Christmas Day is traditionally the beginning of the season, not the end. So you have twelve more days than you think you do. Here are some things to do while waiting for the Wise Men. My plans include looking for more goodies for this page.
- Gawain and the Green Knight is a bit outside the Arthurian mainstream. (This is a euphemism for , "unknown to Tennyson and Disney".) It takes place from one Christmas to the next, following Sir Gawain 's encounters with a series of enchantments and tests. It's a wonderful (literally) story, and I recommend it to anyone looking for something new for the season. I describe it more fully below.
- Christmas Phantoms, by Maxim Gorky, is a serio-comic tale of a writer of conventional heart-rending Christmas stories. He is confronted by his characters, who accuse him of exploiting their misery.
- The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is a Sherlock Holmes mystery set during the Christmas season.
- The Worst Christmas Story, by Christopher Morley, is a sort of reverse O. Henry, telling of a young couple permanently parted by idealism, poetry and art.
- The Nightmare Before Christmas is a story of traditional sentiments unconventionally told in an dazzling stop-motion animation musical (by Tim Burton, who else?). The Pumpkin King, no longer fulfilled by his Halloween mastery, takes on the challenge of Christmas. A cult favorite! (rats! site moved again -- still looking for it)
A Real Life Story
- For something really different in the way of a Christmas story, there's the American revolution: Washington's Crossing of the Delaware (re-enactors' after-action report no longer on line!) on Christmas night and the ensuing Battle of Trenton
(big re-enactment this year!) (a sampling of related items: Thomas Paine's pre-battle essay,The Crisis ("times that try men's souls"), the famous painting, an annual re-enactment and even a movie (which got bad reviews, alas).
- Christmas themed Paintings from the world's museums are linked to from this site. (lost page; link is to archive version, courtesy of the Wayback Machine )
- You can pay a virtual visit to Bethlehem.
- Or take a more extensive journey, retracing the Journey of the Magi, with Mungo Park e-zine (not responding; will re-check).
- Background on seasonal Christian Customs and Traditions is offered by a Catholic site (in place of the Methodist page previously linked to -- have to give everyone a turn!)
- From the time before Christmas, secular historical background is also available.
- To further disentangle fact from fiction, the Urban Legend debunkersare offering their Christmas collection.
- Peek in on a Christmas from 100 Years Ago (photos from a cherished family album).
- An account of Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh (corrected link).
- Download some printable sheet music, with lyrics, for the carolers and accompanyists (plays the melodies, too).
- For something a little different, Warner Bros. Music has some pop Christmas arrangements (RealAudio).(Broken link -- I am trying to track it down.)
- Holiday treats, hundreds of years of everyday life, and social and economic history are demonstrated through the History of Gingerbread.
- A predecessor celebration in ancient Rome was the Saturnalia (an adjunct to my "SPQR Companion" page).
- In the U.S., the customary holiday stage shows are A Christmas Carol and The Nutcracker. England has something very different, an elaborate fairy-tale-based musical comedy form called a Holiday Pantomine. More from England! A Telegraph feature on Royal Christmas celebrations from centuries past.
- Take an excursion to the Reindeer Races. (broken link; trying to track it down)
- Stay home instead? Amuse yourself with Old Jim's Animated Christmas Scenes with Carols. (11 pages at avg 58K apiece . Old Jim is seriously into bandwidth conservation, and gets a lot of bang for the buck -- these are full screen images.)
- Just how good are you at this Christmas stuff? Try the Christmas Trivia Quiz.
- No one asked, but here are some answers anyway, about the Physics of Christmas.
- More from the physicists! (or at least the meterologists) Extended outlook forecasts for a White Christmas.
- A beneficent Santa treats programmers to bug-free applications on the Night Before Software.(Broken link -- I am trying to track it down. Try these alternate programmer Christmas "Nights" instead -- for applications types and systems types.)
- And for the same crowd, there's a Tardis Christmas.
- The truth is out there ... and the "X"-mas Files is making it known.
- Spy Magazine has also been making enquiries about Santa.
- Recipes (unencumbered by scholarship of the gingerbread site) have been collected in Mimi's Christmas Cookie Archive.
- Few of us will be getting this medieval, but a few home brewers do make specialty Christmas Ales.(lost page refound!)
- I reformat AOL disks, but you can also use them for Christmas Crafts with Old Diskettes (now for CDs. too!).
- Download, print, color, cut, and assemble a Creche.
- Build an on-line Snowman.
- Decorate your computer with a freebie desktop theme! My old favorite, Christmas in the City (Rockefeller Center, golden icons, harp .wavs), seems no longer to be available; try Holiday Lights for customizable desktop decor (many user-contributed add-ons available).
- The Cleveland Botanic Garden offers comprehensive information on plants associated with the season. (The site is temporarily off-line. In the interim, try the (London) Electronic Telegraph on Holly, Ivy, and Mistletoe. (The Chicago Tribune has just run this on modern methods of harvesting mistletoe.)
- Haven't forgotten anyone, have you? There are seasonal pages even for our canine companions.
- And better to preserve the memories, some advice on taking Holiday Photos (obsolete link, but part of a film company's extensive photo advice section).
- A diversion back to the beaten path: the largest collections I could find of Christmas cookie recipes, carols,
and Christmas freebie software.
- If all this is too much, Yahoo! has an entire category devoted to Holiday Stress Management sites.
- Psychic predictions are a staple for the New Year. The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal keeps track of their accuracy (insert seasonal "Ho, Ho, Ho!"). The Year 2004 evaluation is out -- you can also check
2002
2000,
1999,
1998,
1997,
1996,
1995, and
1994) (no, I don't know where 2001 or 2003 got to).
- Another staple is college football bowl games.
- Celebrate New Year's Eve in Las Vegas, courtesy of the Las Vegas Sun.
- For something more traditional, try Hogmanay , the Scots' New Year holiday (also, my own link page on the subject).
- Outside the northeastern United States, few know of Philadelphia's fabulous festival of costume and music, the Mummers' Parade (for those outside Philadelphia, there's a live webcast.
King Arthur's court is celebrating Christmas. A green knight, dressed in green and mounted on a green horse, rides into the hall and proposes a game. Someone will behead him, and next Christmas, at his hall, he will behead that knight. Gawain takes up the challenge, and the axe. The Green Knight picks up his head, tucks it under his arm, and departs.
The following Christmas, Gawain sets out to find the Green Knight's castle and finish the exchange. He ends up taking shelter with Lord Bertilak, who also proposes an exchange game. He will go hunting, and he and Gawain are to give each other whatever each gains during the day.
While Bertilak successively pursues three different creatures, Gawain is pursued by Bertilak's wife and observed by a mysterious crone. The two men faithfully trade their gains
In the second encounter the Green Knight is revealed to be Bertilak himself. He gives Gawain a light blow with the axe, explained as befitting Gawain's one small slip from perfect knightliness. The enchantments and tests are ended and Gawain returns to the Court.
The attractions of the story include a grand variety of episode types, lush description, meticulous subtextual symbolism, and a strong and seasonally appropriate theme. It's a good story on its own, and has also kept generations of scholars in work. My favorite rendering is the Burton Raffel translation; others are available. Children's versions of the story often stray from the original text; the few films are even worse..
Here is a collection of (mostly academic)
Gawain and the Green Knight links.
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Graphics Sources
- Most of the graphics on this page are from Celeste.
- The top picture is from THe SKuLL's Home of the Horizontal Rule.
- "Gawain and the Green Knight" manuscript illustration is from the above referenced academic site, used with permission.
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(Last Updated December 2004 -- some links still missing, but being tracked down)