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| It turned out small American girls were not fond of Dylan Thomas. |
I
was a bright, shiny new step father
on Christmas Eve of 1981. Kathy and
I had been married all of one week. With foolish
enthusiasm, I wanted to establish our own family traditions for the holiday
that, hopefully, would endear me to hearts of my new daughters. Carolynne was nine years old, Heather only seven.
One
night earlier that week I rushed from my job
repairing football shoulder pads to a bookstore
on Lincoln Avenue conveniently
located near a favorite saloon. Undoubtedly fueled by a couple of shots of Christian Brothers with beer
backs, I plunged into the store. I
found what I was looking for—a nice small edition
of one of my own favorite Christmas
stories with some charming illustrations.
After
dinner on Christmas Eve, and some negotiations between the girls and their
mother over whether they would be able to open any under-the-tree presents that night—she let them open one—I asked
them to settle next to me on the couch. Kathy played some carols softly on the on the stereo.
I
was as excited as I could be. I could
picture the girls, all grown up, reading this same story to their children
fondly remembering me, of course. I
opened the book and in my most mellifluous
voice began to read.
 |
| Less than a week before their terrifying brush with A Child's Christmas in Wales, my new daughters Heather and Carolynne with my cousin Linda at the family dinner after my wedding to their mother. |
I
think I read four lines before they began to squirm. After the second paragraph, just as the story was
getting going, Heather bleated out pitifully, “Mom! This is boring! Do we have to!” Carolynne seconded the anguish.
Since
it was not my intention to actually
torture any children, I reluctantly shut my book and let them clamor down
to play with the plastic pin ball game
that they had opened. I was heartbroken, but did my best to keep up
a brave front.
The
evening got better. I, notorious heathen in those days, was
exposed to my first ever Christmas
midnight mass with a half an hour of caroling
by the congregation before the
service. We walked home from church in
the sparkling cold and tucked in the girls—who woke us about 3 AM to open
presents. We made them go back to sleep,
but could not delay Christmas morning for long.
I
never again tried to inflict my children with the story. From Christmas to Christmas they would remind
me of my foolishness. It comes up even to this day, so I guess I did
start a tradition of sorts.
Anyway,
I still love the story and privately, when no one is looking, read it for
myself every year.
This
year, I decided to try to share it again.
This time with you. I hope it
doesn’t make you squirm.
A Child’s Christmas in Wales
By Dylan Thomas
One Christmas was so much like another, in those years
around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking
of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember
whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it
snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.
All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea,
like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and
they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my
hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that
wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays resting at the rim of the
carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen.
This was my childhood tradition as well. Every December, Classical Radio Station WFMT in Chicago would play Dylan Thomas recounting the story of his childhood Christmases in Wales. I'm sure you heard it too, old friend.
ReplyDeleteWe have the tape, but sadly no longer a tape player in the car. We streamed the reading instead, on the hour's drive back from Marietta, the nearest UU Christmas Eve service, for our grown children and new grandson. He cried ;-)
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