Here is today's Advent calendar picture as we progress towards Christmas ~~~
Today's tradition is one of my own personal Christmas traditions, which I would like to share with you, and maybe encourage you to bring this little piece of Welsh literature into your own traditions. It is to read {several times over the days leading up to Christmas} a most favourite tale "A Child's Christmas in Wales" by one of Wales's most notable poets, the genius that was Dylan Thomas.
I just love this gentle, humorous tale, a nostalgic image of a Christmas from a simpler time, told in Thomas's own inimitable style. I especially love the passages about the "useful presents" and "useless presents"
"There were the Useful Presents: engulfing mufflers of the old coach days, and mittens made for giant sloths; zebra scarfs of a substance like silky gum that could be tug-o'-warred down to the galoshes; blinding tam-o'-shanters like patchwork tea cozies and bunny-suited busbies and balaclavas for victims of head-shrinking tribes ~~~ "
"Bags of moist and many-colored jelly babies and a folded flag and a false nose and a tram-conductor's cap and a machine that punched tickets and rang a bell; never a catapult; once, by a mistake that no one could explain, a little hatchet ~~~ "~~~ I always wonder about the little hatchet!
If you have not read it, please do, it isn't long, it won't take up much time, for I'm sure you will love it as much as I do and will want to read it over and over as you are transported to that very special world. Copies are readily available, to buy, or to borrow from your local library, and can even be found to read online, although if you can find a sweetly illustrated hardcover copy then that is the best. You can even listen to it on audio CD if you want, read by Dylan Thomas himself, recorded in 1952 and let yourself drift with the words, falling snowflakes into his imaginary world. Curl up in a comfy arm chair with your book, light some candles, wear Fair Isle socks and snuggle under a quilt to escape to the small Welsh village of Thomas's imagination on a snowy Christmas tide ~~~
Until next time ~~~
~~~Deborah xoxo
