Tag: Christmas

Classic Christmas Movies

So few days to Christmas. It’s a well-known fact that time accelerates at the end of the year. All those jobs that I’d promised I’d get done by the end of the year now seem hopeless. Schedules get shredded. Looming over the horizon is the prospect of a new year diary.

With the weather blowing a gale and travel being intermittently unadvisable it’s better to slump on the sofa. Switch the box on and see if any of the streaming services have anything entertaining to watch. And wow there’s a lot of complete tosh out there in digital streaming land. Two hours can easy be lost in a gravy wasteland of TV nothingness.

Here’s my list of movies that I’m not disappointed to see turn-up every year. Christmas favourites bound to bring in an audience. The list changes a little every year and so does the world. Not for me candy coated Technicolor, snooze making romance flicks. Put aside the family hijinks and plots out of the script writer’s dustbin. Let’s have some real classics.

Starting where the movie that is almost immortal.

A Christmas Carol.

Charles Dickens’ Christmas ghost story has been made and remade more often than a roman road. My favourite is Alastair Sim as the “real” Scrooge. From 1951, this black and white version of the story has every magic ingredient. A grumpy old man on the road to Damascus.

The Muppet Christmas Carol.

People and puppetry blend seamlessly with Scrooge’s well-trodden voyage. Those universals of past, present and future entwine. The very word entertainment was made for this movie.

Elf.

It does matter who plays the part. Will Ferrell is ungainly, innocent and overflowing with goodness. He’s an elf on a quest. Beautifully knitted together, Buddy’s journey is unmissable.

It’s A Wonderful Life.

Again, supernatural contrivances shape a man’s destiny. This well-worn movie is a roller-coaster of emotions. From the deepest depression to the highest joys. Happy endings are why such tales hook us every time.  

The Grinch.

The creature who stole Christmas. Borrowing from the meanness of Scrooge, this character shows us how the seasons joy expels the little green monster of envy. A film with a message and the message is – have fun.

White Christmas.

Unquestionably a song-and-dance movie that transcends song-and-dance. We all hope that we could have comrades and colleagues who would think so much of us. A celebration of life well lived.

Miracle on 34th Street.

Fine it’s Americana write large. That said, Richard Attenborough is so much the part that I start to believe in Father Christmas. It’s a reminder that Department Store’s have a special place at Christmas despite Tom Lehrer’s “Christmas Carol”. 

I’m sure others should be added to this short list. What’s here are first thoughts written on a scrap of paper now sent to recycling.

1974

Inflation. A sign of our times. What in days gone by could be bought for a penny, now you need at least 50 pence. Coins exist for a few more years but their fate is sealed. This week, my 50p got me a 7-inch single from 1973. A flash of memory. Top of the Pops with Alvin Stardust[1] appeared like magic. It was in an unregarded box in the corner of a high street charity shop. What a delight to pick up such an important historic artifact for only 50p. A relic from my past.

With a typically glam pop music title, “My Coo Ca Choo” gave Alvin Stardust a Christmas hit in the 70s. On TV, he dressed in black leather like an imaginary Gene Vincent. Mind you, most of us kids of 1973 had no idea about 1950s rocker Gene Vincent. So, Stardust carried it off, acting out a rock-a-billy character to the delight Christmas audiences. He’ not remembered the way that Slade are remembered. To me there a connection that unique.

These threads. These recollections centre around brief and happy moments. The formidable farmhouse of my youth had more rooms than we ever used. Downstairs at the front of the house were the two square living rooms. Both with tall sash windows looking out to the South. On the one side was our everyday living room. On the other was a room that was kept for special occasions. High days and holidays. Oddly that room was called by us “New Room”.

We all decamped into the New Room for Christmas. That’s where the Christmas tree sat. That’s where the decorations went up. It took a while to get the room into a comfortable, liveable state. Most of the year it was relatively neglected. After the fireplace had been stoked up, bringing warmth, and drying out the damp outside walls, the room became the centre of our Christmas days. The “nice” sofa was pulled up to get the most warmth from the compact fireplace. Still there was plenty of space to litter the room with games, toys and torn wrapping paper.

It was the Philips company that introduced the first compact cassette recorder[2]. Until I looked it up, I didn’t know that it was as early as 1963 that the cassette first appeared. Cassettes dropped in a world dominated by vinyl records. So, the ability to record sound, without spending a pile on a reel-to-reel tape machine, was a great novelty and a lot of fun.

At first, I thought this Christmas memory was from 1973 but it couldn’t have been. It must have been 1974. That’s me at 14. Already at that age, I had a strong interest in electronic bits and pieces. My hobby was finding out how things worked. Often testing them to destruction. Living on a working farm there was plenty of opportunity to get to know about mechanics, hydraulics, and electrics. A little of chemistry too. However, for me circuits, valves and transistors had a particular fascination.

Christmas present in 1974? Well, it was a classic Philips compact cassette recorder and a K-tel compilation cassette called “Dynamite”. I must have had some blank cassette tapes too. What a compilation tape that was! Mud, Wizzard, Suzi Quatro, Mungo Jerry, Nazareth, Steeleye Span, Alice Cooper and, you guessed it, Alvin Stardust. 70s glam pop at its hight.

My flash of memory was sitting on the carpet to the left of the tiled fireplace engrossed in 1974’s Christmas present. I still have K-Tel’s Dynamite in a box somewhere. From yesterday, I have at least got a 7-inch single, in good condition from that distant era.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/oct/23/alvin-stardust

[2] https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co465542/philips-portable-tape-recorder-tape-recorder

Spirit

Tis the season of goodwill. Here’s wishing you a Merry Christmas. May there be peace in the world. It’s time to capture the spirit of Christmas and spread it far and wide. We do it every year but it’s no less important every time we do it. It’s a great big manifestation of hope. A way to end the year in a mood of good humour, joy, and optimism. 

In this case talking about double entendre is way short of the mark. The word “sprit” has a whole host of contemporary meanings. It’s an extensive list. Here, I’m trying to capture some essence of what has been passed down for generations. It’s how we cheer ourselves up knowing that the hardships of winter are a passing phase. Christmas may have its origins in seasonal habits that run through the whole of human history.

Like it or not, the Christmas we know has come down from Roman times. Although, it might be better to say that a recognisable celebration is traceable back to the ninth century in England. That reason for festivities unites all Europeans. It’s part of our common heritage and social fabric.

However, as I drive west, down the A303 and pass Stonehenge it’s not Christian Christmas I might think of as much as the Winter Solstice[1]. That is as we move from seeing less of the Sun day-by-day to a gradual lengthening of the days. Ironically, this is known as the first day of winter in the northern hemisphere.

The coming 31 days of January maybe the least loved of the months of the year, but the prospect is that winter will be finite. We can honour its passing before it has passed. Lengthening hours of sunlight will change our mood and slowly raise our spirits.

Isn’t hope wonderful? What shame human affairs don’t have such a seasonal clockwork mechanism at their core. Or maybe they do, in the way that Christmas and the calendar synchronises us with the rhythm and routine of the heavens.

For me the next celestial marker is the Vernal Equinox as it ushers in Spring. I don’t know if having a birthday just before the onset of Spring symbolises any mystical significance, but I like it. So, celebrate and enjoy the seasonal spirit. Christmas comes but once a year. Let’s hope this one brings some good cheer.

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/winter-solstice-2022-celebration-shortest-day-facts-b2249667.html

Christmas past

My interest in machinery goes back to an age of 9 or thereabouts. It’s not easy to be accurate about times past. Memories are moments in time that can get mixed up in a chain of events.

Christmas presents for me, and my brothers were a mix of new and second-hand. Someone the second-hand ones were more valued than the new ones. If I close my eyes, I can still see the auction sale room[1] in Gillingham, Dorset where a mysterious collection of toys and bric-a-brac where exhibited every December. A white painted outhouse building that was never warmer than a fridge. Full to the brim with cast-off items and curiosities.

In the afternoon, surveying the goods before the sale was an exciting moment for me. It was a time to say, “can we have that?” The answer would depend on how much my dad was prepared to bid. That was a good life lesson. Knowing that wants were not always going to be met.

That’s where my Meccano[2] came from. Not just the metal variety but there was a larger plastic type too. It was a junior range. More cherished was the classic metal version. Green strips of metal and boxes of nuts and bolts arranged in neat plastic compartments. Unlike current versions, these kits gave only the merest hint as to what to build and how to do it. So much was left to the imagination.

Cranes and bridges were one of the more basic designs, I liked to build. The cranes had strings and pulleys to lift and lower things for the fun of it. Bridge builds could be tested to see if they were strong enough to carry weight.

Inevitably, the more I played the more the small Meccano nuts and bolts went missing. The noise an upright Hover vacuum cleaner makes picking up those nuts and bolts was so distinct. It was like many large hail stones hitting a tin roof. Rummaging through the vacuum cleaner bag with a magnet ensured all the neat plastic compartments remained full.

Those long gone dusty sale rooms in Gillingham were also the source of more than one chemistry set. That’s when a boy’s chemistry set paid only scant attention to personal safety. As much as to say I had an experimental childhood with a degree of freedom that was wonderful. The more I reflect, the more I can see that was the case. Luckly, I learnt a lot and got through it relatively unscathed.

[1] Chapman Moore & Mugford

[2] https://www.meccano.com/en_gb