Christmas Every Day

Probably the most famous of modern Christmas short stories, American author  O. Henry (1862-1910; real name William Sydney Porter) tells the tale of the young married couple Jim and Della. Money is short for presents and economies have to be made but the love each bears for the other produces willing sacrifices. Della sells her gorgeous hair to buy Jim a watch-fob while, in sad irony, Jim has sold his watch to buy combs for his wife.

It is said that O. Henry’s love of alcohol often made him late in submitting his stories and that in 1906 his Christmas story was particularly behind schedule. In desperation the artist whose job it was to illustrate O. Henry’s work went to the author to be given at least an idea of what to draw. O. Henry replied that he had not got a completed story, nor even a word of it written, but that  he did have a vision of a poorly-furnished room with a man and a woman talking about Christmas. The man had a watch fob in his hand while the woman’s principal feature was long beautiful hair. The illustrator began to draw and within a few hours O. Henry had produced a classic.

 In the 1990s Mark St. Germain and Randy Curtis produced a Christmas musical combining the plots of two O. Henry stories, “The Gifts of the Magi” and the “The Cop and The Anthem”.

An adaptation of a North Carolina folk tune by John Jacob Niles (1892-1980), the American balladeer and collector of folk music. Niles is said to have paid the young girl whom he first heard singing the song 25¢ to repeat it until he had written it down. Among his other songs are “Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair” and “Jesus, Jesus Rest Your Head”. Late in life he turned to art song, writing oratorio and music based on the poetry of the mystic and monk Thomas Merton.

I wonder as I wander out under the sky,

How Jesus the Savior did come for to die

For poor or’n’ry people like you and like I.

I wonder as I wander out under the sky.

When Mary birthed Jesus, ’twas in a cow’s stall,

With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all;

But high from God’s heaven, a star’s light did fall

And the promise of ages it then did recall.

If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing,

A star in the sky or a bird on a wing

Or all of God’s angels in heav’n for to sing —

He surely could have it, ’cause He was the King.

I wonder as I wander out under the sky,

How Jesus the Savior did come for to die

For poor or’n’ry people like you and like I.

I wonder as I wander out under the sky.

A 1990 religious tract from North Carolina shows Santa Claus in the form of a devil. It includes a poem called “Ho! Ho! Ho!”:

The devil has a demon,

His name is Santa Claus.

He’s a dirty old demon

Because of last year’s flaws.

He promised Jack a yo-yo,

And Jill a diamond ring.

They woke up on Christmas morning

Without a single thing…..

One day they’ll stand before God

Without their bag of tricks.

Without their red-nosed reindeer

Or their phony old Saint Nicks;

For Revelation twenty-one,

Verse eight, tells where they’ll go:

Condemned to everlasting hell,

Where there’ll be no Ho! Ho! Ho!

One of the major Italian magical Gift-Bringers is the Befana, a kindly witch who visits children on the eve of Epiphany (her name is a corruption of Epiphania). During the fascist period from 1922-45, the dictator Benito Mussolini supplanted the broom-borne crone as the provider of all good things for Italy’s little ones.