Not remotely lost in translation

Will saw there only a gap in the crowd, with beyond it the group of musicians. As he stood there, they struck up once more 'Good King Wenceslas', the carol they had been playing when first he entered the room, through the Doors. Merrily the whole gathering joined in singing, and then the next verse came and Merriman's deep voice was ringing out across the room, and Will realised, blinking, that the verse to come was his.

He drew breath, and raised his head.

Sire he lives a good league hence,
Underneath the mountain ...

And there was no moment of farewell, no moment in which he saw the nineteenth century vanish away, but suddenly with no awareness of change, as he sang he knew that Time had somehow blinked, and another young voice was singing with him, the two of them so nearly simultaneous that anyone who could not see the lips moving would have sworn that it was one boy's voice alone . . .

[...]

On Christmas night, Will always slept with James. Both twin beds were still in James's room from the time before Will had moved up to Stephen's attic. The only difference now was that James kept Will's old bed piled with op art cushions, and referred to it as 'my chaise longue'. There was something about Christmas Eve, they both felt, that demanded company; one needed somebody to whisper to, during the warm beautiful dream-taut moments between hanging the empty stocking at the end of the bed, and dropping into the cosy oblivion that would flower into the marvel of Christmas morning.

And it was the same as it always was, as he lay curled up happily in his snug wrappings, promising himself that he would stay awake, until, until...

... until he woke, in the dim morning room with a glimmer of light creeping round the dark square of the curtained window, and saw and heard nothing for an enchanted expectant space, because all his senses were concentrated on the weighty feel, over and around his blanketed feet, of strange bumps and corners and shapes that had not been there when he fell asleep. And it was Christmas Day.

That night Mr Muller brought home a Christmas tree. Even though the Mullers were to spend Christmas Eve at Grosspapa Muller's and Christmas Day at Grosspapa Hornik's there had to be a tree in their own home. Unlike Santa Claus, Christmas trees seemed to be very important in Milwaukee. The older people were as excited as the children when Mr Muller carried in his huge fragrant bundle.

The next afternoon, which was Christmas Eve day, all of them trimmed it. They put on candles and carved wooden toys and cookies hung on ribbons, and little socks with candles in them, as well as the usual bright balls. They draped the strings of cranberries around the spiraling branches and placed a star angel on the top.

Tib and Fred were very artistic and it was a beautiful tree. They had fun trimming it too, but it seemed strange to Betsy to be hanging the Mullers' balls and angels and to think that at home a tree was being trimmed with the dear familiar ornaments... some that she and Tacy had bough on their Christmas shopping trips.

And now, with everyone safely in position, the household of Herr Doktor Fischer could march forward to the great climax of Christmas Eve. A frenzied last-minute clean-up began, the maids gliding silently up and down the already gleaming parquet with huge brushes strapped to their feet. Carpets were thumped, feather-beds beaten, and in the kitchen… But there are no words to describe what went on in a good Viennese kitchen just before Christmas in those far-off days before the First World War.

Bedtime prayers, for the children, became a laborious and time-consuming business. Vicky, obsessed by her angel, devised long entreaties for his safe conduct through the skies. The twins, on the other hand, produced an inventory which would not have disgraced the mail order catalogue of a good department store. And each and every night their mother got them out of bed again, all three, because they had forgotten to say. ‘And God bless Cousin Poldi.’

Five days before Christmas, the thing happened which meant most of all to Vicky. The tree arrived. A huge tree, all but touching the ceiling of the enormous drawing room, and: ‘It’s the best tree we’ve ever had, the most beautiful,’ said Vicky, as she had said last year and the year before and was to go on saying all her life.

She wanted presents, she wanted presents very much, but this transformation of the still, dark tree - beautiful, but just any tree - into the glittering, beckoning candlelit vision that they saw when one by one (but always children first) they filed into the room on Christmas Eve… That to her, was the wonder of wonders, the magic that Christmas was all about.

And though no one could accuse the Christ Child of having favourites or anything like that, it did seem to Vicky that when He came down to earth He did the Fischers especially proud. There never did seem to be a tree as wonderful as theirs. The things that were on it, such unbelievably delicate things, could only have been made in Heaven: tiny shimmering angels, dolls as big as a thumb, golden-petalled flowers, sweets of course -oh, every kind of sweet. And candles - perhaps a thousand candles, thought Vicky. Candles which caused her father every year to say, ‘You’ll see if the house doesn’t catch fire, you’ll see!’, and which produced also a light whose softness and radiance had no equal in the world.

The twins grew less seraphic, less placid as the tension grew. ‘Will the angel come tonight?’ demanded Tilda at her prayers.

‘No,’ said Vicky. ‘You’ve got to go to sleep for two more nights.’

At bedtime that night no one spoke of hanging up stockings. Grace was too young to know about hanging stockings on Christmas Eve and no one else expected a present. But they had never been so eager for Christmas Day because the tracks were clear now and the train would come tomorrow.

[...]

She slid out of bed without waking Mary and quickly pulled on her dress in the cold. She opened the box where she kept her own things. She took out the roll of knitted lace, already wrapped carefully in tissue paper. Then she found the prettiest card she had ever been given in Sunday school and she took the little embroidered picture frame and the cardboard hair receiver. With these in her hands she hurried tiptoe downstairs.

Ma looked up in surprise. The table was set and Ma was putting on each plate a little package wrapped in red-and-white striped paper.

"Merry Christmas, Ma!" Laura whispered. "Oh, what are they?"

"Christmas presents," Ma whispered. "Whatever have you got there?"

This Christmas Day, the sixth of Sophie's life, started in the usual way. As soon as the grandmother clock in the hall struck seven, the twins ran, and Sophie plodded, into their parents' bedroom, and they all climbed onto the big bed to show what Father Christmas had brought them.

Then, after breakfast, came the ceremony of giving presents.

This was always done in the same way. Everybody sat down, in the living room, of course—at least the two grown-ups sat down with their cups of coffee, while Matthew and Mark danced around with excitement, and their sister stood stolidly beside the Christmas tree, beneath which all the presents were arranged, and waited for the others to sing "Happy Birthday, dear Sophie, Happy Birthday to you!"

Then the opening of the presents began, one at a time, youngest first, oldest last— Christmas present for Sophie, then one for Mark, then Matthew (ten minutes older), then Mummy, then Dad, and finally a birthday present for Sophie, before she began again on her next Christmas one.

This year, to Sophie's surprise and delight, word of her intention to be a lady farmer had somehow got around the entire family, and both her Christmas and her birthday presents reflected this.

Davy met them at Bright River with a big two-seated sleigh full of furry robes … and a bear hug for Anne. The two girls snuggled down in the back seat. The drive from the station to Green Gables had always been a very pleasant part of Anne’s weekends home. She always recalled her first drive home from Bright River with Matthew. That had been in spring and this was December, but everything along the road kept saying to her, “Do you remember?” The snow crisped under the runners; the music of the bells tinkled through the ranks of tall pointed firs, snow-laden. The White Way of Delight had little festoons of stars tangled in the trees. And on the last hill but one they saw the great gulf, white and mystical under the moon but not yet ice-bound.

[...]

They opened the parlor and distributed the gifts before breakfast because the twins, even Dora, couldn’t have eaten anything if they hadn’t. Katherine, who had not expected anything except, perhaps, a duty gift from Anne, found herself getting presents from every one. A gay, crocheted afghan from Mrs. Lynde … a sachet of orris root from Dora … a paper-knife from Davy … a basketful of tiny jars of jam and jelly from Marilla … even a little bronze chessy cat for a paper-weight from Gilbert.

And, tied under the tree, curled up on a bit of warm and woolly blanket, a dear little brown-eyed puppy, with alert, silken ears and an ingratiating tail. A card tied to his neck bore the legend, “From Anne, who dares, after all, to wish you a Merry Christmas.”

It was when they went into Doctor Smith's room for the Christmas tree they had the big surprise of the day. Sylvia always had a Christmas tree for them; but this was not like any tree they had seen before. It was the usual fir tree; but every branch was covered with glittering frost, which made the tree as though it were magic.

"Was that what you were doing when you were both locked in yesterday?" Pauline asked the doctors.

They agreed it was, and seemed very pleased that everyone thought it so beautiful. Cook said it was as pretty as a picture, and Clara that it put her in mind of something off a Christmas card, and Nana that it was very nice indeed but she was glad nobody was expecting her to stick all that stuff on the branches. Mrs Simpson said that she and Mr Simpson were very lucky that it was so lovely a tree on the Christmas day that they were home as they didn't have a Christmas tree in Kuala Lumpur. Sylvia told the two doctors if that was how Christmas trees ought to look, they would always have to stay in the house because she knew she couldn't decorate them like that. The three children thought is so perfectly beautiful that they could not say anything at all, but just walked round and round it admiring.

ARTHUR (singing): ♪ Get dressed you merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay! ♪

DOUGLAS: Yes, perhaps save the full rendition for tomorrow morning.

ARTHUR: Thank you, Douglas! Best present ever! Oh – and actually that’s great, because I got an extra present for everyone. The other thing you left off my list, Skip.

MARTIN: Hmm?

ARTHUR: This!

MARTIN: Mulled wine!
(Arthur pours out glasses of the mulled wine.)

MARTIN: How lovely!

DOUGLAS (murderously): You ... took my Petrus ’05 ... and you ... mulled it?

ARTHUR: Well, not properly. I don’t have the stuff. But, you know, I whacked in some fruit juice and some sugar and the rest of the orange Tic Tacs, and then I just blitzed it in the microwave! It’ll be close enough!

DOUGLAS (murderously): You ...

MARTIN (interrupting): Of course it will be close enough! And it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it, Douglas?

DOUGLAS (murderously): Absolutely. Thank you, Arthur.

ARTHUR: Oh, you’re welcome! Merry Christmas!
(They clink glasses, drink, and then all choke and cough.)

CAROLYN: ... That’s actually rather good!

The pleasant custom of sending Christmas cards prevailed in Tilling, and most of the world met in the stationer's shop on Christmas Eve, selecting suitable salutations from the threepenny, the sixpenny and the shilling trays. Elizabeth came in rather early and had almost completed her purchases when some of her friends arrived, and she hung about looking at the backs of volumes in the lending-library, but keeping an eye on what they purchased. Diva, she observed, selected nothing from the shilling tray any more than she had herself; in fact, she thought that Diva's purchases this year were made entirely from the threepenny tray. Susan, on the other hand, ignored the threepenny tray and hovered between the sixpennies and the shillings and expressed an odiously opulent regret that there were not some 'choicer' cards to be obtained. The Padre and Mrs Bartlett were certainly exclusively threepenny, but that was always the case. However they, like everybody else, studied the other trays, so that when, next morning, they all received seasonable coloured greetings from their friends, a person must have a shocking memory if he did not know what had been the precise cost of all that were sent him. But Georgie and Lucia as was universally noticed, though without comment, had not been in at all, in spite of the fact that they had been seen about in the High Street together and going into other shops. Elizabeth therefore decided that they did not intend to send any Christmas cards and before paying for what she had chosen, she replaced in the threepenny tray a pretty picture of a robin sitting on a sprig of mistletoe which she had meant to send Georgie. There was no need to put back what she had chosen for Lucia, since the case did not arise.