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#1: The Fir-Tree Festival Author: Secret Santa, Location: The North Pole

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 2:06 pm
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This is an updated, Chalet-themed version of Alexandra Kollontai's classic short story. I hope this is the right chimney to send it down - it's a bit left-field, but probably too serious for St Clare's! I've taken the liberty of naming Joey's first Christmas play - Santas can take the odd liberty, I believe!! With lots of love to Sarah_K from Santa.

Josephine wiped her eyes, and wrapped the manuscript carefully in its cloth. It would never do to have it spoilt, and it was so hard to stop the twins and Meggie and all their friends getting hold of any of her treasures. With a big sigh, she tucked the cloth parcel carefully underneath her mattress – the most private place she could think of – and gave herself up to the last ten minutes of privacy before she was due at the cook-house to help prepare the evening meal. It was getting dark, and lights weren’t allowed before five o’clock, so she would have to stop reading in any case. Josephine felt dazed. Why did A Wartime Christmas make her feel so weepy? As if nothing nice would ever happen again? As if she had been allowed to look into the window of a toy library in the knowledge she would never be allowed to play with any of the toys within? She gave herself up to thinking about the day’s events…

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Today had begun like the first Monday of every month, with a visit to the Rest Home to see Great-Grandma. Josephine was fond of the old lady, and loved to listen to her stories of the Olden Times, before the world changed. The twins had gone running in, full of excitement after their latest school trip.

‘Great-Gran’ma, I know what a money is! I do! I saw a money!’ shrieked six-year-old Erica.

‘I saw it too! An’ I know what a doorbell is!’ Connie was not to be outdone by her obstreperous twin. ‘Captain Drummond showed me what it was for. Do you know what, Great-Gran’ma? She said people in the Olden Times had a house all to themselves, can you imagine that? Just one family in a whole house! Captain said that they filled it up with toys for grown-ups, and lots of things they didn’t need, and then they were so scared that someone would steal all their silly old things, that they locked their doors and if you wanted to go in, you had to press on this tiny button thing, and it made a horrible drilling kind of noise. Can you imagine that, Great-Gran’ma? You didn’t have one of those, did you?’

By now, Erica was fairly dancing with impatience. ‘Great-Gran’ma, I saw a money! It was a little piece of paper with a funny picture of a man in a wig, and it said, ‘The Royal Bank of Scotland plc’, and some other words I couldn’t read. Captain said that men went to war and killed each other with bombs and guns, just to get more pieces of paper like that one. Weren’t they silly, Great-Gran’ma?’

Josephine thought it was time she took a hand. It had been Great-Grandma’s birthday a month ago. The old lady had been 105 years old, and the twins were too young to remember that they’d been told not to tire their great-grandmother. Besides, there was something that had been puzzling her about the museum visit.

‘Be gentle, twins! Connie, you mustn’t bounce up and down on Great-Grandmama like that.’ Josephine always used the Victorian pronunciation of the name so loved by her oldest relative. At the sound of her voice, the old lady looked up, a fond smile on her lips.

‘My Josephine. Joey. Come here, my child, and let me look at you. So responsible, just like I was at your age.’ The blue-grey eyes, keen as ever, sparkled with love.

Josephine kissed the old lady, and knelt beside her. ‘Great-Grandmama, may I ask you something?’ Taking silence for assent, she continued. ‘Would you tell me about the fir-tree festival? I mean, how it was in the Olden Times, when it was a Christian festival, before the Second Disturbance. Sergeant McDonald sang us an old carol, and it was so beautiful, it made me cry. She said there were things about Christianity that were beautiful, as well as things that were hateful. Is she right, Great-Grandmama? Mother won’t talk about religion. There were such lovely pictures of the old fir-tree festival in the museum, but when I asked Captain Drummond about them, she said to ask at home, because she’s not allowed to teach about religion to under-15s. It’s no use asking Mother, though. She just gets angry and says it’s evil and I’m too young to understand. But I want to know about the fir-tree festival so badly. Please won’t you tell me?’

‘Christmas, child. Your fir-tree festival was called Christmas. When I was a girl it was a time of loving and giving. But you mustn’t be hard on your mother. She can’t understand. By the time she was born, at the turn of the century, Christmas had lost most of its meaning. It was simply an excuse for big companies to make money. I watched my children’s generation sleepwalking into disaster, made greedy for things they didn’t want or need, and trained to think and act like toddlers, always wanting more. It was hard on your mother. She was born into the time of plenty, then saw the Displacement and the Second Disturbance tear the world apart. It’s no wonder she doesn’t trust religion. Ah, but it was so different when I was a girl. The best thing about Christmas was the nativity play.’

‘What’s a – a – ’tivity play, Grand’ma?’ Erica had been listening, though she understood very little of anything the old lady had said.

‘The Nativity is the most wonderful and the truest story in the world, and the world needs it now, more than ever.’ And, in a quavering voice, Helena Maynard – for she had never married – told the Christmas story. At the end of it, she lay back, exhausted. ‘Josephine, my dearest, there’s something I’ve been meaning to give you, and now seems as good a time as any.’ She indicated the drawer under the bed, where her few personal possessions were stored. ‘You’ll find a bundle of paper wrapped in a lime-green cloth.’ Josephine went over to the bed and found the package. ‘Bring it over here.’ Obedient as ever, the dark-eyed girl did as she was told. Her great-grandmother carefully unwrapped the cloth to reveal a typed manuscript.

‘A Wartime Christmas. This was the first Christmas play ever written by my mother. She loved it best of all her plays. You are named for her, child. She would have been so proud of you. I want you to have it now. Who knows, perhaps one day soon, the world will be ready for another Nativity play. I want you to keep it safe and sound until that day arrives. Will you do that for me, my little Joey?’

Josephine had stared in wonder at the old, old manuscript, and had nodded.

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Now, several hours later, Josephine felt she understood the fir-tree festival for the first time. Yes, it was about all the things she already knew and loved. Yes, it was about singing and dancing, and for once in the year, having lots of good things to eat and not having to worry about where the next meal was coming from. Yes, it was about laughing and joking, and telling stories and forgetting about hardship. Yes, it was a time for enjoying the company of good friends, and remembering to tell them you loved them, and asking for forgiveness for the year’s many small hurts inflicted through minor acts of carelessness and remembered with pain. But it was about more than that. Josephine understood that now. One day she’d see this play of her great-great-grandmother’s performed again. Yes, she’d do that before she was very much older, or her name wasn’t Josephine Mary Maynard.

#2: Author: PaulineS, Location: West Midlands

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 5:34 pm
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It is beautiful and yet scary as we can see the signs of Christmas loosing its meaning and become a commerical time instead.

#3: Author: Lottie, Location: Humphrey's Corner

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 6:24 pm
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Thanks, Santa!
It's a slightly scary world that they seem to be living in there.

#4: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 9:51 pm
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Thanks Santa.

#5: Author: Helen P, Location: Crewe, Cheshire

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 10:52 pm
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Ooooh, I've got shivers all down my spine reading that!

Thank you Santa, lucky Sarah! Very Happy

#6: Author: MaryR, Location: Cheshire

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 11:51 am
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Thank you, Santa - very moving.

We seem to be heading that way now, with 80% of schools no longer performing the traditional Nativity play and councils banning creches and even the word Christmas.

#7: Author: JackieP, Location: Kingston upon Hull

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 12:39 pm
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Very right Mary - and yet they're happy to put up Christmas Decorations that don't even hint at the Christmas story.....

But thank you Santa, I've not come across that story before.

JackieP

#8: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 3:38 pm
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This reminds me of an SF short story, 'The Fun They Had', when a boy in the future reads about children going to school.

#9: Author: Sarah_K, Location: St Albans

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 10:35 pm
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Thank you Santa!

It's a beautiful story. Lovely to see the old family names are still used (and that they still go in for multiples Very Happy

). But it's also a rather scary thought, a lesson for us today I suppose.

Thank you again, it's the perfect ending to a rather manic day for me!

#10: Author: Rosalin, Location: Swansea

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2007 12:28 pm
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That's a lovely story Santa. Thanks for sharing it with us.

#11: Author: Elbee, Location: Surrey

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2007 2:26 pm
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Very thought provoking. Thank you, Santa.

#12: Author: KatS, Location: Vancouver

Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2007 12:09 pm
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Confessing my shameful ignorance - what short story is this from? And can I read it?

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