I was so close to finishing this in time for Christmas, like I intended to. But we’ve all been feeling ill this week, so that on top of the wrapping and other last-minute Christmas preparations was too much. That means there’ll be one more post between Christmas and New Year (hopefully).

The Christmas-Tree Party

This was first published in Sunny Stories #50 in 1937, with uncredited illustrations. I then have the first reprinting of it, which was in the 1950 story collection Tricky the Goblin and Other Stories, with illustrations by Eileen Soper. It was also in Enid Blyton Readers 12 in 1950, with Soper’s illustrations (from what I can make out the same book was printed with a different title, one for the public and one for educators to use). Aside from those it has appeared in two editions of The Brave Toy Soldier and Other Stories, in 1996 and 2015.

This is a simple but sweet story. Janey excitedly watches the neighbours across the street preparing for a Christmas party. Although she would dearly love to go, she makes the best of just watching, while her brother scoffs and huffs jealously in the background.

As she is watching so intently, she notices the Christmas tree is about to fall on the table which is laid with all the party food. She is then rewarded for rushing over to warn them, by being invited to the party. Her brother – who said serves them right – and didn’t go over to warn them, isn’t invited, another of Blyton’s little morals there.

This has a surprising number of updates, starting with the title. The Christmas-Tree party is now The Christmas Tree party. Normally, Christmas tree needs no hyphen. But we do often hyphenate two words when they describe another, and we want to make it clear. So it’s a Christmas-tree party, not a Christmas tree-party. I’m not sure I’ve explained that well – but this site does it better.

Plenty of modernising in the story – green-grocers, bakers and maids are out, and things are mysteriously done by nobody or just somebody. There are so many changes in the chapter I’m often just going to quote the two pieces without too much context – the original will always come first.

She had seen the green-grocer leave an enormous Christmas tree there / She had seen an enormous Christmas tree arriving there.

She had seen the baker deliver a most beautiful Christmas cake too / She had seen a most beautiful Christmas cake being taken in.

Bakers still bake and deliver cakes, however.

The maid is just someone, then The Maid who put out dishes of sandwiches is cut entirely, and it just becomes a list of things on the table, starting with Plates of Sandwiches. Lists are fine, but it just doesn’t fit with the previous sentence where Janey counts how many chairs are at the table. Additionally, changing dishes to plates is petty and pointless. In In the middle of the table she put [the cake] – the she put refers to the maid and is also cut, and replaced with In the middle of the table was [the cake].

Nurses are also out.

And when they went for a walk in the park they had their nurse with them and she wouldn’t let them talk to children they didn’t know / And their mother wouldn’t let them play with children they didn’t know.

That seems an unnecessary amount of chances. Why not just replace nurse with mother – or indeed, nanny, as many children do have nannies today and they are the modern equivalent of the nurse mentioned. Later children arriving at the party are with their nurse which is changed to their mother.

Despite the main family story having a Christmas tree with candles on it, this tree is updated to having lights.

The tree had unlighted candles, now lights. This leads to a strange change later. Janey notes that the tea is ready and the Christmas tree was only to have its candles lighted. For some reason now the Christmas tree was waiting with its lights twinkling. The tree  was waiting to be lit, like a table waiting to be laid. Now the tree is waiting for the children. Why not have the tree just waiting for its lights to be switched on?

Talking of lighting (candles on the cake), lighted is changed to lit.

Phew OK, more modernising.

Blanc-manges become trifles. A real motor-car is just a car – but the motor-car on the tree is still a motor-car. The girls’ blue silk frocks become blue party frocks, and their cloaks become capes. Do children never wear silk to parties now? Do children not know what silk is? Would the world silk throw them into a wild confusion about the cost of clothing? Are cloaks and capes not pretty similar? Do children today know enough about the differences between cloaks and capes to care which word is used a single time in a story? I have way more questions than answers.

The boys no longer arrive with their party shoes in a bag, but with their father instead.

Some common changes are queer to peculiar, two uses of italics are removed. Mother is changed to Mummy on one occasion.

A couple of very petty and pointless changes are made:

The children are arriving / They’re arriving

Here is another car / Here’s another car

Thank you so much, little girl / Thank you so much.

Two mistakes crop up:

the mother / the other

minutes / ninutes

A little correction is made twice:

the Mother / the mother

the Daddy / the father (but this could have been left as a lowercase daddy.)

A Family Christmas Part Ten: The Story of Santa Claus – The Christmas Book

This chapter is fairly straightforward, if a bit odd. Santa Claus sits back and tells the children the story of how he began to give presents, presumably while still a human and before he became a saint. It’s obviously set very far in the past and is therefore a bit awkward with women needing to marry to be taken care of, and being commodities owned by their father and able to be sold, but Santa Claus gives them money each and thus begins his gifting ways.

Then there’s a brief discussion about celebrating Christmas.

The opening quote is from The Night Before Christmas again.

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere they drove out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a Good-night!”

Clement Moore

Despite some uncomfortable old-fashioned notions about women, not a lot is changed here.

The father doesn’t just think to sell his daughters, but to sell his daughters as slaves. 

It’s no longer What a disgrace to be sold, but How terrible to be sold.

Santa says I could not go to the father and offer him money, an explanation is added – for I knew he would not accept a gift like that.

There are a few small changes – the reindeer no longer get restive but restless, queer is strange twice, the Britains are the Britons.

And oddly the church did not keep Christmas at all is changed to the church did not celebrate Christmas at all, but it’s still Cousin Jeanie doesn’t keep Christmas. That’s annoying for two reasons – one, the inconsistency. Either keep is an acceptable word for celebrate or not, why change it in some sentences but not others?

Secondly, it wasn’t correct that Scottish people didn’t keep Christmas when the book was written, let alone now. Christmas was quieter, due to the Church disapproving, but it was still celebrated by many – if not Jeannie’s family! It still seems to be ‘fact’ online that Scots didn’t celebrate Christmas until it became a public holiday in 1958 but there are plenty of people sharing memories of 1940s and early 1950s Christmases – such as Bob from Glasgow, and Patricia, also from Glasgow.

It’s true that Hogmanay and New Years was, for many, a bigger celebration as this wasn’t frowned upon by the church, and New Years is still a bigger deal in Scotland than it is in England – we get the 1st and the 2nd as public holidays, and you’ll find very, very few shops and businesses open on the 1st in Scotland.

By 2015 the statement becomes absolutely laughable, so if they were changing so many other things why not finally make that correct?