Welcome to our second holiday special! We give you first a touching family Christmas story, "Christmas at Red Butte," by Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author of Anne of Green Gables. Next, a Christmas meditation by Charles Dickens, entitled "A Christmas Tree." In this piece, the author of "A Christmas Carol" offers, instead of a story, a set of reminiscences about the meaning of Christmas past as he contemplates life-long celebrations of presents and toys, books, and stories both silly and serious — including a long section on ghost stories — and of course, as "A Christmas Carol" itself reminds us, telling ghost stories was a major Christmas tradition in Victorian England, adding supernatural chills to the chills caused by the weather.

CREDITS

Montgomery, "Christmas at Red Butte": read by Dee Canfield

* Axletree, "Clothe the Fields with Plenty"; "Drops of Melting Snow"; "The Silent Grove" [https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Axletree/music-from-a-hampshire-farm]

Dickens, "A Christmas Tree": read by Mischa Hooker

* Borrtex, "Buying Presents"; "Happy Holidays"; "Christmas Eve"; "Love & Generosity" [https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Borrtex/Christmas_Time]

* Jon Sayles [http://www.jsayles.com/familypages/EarlyMusic.htm; http://www.jsayles.com/familypages/holidaymusic.htm]: Couperin, "Les barricades mistérieuses"; Ravel, Piano Concerto in G, Adagio (2nd movement); Fauré, Requiem: "Kyrie," "Libera me," "Pie Jesu"; Obrecht, "Pace Domine"; Dufay, "Proles de caelo," "Ce mois de May"; Senfl, "Gottes Gewalt Kraft"; Pevernage, "Secoure moy, madame"; Carols: "Deck the Halls," "Angels We Have Heard on High," "Es ist ein Ros entsprungen"

Theme music for program:

* Chopin, Waltz in A-flat major, Op. 69, no. 1 and Waltz in B minor, Op. 69, no. 2 (performed by Olga Gurevich)

Director / Organizer / Sound Editor: Mischa Hooker

INFORMATION ON STORIES AND PLAYS REFERENCED BY DICKENS

Dickens refers to many children's stories and plays in the course of his meditation, some still very familiar to young readers, others less familiar. Alphabet rhymes ("A Was an Archer") are still popular in easy readers; "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Little Red Riding-Hood" are also very commonly read. Far less well known today are some of the plays Dickens mentions, such as "The Forest of Bondy, or Dog of Montargis"; or "The Tragedy of Jane Shore"; or "The History of George Barnwell." The internet provides immediate access to many of these historic works of children's literature, and it can especially be quite fun to see the old illustrations in the earlier editions even of familiar works. Apart from massive collections of scanned facsimiles offered by Google Books or the Internet Archive, one initiative to digitize and make available scans of numerous 18th- and 19th-century chapbooks is also worth pointing out: https://digital.library.mcgill.ca/chapbooks/index.php. We have gathered together a goodly collection of these old books mentioned by Dickens from these sources, in order to offer them for your interest in one spot. Warning! Looking into what another century considered good or appropriate is sometimes surprising or shocking — especially, adults should look over any such material before handing it over to children to read! Our repository of downloadable material is here: http://www.tinyurl.com/DickensChristmasTreeReferences