoy at any time of year.

To The Manor Born: 1979 Christmas Special, on the Series Two DVD. There was also, of course, a 25th anniversary Christmas special in 2007, but that is not included in the box set. In this earlier episode, Audrey tries to ensure that she carries on with her traditional duty of providing the Christmas crib at the church, whereas Richard also plans to provide one as the vicar told him the job goes with the manor. His is a bit gaudy and new, and nothing too much happens, but if you like the sitcom, this is just more of the same.

The Office Christmas Specials – Of course, this two-parter is a modern classic. The way you end up longing two characters will get together Jane Austen-style, the little scares the writers create when it seems like it can never happen, and the happy endings for several of the characters….it’s not just funny but warm and fuzzy at Christmastime.

Watching—The first series ends with Seasoning¸ broadcast in 1987, where Emma Wray’s character Brenda tries to celebrate Christmas with mother’s boy boyfriend Malcolm with difficulty. Liza Tarbuck, looking oddly much older (and fatter) 21 years ago than she does now, plays Pamela who is still with her slimy married boyfriend, who arranges for Malcolm to get a cheap dodgy Christmas tree. It's just good to enjoy the characters again, and it's strange that only two series of the programme, which I understand always enjoyed high ratings, have been released so far.

Butterflies: Christmas with the Parkinsons (1979). I don’t seem to have the DVD of the second series, but I seem to recall there was something about Ria, as usual, feeling guilty about her relationship with Leonard at a time of year when people apparently should be particularly honest.

Poirot – I have always been an Agatha Christie fan, and I’ve always enjoyed the television adaptations featuring David Suchet as Poirot—more so the older ones than more recent productions. The Christmas episode that is normally shown this time of year is, understandably given its title, Hercule Poirot’s Christmas (1994). Whilst an entertaining enough story centred around the murder of Simeon Lee and his houseful of relatives who hated him, it doesn’t have that much to do with Christmas, other than Poirot has been asked to spend Christmas there and in the last scene, everyone has remarkably recovered from the tragedy and is pictured smiling around the tree with loads of carollers in their home. I prefer the more Christmassy The Theft of the Royal Ruby (1991), which is not as dark and features Christmas trees, Christmas puddings, singing Christmas carols at a Christmas church service, a happy family playing charades at Christmas, and so forth. Delightful fun, with a good cast including Stephanie Cole (Waiting for God), Frederick Treves—who also stars in one of my favourite Miss Marple stories, The Sleeping Murder—and Helena Michell, who stars in another Marple favourite, At Bertram’s Hotel—and of course I mean the outstanding ones starring Joan Hickson and not the more recent destructive adaptations with a badly cast Miss Marple. Nigel Le Valliant (Dangerfield) also stars in this Poirot, and I never fail to smile at the brilliantly played civil servant Jesmond by David Howey.

The Vicar of Dibley: I admit I feel a bit Dibleyed out; the programmes seem to be on the cable channels so often I know them too well. Still, it’s worth revisiting at this time the first series’ Christmas episode, The Christmas Lunch Incident, when Dawn French’s character has, out of the kindness of her heart, accepted a Christmas lunch invitation at apparently every household in the parish and has lost the ability to explain why she might not want to consume every last course, but it’s light-hearted, enjoyable enough stuff. I’m sure I prefer that episode to the later one in 1999 (Series 3: Winter), where Alice, playing Mary in a Nativity Play, really gives birth. There were other specials from 2004, by which time I’d lost touch with the series, and you can get the DVD A Very Dibley Christmas, which contains Merry Christmas, where the parishioners celebrate Geraldine’s 10 years in Dibley and give her a chocolate fountain, which she oddly dives into before being surprised by the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Happy New Year, which isn’t exactly jolly as it focuses heavily on the Make Poverty History campaign. The episode shown on Christmas day in 2006, The Handsome Stranger, where Geraldine gets engaged to the new Richard Armitage character, scored the highest ratings of any Christmas day programme in the UK by that time.

Diner – It’s not about Christmas, but it’s set at Christmastime, and it’s a truly excellent film with an Oscar-nominated semi-autobiographical script by director Barry Levinson (this was his directing debut), with a killer soundtrack of pieces from the period (1959) and an amazing cast who were almost entirely unknown at the time, including Mickey Rourke, Ellen Barkin (in her first film), Steve Guttenberg, Daniel Stern, Kevin Bacon, Timothy Daly and Paul Reiser. Daly's character returns to Baltimore to meet up with his school friends, and the character-led piece shows us a groom who insists the bride must pass a quiz about his favourite sports team before he'll go ahead with the wedding (in the theme of the team's colours), a gambler who plans in desperation to use his friend's wife horribly to win a bet, an accidental pregnancy with an independent woman refusing marriage, a mother who chases her lazy son around the table with a knife, a man who values his music collection and how it is organised more than his wife, an intelligent heavy-drinking wastrell disowned by his wealthy family, and a great deal of subtle raise-a-smile comedy throughout. It’s absolutely worth watching any time of year, one of my all-time favourite films.

While You Were Sleeping (1995) – Not strictly a holiday film—it’s enjoyable at any time of the year—but it does take place at Christmas and is very much a Cinderella story where a lonely Chicago subway worker without family works on Christmas as usual when she sees the passenger on whom she’s had a crush mugged and pushed onto the tracks. She (Sandra Bullock) saves him and visits him in hospital where he lies unconscious, and his boisterous big family visit him and mistake her for his fiancée, thus welcoming her into their home at Christmas. She meanwhile starts to accidentally fall for the coma guy’s brother, played perfectly by Bill Pullman, just when the coma guy, Peter Gallagher, wakes but believes his lack of memory about Sandra Bullock’s character is down to his accident, so plans to go ahead with the wedding. She’s drawn into all this not because she’s deceitful, but she’s alone in life and was suddenly accepted so warmly by this family, and she fell for the family. The great cast also includes the late Peter Boyle (better known now as the father from Everybody Loves Raymond), Jack Warden and Glynis Johns. A definite feel-good film, with a holiday spirit.

Holiday Inn—A 1942 Irving Berlin black/white film where the original performance by Bing Crosby of White Christmas came from. That song wasn’t expected to be the big hit, but it topped the chart in October that year and stayed there for 11 weeks. The film starred Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, and another well-known Christmas song, Happy Holiday, plays over the opening credits. The international hotel chain was apparently named after the film. Beware that the film was colorised in 2008…..

White Christmas – A delightful Irving Berlin musical starring Bing Crosby, the amazing Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney (who I grew up thinking of as the fat woman who advertised paper towels, but in this is still the smoky famed 50s singer, and now is perhaps better known as George Clooney’s auntie), and the lovely, leggy Vera-Ellen. Great fun, naturally a bit silly at times, some marvellous, fun songs including the title song, Snow; Sisters; What Can You Do With a General; Gee, I Wish I Was Back in the Army; and Love, You Didn’t Do Right By Me, with some great dance numbers as the four stars are not only stage performers but end up putting on a big show at the end….in snowy Vermont, where they have a white Christmas, of course. The film was meant to be a loose re-working of Holiday Inn, and Fred Astaire refused to play the Danny Kaye part when he saw the script, so the magnificent Donald O’Connor was brought in but had to give up the part owing to an injury. Kaye fits in brilliantly though, and it’s bound to help with your Christmas spirit particularly if you’re into old Hollywood musicals.

Elf – I didn’t see Jon Favreau’s 2003 comedy until last year, and I thought it was fairly good fun, bearing in mind it’s directed at children. Will Farrell does a wonderful job as the naïf who was raised at the North Pole and returns to New York to search for his father, the unwilling character played by James Caan. Ed Asner is Santa, the legendary Bob Newhart is Papa Elf, and Mary Steenburgen and Amy Sedaris also take part, with Zooey Deschanel playing the elf’s love interest and treating us to some of her singing skills. A ‘feel-good’ film, as they say.

Bad Santa - It’s difficult to know who the audience is for this film, as most of it is completely unsuitable for children, rude and disgusting and sometimes evil and violent, but then there’s a gooey warm story that shines through in the end as though it’s aimed at children, and it can be funny. I seem to recall wondering what I got myself into initially, but enjoying it in the end. The film has a lot of winning elements, produced by the Coen brothers, starring the immensely talented Billy Bob Thornton, featuring the now late Bernie Mac and the late John Ritter (in his final role) and the terrific Cloris Leachman. It’s worth a viewing in the right company, but it’s no Miracle on 34th Street.

It’s a Wonderful Life – I hadn’t watched Frank Capra’s classic in years as I felt I’d memorised it, but it’s worth seeing again when you can—so much content, and much darker moments than you might recall. That bad guy doesn’t even get punished for his hugely damaging theft in the end, and these black parts might be why the film wasn’t a hit until, years later, someone forgot to renew the copyright so it was shown loads on television and won over a later audience. Karolyn Grimes, the actress who played the young Bailey child, Zuzu, continues to promote it every Christmas and has recently been talking about her unhappy life, having lost so many loved ones including her parents in her teens and later her son to suicide, but how the film soothes so many with its message of hope and learning to appreciate what you really have.

Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence – Don’t be fooled by the title; I'm probably recommending against watching this if you're trying to find Christmas spirit. Despite those words at the end being uttered by a doomed man, there is little jolly or Christmassy about this 1983 Nagisa Oshima film. I loved it when I saw it as a young teenager on late night cable, but reduced my opinion slightly when I finally got hold of the DVD a trillion years later. Still, it has much that is interesting: Tom Conti being fantastic in his role as a senior officer imprisoned in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, David Bowie being the rebel rebel and getting buried up to his neck in sand, composer/musician Ryuchi Sakamoto as the heartless head of the prison camp, some occasional decent music, the score by Sakamoto, including the gorgeous Forbidden Colours, although I seem to recall that only the instrumental plays over the end titles although the version with outstanding vocals by David Sylvian of (ironically?) Japan appears on the CD/vinyl soundtrack.

Love, Actually—I seem to recall a big Christmas link in the Martine McCutcheon story at least, but I loathed this so much, I can’t say more and can't even be bothered to pull out the DVD to see even if the cover confirms that. But I realise I’m apparently the only person in the world who thought this was shocking tripe. Unfortunately, I buy many DVDs before seeing the film, but this may be one you own that you would like to revisit.

An Irish Christmas – I got this DVD some years ago because it included Brian Kennedy, but I found it painful to watch. I have to add that when I finally saw it a year or so later, I felt I’d been perhaps too harsh, but it does have a very cold feeling and needs some background music or something. Basically, several Irish artists are seated around a Christmas table hosted by Phil Coulter, and they discuss such things as their past Christmas memories. But it’s all awkward, it has a distinct feel of having been filmed in August, the room they are in looks like cold and empty with a round table placed in the centre, the conversation is very forced and prompted in an obvious manner by Coulter, there is little warmth, the lack of some sort of audible music during the conversational parts makes it dry, and it the editing makes it look ridiculous as it is pieced together out of sequence—one minute they’re eating their dessert, then they’re taking mouthfuls of meat around a carved turkey, then the turkey’s being served whole to them—that sort of thing. In between the stilted conversation, we see clips of the guests doing what they’re famous for in what seems to be a dark neighbouring room that sometimes at least has a better dressed set. Kennedy, thankfully, sings, as do the Celtic Tenors (who weren’t invited to dinner apparently), a frosty Jean Butler, an original Riverdance star, dances, and fine singers Moya Brennan and Maura O’Connell also step out to sing, though much of it isn’t terribly Christmassy to the average person. Frank McCourt is one of the guests and he reads the kind of gross passage of Angela’s Ashes about the pig’s head, which you can also hear on the CD of the same name. But as I said, I think my original judgement was largely down to disappointment and perhaps too harsh. Although it doesn't feel Christmassy to me, it’s another holiday programme of sorts, in any case; it just could have been done better.

The following are true classics that are always shown on television at home in the States and I’m astonished that they haven’t been adopted over here. I strongly suggest you get a multi-region DVD player (or plays these on a laptop perhaps) and get the Region 1 DVDs from the States until they are released here, although a few finally have been. Christmas isn’t Christmas without them….

A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) - An American friend was kind enough to send years ago the box set of the Peanuts specials that we all grew up watching, for Christmas, Thanksgiving and Halloween. This special might be to us the same way that The Snowman is to the English, in that perhaps its appeal is that you saw it as a young child so the tradition more than the content means something to you (I just don’t get the appeal of the Snowman, other than the song). But it’s warm-hearted and has the usual fuzzy messages about not taking for granted the important things around you, and it memorably helps an unwanted, tiny tree…. Time Out recently recommended the programme, though, so perhaps you don’t have to have watched it in the States all your life to enjoy it, and they say it’s downloadable, too (at http://www.tiny.cc/brown )….. Definitely younger children should enjoy it, as does this 42-year-old child.

Dr Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966) -- The live action version starring the awful Jim Carrey cannot--nor could anything truly--replace the original fine animation in any case; it’s a true classic, and still enjoyable. Dr Seuss’ clever rhyming, wonderfully smooth and colourful animation before the days of CGI—outstanding, really, by Chuck Jones, a catchy song, narration by Boris Karloff, a cute long-suffering dog wearing fake antlers….it’s just grand. The DVD also contains the great non-Christmas story, Horton Hears a Who! This is now available on Region 2 and Amazon.co.uk is selling it for only £5.

Frosty the Snowman – From 1969, another Rankin/Bass Christmas animation classic. An evil magician tosses away his magic hat when he thinks it’s failed, but it brings a snowman to life (voiced by Jackie Vernon), and the schoolkids who made him feel he needs to be taken to the North Pole so he won’t melt. The trouble with that is, children don’t do as well in freezing temperatures. A “storm of adventures” ensues, with the evil magician and his cute rabbit in hot pursuit now that he realises his hat really has powers. Warm and fuzzy, an essential part of Christmas. There is music, not just the famous title song on which it was based, and the narrator is Jimmy Durante, who also sings. They have included on the DVD Frosty Returns, which was made in 1992 with John Goodman as Frosty and Jonathan Winters narrating, but that’s just awful, choking us with a fixed environmental message showing that a whole town’s free use of de-icer on their windscreens is destroying the planet and Frosty, or something like that. It was disappointingly dire, even though I’m generally supportive of teaching youngsters the climate change message, but the original cartoon on its own is worth the price. Actually, a £4 version appears to be available in the UK now; go for it.

Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town (1970) – Another Rankin Bass musical treat, this time stop-motion animation with figures, but it’s wonderful to watch. It never seemed to be featured as much as the eminently popular Rudolph, but has some fun (and some soppy) songs, is narrated by Fred Astaire (who also sings), features Mickey Rooney voicing the lead character Kris Kringle and Keenan Wynn as Winter. It creates an explanation for Santa Claus and several Christmas traditions with quite an adventure as the evil Burgermeister bans toys from the town, the woods that Kris must pass through are guarded by a winter warlock, and there is a love interest. All good fun, heartwarming stuff. On the same DVD is The Little Drummer Boy, a 1958 stop-motion animation that was much jerkier, with a much darker feel to it. I used to find it a bit depressing as a child, particularly as a beloved lamb gets run over, and there’s slavery of sorts…..but I braved watching it again last year and it wasn’t anything like as bad as I recalled, it's just not the brightly coloured, all-happy gentle stuff we had in my (later) day, and perhaps I hadn’t watched it through ‘til the happy ending because I was so upset about the lamb. Greer Garson narrates a bit coldly, Jose Ferrer as Ben Haramad, and the Vienna Boy’s Choir provides some music, including the title song of course. But it’s worth seeing; it was a very early production, after all, so some sharp edges can be forgiven, and it's based on a Biblical story rather than a happy Christmas song or fairytale stuff. Still, it has songs and cute animals. There is a Region 2 version of this DVD available in the UK.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer – This is the ultimate Christmas special. They showed it over here in the UK once that I recall, tucked away one morning on Channel 5 or something, and I really can’t understand why it’s not a prime time feature every year. Everybody must see it. Again, it is Rankin/Bass stop-motion animation, this time from 1964, with cute talking reindeer, catchy songs, and a real adventure, although this is more of a feature-length special than the quickies like Frosty. Rudolph is bullied because of his glowing nose, so he runs away and bumps into an outcast elf who just wants to be a dentist, so the two ‘misfits’ runaway together and come across the land of misfit toys and the terrifying abominable snowman before eventually returning home just in time to save Christmas, which is almost cancelled because of the blizzard….you know that bit. Burl Ives narrates and sings. Seek it out somehow, you really must have it in your Christmas collection, but make sure you don’t accidentally get the 1998 film or 1953 special. This is essential.

Happy Christmas!