Author: wdfyfe

Before WD called himself a writer, he worked at a number of different jobs from stacking lumber to interior design. He studied English at UBC and creative writing at ASU where one of his teachers, Rita Dove, taught him the importance of the tale. He has written for radio, magazines and newspapers, but never television. He’s published both fiction and nonfiction in Great Britain and the US. He reads French passably and speaks enough Spanish to get from A to B and find the toilet. He has interviewed John Cleese, Peter Ustinov, Margaret Drabble, Kenneth Branagh and enough other famous people to make him a hopeless name dropper. His not-so-secret passions are history and trivia, and he has never lost a game of Trivial Pursuit — although he did come 4th one drunken Quiz Night at the Uxbridge in Notting Hill. He lives on the Pacific Ocean, although, not close enough to see, so he spends his days looking at a computer screen. It’s a wonderful life and he has only one regret: he can’t type faster.

How Edward the Mouse Found Christmas

 

C. Bourcier

It was one night from Christmas, and Edward the mouse
Was dreaming mouse dreams in his tiny mouse house.
He dreamt of his presents tucked under the tree:
A skateboard, an iPad and an Android 3G
Some new Uggs, Adidas and Old Navy jeans,
Just like all of the ads that he’d seen on TV
Little mouse trains and hi-def PVRs
Posters and iPods and little mouse cars.
He snuggled in bed as on his dream went,
For his e-mail to Santa had been promptly sent.
And to help Santa’s weight, he left five carrots sticks
And sugar-free soda to wash them down with.

Now Edward the mouse wasn’t greedy, you see,
But he’d been a good mouse (or at least, tried to be)
He’d done everything right and taken great care.
Now Christmas was here and he wanted his share.

Then the digital clock that sat by his head
Shone midnight, and Edward awoke in his bed.
The oddest of sounds, thought Edward, and then
He listened quite hard and he heard it again.
It sounded like someone was out by the tree,
So Edward got out of his bed just to see.
He tiptoed around and he took just one peek
And what he saw there would make any mouse squeak:
Santa Claus! – was holding one carrot stick out
To one of his reindeer who chomped it right down
“Oh my Gosh!” said Edward the mouse right out loud
When Santa heard that – well, he turned right around
And said, “What have we here?  A mouse has slipped in.”
And the reindeer walked over and casually sniffed him.
Now Edward was frightened – he felt rather sick,
But Santa said, “Thank you for these carrot sticks.
My reindeer quite like them, as you probably know.
Myself, I like milk and fudge Oreos.
Now Edward mouse, you should be in your bed,
Not sneaking around here and squeaking instead.
But since you’re awake, come here and you’ll see
What present I’ll leave for you under the tree.”
Then Santa reached over and pulled from his sack
Gourmet Cheese in the Holiday Pack!
It had Muenster and Gouda and Natural Swiss
And one small salami (for flavour, I guess)
Edam and cheddar and something called Brie,
And little wheat crackers to go with the cheese.
It was wonderfully made and wrapped ever so nice,
Especially packaged for yuppies — and mice.
But Edward the mouse just stood there in shock.
This was nothing his little mouse mind ever thought:
No iPod?  No skateboard?  No Android 3G
So where was his Smart Phone? Oh, what could this mean?
He’d been a good mouse (or at least, tried to be.)
This was supposed to be Christmas all magic and dreams,
And Edward the mouse didn’t know what to say.
But Santa Claus smiled in his own special way.
He looked down at Edward and patted his head,
Twinkled his eyes, and quietly said,
“I know that you’ve seen all those ads on TV,
But what would a mouse do with Old Navy jeans?
The legs are too long and the pockets too deep.
Now I have to go, and you have to sleep

And on Christmas morning, Edward the mouse,
Got out of his bed in his tiny mouse house.
He ran for the tree and looked at his cheese
And never could ever a mouse be so pleased:
‘There’s more than enough cheese for me,” Edward said
“I’ll take it all out and share with my friends!
I’ll give them the Gouda, and Edam is nice.
Oh, they’ll be so pleased; they’ll be such happy mice!”
So he grabbed all the cheese and he left — just like that
(Of course, he remembered his coat and his hat)

But as he rushed out with the cheese he would share,
He’d forgotten the stocking he’d hung with such care.
So happy to give, our mouse didn’t know
There was one mouse-sized skateboard tucked into the toe.

Merry Christmas

Christmas Trivia

Any Laplander will tell you that all reindeer have antlers.  However, they will also tell you that male reindeer lose their antlers in late November or early December, whereas female reindeer do not lose their antlers until spring.  Therefore, the reindeer that pull Santa’s sleigh are all female – including Rudolph.  There were originally eight reindeer: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer and Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen.  Rudolph was added in 1939 when Robert L May created a colouring book for retailer Montgomery Ward to give away at Christmas.  The book told the now familiar story of Rudolph and how he came to guide Santa’s sleigh.  Ten years later, in 1949, Gene Autry had finished colouring all the pictures, so he decided to record a song based on the Rudolph story.  “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was an instant hit, and Rudolph has been around ever since.

“Frosty the Snowman” was written by Jack Rollins and Steve Nelson in 1950, for Gene Autry, who wanted to follow up the success of “Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer” from the previous year.

Originally, there was one other reindeer in Santa’s team pulling the sleigh on Christmas Eve.  Unfortunately he became bitter and belligerent, so Santa had to take appropriate disciplinary action.  His name was Dinner.

The names of The Three Wise Men are Gaspar, Melchoir and Balthasar not Manny, Moe and Jack as some TV ads would lead you to believe.  However, if you want to astound your friends with your Christmas knowledge or win drinks at any pub in the world just ask the question; Which Wise Man brought which gift?  The answer is Melchoir brought gold, Balthasar brought frankincense and Gaspar, who, like most of us left his Christmas shopping to the last minute, brought myrrh (whatever that is.)

The traditional Christmas poinsettia originally came from Mexico.  It was first brought to the United States by Joel Poinsett in the 1820s.  Even after all these years, the name is still almost universally mispronounced.

Santa Claus actually lives in Canada.  He has his own address and postal code.  It’s Santa Claus, North Pole, Canada, H0H 0H0.  If you write to him he will reply in whatever language your letter is written in.  Try it!

Although, under various aliases, Santa Claus is claimed by a number of countries he is, in fact, a Canadian citizen.  On December 23rd, 2008, the Canadian government’s Minister of Citizenship, Jason Kenney, declared, “The Government of Canada wishes Santa the very best in his Christmas Eve duties and wants to let him know that, as a Canadian Citizen, he has the automatic right to re-enter Canada once his trip around the world is complete.”

Like most of the cool Christmas traditions, candy canes come from Germany.  They started out, in the late 17th century, as white sticks of candy given to children to keep them quiet during the long and infinitely boring Christmas church services.  Many people believe candy canes are bent so they could hang on the Christmas tree.  Originally, however, the canes were bent to resemble a shepherd’s crook and so calm the objections of stodgy old churchmen who didn’t want kids having candy in church.

If you’re trapped in Dublin at Christmas, “Merry Christmas” in Irish is “Nollaig Shona Dhuit” but I have no idea how to pronounce it.

Oddly enough, Mrs. Claus does not have a first name; nor, for that matter does any of the elves.

Canada was the first country to issue Christmas stamps — in 1898.

Nova Scotia exports more Christmas trees than anywhere else in the world.

The reason that relentless movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, is on TV so much is that television stations don’t have to pay for it.  Apparently, when it was made, there was a mix-up in the contracts, so nobody who worked on the film — including the actors — ever gets residuals.

It is a well known fact that the stupid “Little Drummer Boy” (who was put on this earth to annoy me) has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas.  The real little drummer boy was a pickpocket and sneak thief who fell in with the Three Wise Men in order to gain their confidence and eventually rob them.  He was already a hardened criminal by that time and had a list of previous offences as long as the Ohio River.  He was caught with his hand in the frankincense jar and sentenced to 10 years’ hard labour — which is exactly what the treacherous little bugger deserved.

Did you know?  There was once a dyslexic devil worshipper who sold his soul to Santa.

Christmas Quotes

“There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.” – Erma Bombeck
“All Christmas trees are perfect.” – Charles N Barnard
“It’s not the gift, but the thought that counts.” – Henry Van Dyke (Dick and Jerry’s other brother?)
“Christmas is a whispered conspiracy of love.” – Anon
“Nothing is as mean as giving a child something useful for Christmas.” – Kin Hubbard
“Santa is very jolly ‘cause he knows where all the naughty girls live.” – Dennis Miller
“Bah! Humbug!” — Ebenezer Scrooge
“Merry Christmas, Nearly Everybody!” – Ogden Nash

Christmas: A Victorian Invention

Obviously, Christmas, as we know it, started quite literally in the year dot.  Like it or don’t, the birth of Christ is the single most important event in the history of Western civilization.  Here in the 21st century, we continue to celebrate the day as a religious, secular or “hell of a good time” holiday.  It’s a tradition.  However, it’s a relatively new one.  Our celebration at Christmas started accidently, in the1840s, when these two events coincided.  First of all, an English author published a novel; secondly, Queen Victoria married a German.  Without these two isolated events happening at just the right time, we’d all be sitting around December 25th burping up turkey and looking for batteries — for no apparent reason.

When Queen Victoria ascended the throne in 1837, there was a feeling that this was the beginning of a new age in Britain.  The Napoleonic Wars were long over and mostly forgotten, and the world was enjoying a time of relative peace.  The industrial revolution was producing not only a new prosperity but also a new middle class who had both money and leisure.  They could enjoy things like travel, family life, and even hobbies such as reading for pleasure.  Also in 1837, a relatively unknown author named Charles Dickens published a newspaper serial called The Pickwick Papers.  Within about 5 chapters, he had suddenly become the J.K. Rowling of the 19th century.  The new English middle class fell in love with Pickwick.  Soon, people on both sides of the Atlantic were lining up to get the latest instalment of his adventures.  One of the most enchanting episodes in The Pickwick Papers was a fanciful description of a Christmas festival.  Christmas was undergoing a bit of a revival at the time, and Dickens’ highly fictional description gave people something to emulate.  It was very much the same as when people today talk and act like their electronic friends on TV.

For the next couple of years, Charles Dickens kept himself busy.  He published some very successful novels — Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby, among others.  Then, like most successful authors, he decided to shoot his mouth off.  He ran afoul of his American audience by advocating some rather radical ideas like universal copyright (so those damn Yankees couldn’t steal his stuff) and the abolition of that quaint American custom of slavery.  Suddenly, he was losing some pretty valuable customers on the other side of the Atlantic.   He wanted to get them back, so he began writing a series of books he described as, “… a whimsical sort of masque intended to awaken loving and forbearing thoughts.”  He succeeded.  In 1843, he published A Christmas Carol and the world changed dramatically.  Once again, both sides of the Atlantic went crazy for Charles Dickens.  Scrooge, Cratchit and Tiny Tim were more popular then, than Edward, Bella and whatever the kid’s name is are today.

Everybody wanted to celebrate a traditional Christmas the way Dickens described it because — before Dickens wrote it — nobody actually kept Christmas that way.  He made it all up.  He took several traditions that were already there and put them together in a stylized setting.  It was fiction.  Plus, Dickens didn’t just write A Christmas Carol; there were five books in the series.  Every time our Victorian ancestors turned around, there was Charles with another feel-good Christmas story.  It must have been like getting beaten over the head with a rainbow.  By the time Dickens was done, Christmas was everywhere.  You couldn’t get away from it.

Meanwhile, in 1840, Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, her German first cousin.  Albert showed up at Buckingham Palace with all his German sensibilities intact, including some very noticeable Christmas traditions — like decorations and the tannenbaum or Christmas tree.  Christmas trees had been around for some time, but it wasn’t a common practice in England to cut down a tree and haul it into your house.  Any trees that did get cut down around Christmas were normally thrown into the fire as Yule Logs.  However, the popularity of the young, good-looking monarchs was such that, when Victoria and Albert appeared with their children in front of a Christmas tree, in The London Illustrated News, Christmas celebrations became uber-fashionable.

The social ladder now had a new rung, and people all over England and America began decorating their houses at Christmas, just like they assumed their aristocratic betters were doing.  Thus, the height, breadth and weight of the Christmas table one set became society news and reason for gossip.  Everybody wanted to know what Jenny Churchill was wearing or what the Astors served for dinner — so they could do it, too.  It was Entertainment Tonight – only with bonnets and bustles.  Christmas was not only everywhere; it was trendy.  The result was that Christmas became the #1 holiday of the year — and has been, ever since.

Today, our Christmas celebration is surprisingly similar to that of our Victorian ancestors.  Of course, there have been refinements along the way.  In 1843, Horsley and Cole, a couple of bored Englishmen, invented Christmas cards.  Saint Nicholas was turned into Santa Claus by Thomas Nast and Coca Cola.  At some point, religious hymns became “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” and “Jingle Bell Rock.”  Add we’ve added Rudolph the extra reindeer and that stupid Little Drummer Boy (who was put on this earth just to annoy me.)  However, it’s basically the same Christmas they would have had a century and a half ago.  So, when you push your chair back from the table and look at the beauty of your own personal Christmas, take a nanosecond and thank Charles, Victoria and Albert, who invented it for you.