If you celebrate Christmas, I can do no better for a weekend reading recommendation than to commend to you a great classic from Dylan Thomas: A Child’s Christmas in Wales. This piece sits somewhere between between poetry and prose, conjuring up rich imagery of Christmas from a simpler time, populated with memorable and familiar characters. A small sample:
For dinner we had turkey and blazing pudding, and after dinner the Uncles sat in front of the fire, loosened all buttons, put their large moist hands over their watch chains, groaned a little and slept. Mothers, aunts and sisters scuttled to and fro, bearing tureens. Auntie Bessie, who had already been frightened, twice, by a clock-work mouse, whimpered at the sideboard and had some elderberry wine. The dog was sick. Auntie Dosie had to have three aspirins, but Auntie Hannah, who liked port, stood in the middle of the snowbound back yard, singing like a big-bosomed thrush.
You can read the full text here.
Or, for a real treat, listen to a recording of Dylan Thomas reciting it here.
A very Merry Christmas to you and yours, and warmest best wishes for a happy and healthy New Year!
Woodcut by Ellen Raskin from A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas, New Directions, 1954, 1959.
via: Black and White
