An English Christmas

A swan feather frost covered Port Meadow last Thursday, but it melted into mist long before Christmas. I remember one magical year in Britain when we awoke to a sparkling frost, but mostly a white Christmas in England means dense fog. Back home in Brunswick, Maine, they’ve had 28 inches of snow just in December. Our buddy, Pete Coviello was out ice fishing.

When it comes to Christmas spirit, the Brits snow anyone over. Our corner shop, the Post Box in Wolvercote, has covered every surface in tinsel with Christmas crackers (more on that later) hanging from the ceiling. Carl, another Brit married to an American, decks his shop out “for the children.” He sells what I would call miniature X-mas trees along with his usual supply of free range eggs, organic juices, fresh veg, milk and canned goods. It’s also our post office but only open a couple of odd hours on assorted days. There is something very small town American about a post office/convenience store. It brings a community together.

Oxford at Christmas

All of Britain basically shuts down over Christmas, a national holiday. Even the trains don’t run for two days. Holiday cards are clipped to red ribbons and hung from the moldings. Most have nativity scenes or pastoral scenes in snow instead of the ubiquitous family photos and Santas you see in the US. Christmas feels far less commercial in the UK although many Brits go into debt paying for it. Decorations will stay up until twelfth night. People say "Happy Christmas" instead of "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays;" there is but one holiday for most of England.

We spent the long weekend with Henry’s family in Goring-on-Thames. It was a tight squeeze: 11 people and 2 dogs. The children helped their grandparents harvest mistletoe from the old crab apple tree. It spreads like ivy, clumping into balls – the male is yellowish and the female has the distinct white berries. They save a sprig for their house and barter the rest for a Christmas tree. Bits of holly are collected from the countryside to place over portraits of ancestors (that’s my husband’s great grandfather, Steven Cattley.)



Saturday was a “champagne” and canapés luncheon we all helped prepare for village friends. The English sparkling wine was surprisingly good. Camel Valley is in Cornwall. I met an old friend of Henry’s, the photographer Charlie Glover. His wife, Miranda Glover, writes women’s fiction just like me. We had fun talking shop and planned to get together soon. Like my character from NOT CRICKET, Miranda was at Oxford in the 1980's and recently moved back to the area. I’d love to meet her writer friends as I miss my support community in Brunswick. Writing is a lonely profession.

On Christmas Eve we had Christmas cake for tea. It’s a dense fruitcake with a two-layer frosting: marzipan then white sugar.

After tea we crossed the River Thames to Streatley to attend the children’s service at St. Mary’s. My son was christened in this 13th century church in a Georgian gown, a family heirloom. Note the small cars.

The service told the story of Jesus’s birth and invited the children to bring up the animals and figures to fill in the manger. Candles dripped as we sang carols. The children placed presents by the tree for underprivileged children.

On the walk back home, we stopped at the old Goring Mill. The woman who lives there creates a life size paper mache manger in her living room. The children count the little creatures (this year baby owls) and write the number down for a raffle. She also collects donations for her Swan Lifeline, aiding injured swans. My question is: why doesn’t the wealthy Queen look after her ailing swans?

At 6pm a torchlight procession gathers in Goring and in Streatley, convening in the fields for carol singing around a huge bonfire. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of participants. The flaring torches seemed to float above the river as they crossed the bridge.

To warm up, Henry and I slipped into our favorite Goring pub, the Catherine Wheel, for Hobgoblin bitter by the roaring fire. The pub was decked out for the holidays and full of families.

For Christmas Eve dinner we had lamb tagine followed by 3 puddings (English for dessert). The adults had mince pie, which is a miniature pie of dried fruit and minced meat or a substitute, which is topped with brandy butter and then drowned in double cream. For the children, my mother-in-law had crafted a Chocolate Log, which is basically a Maine whoopie pie: chocolate cake and whipped cream with a sprig of holly. Since I’m lactose intolerant (a sad fate in Britain,) Nicola had made a caramelized orange pudding for me. We never made it to the stilton and port.

After pudding, it was time for Christmas crackers. Two people pull (or you circle round the table) and crack! Inside is a paper crown and dinky prize for the winner like nail clippers. Also a dumb joke eg: what do you call a person who's afraid of Santa? Claustrophobic! Dear Elizabeth, an elderly cousin, buys enormous quantities of crackers so that no one is a loser. "There can never be too many crackers on Christmas,” says she.

On Christmas morning the children woke before sunrise for their stockings. We had a candlelit breakfast of croissants since the sun doesn’t rise until after eight. It sets before 4pm. We are even farther north than Maine. My father-in-law gets little sleep at Christmas since he was out past midnight ringing church bells at both Goring and Streatley. Before having children, we used to attend the 11pm carol service. Never one to complain about duty, Capt. Tony Laurence rang in Christmas morning as well.

Most of the grown ups headed to church and to champagne at a neighbors’ while Henry and I took the 4 children and 2 dogs for a walk along the Thames tow path. My nine-year-old nephew slid in over his wellies, and before we knew it, the 3 younger children were sliding down the muddy banks and jumping in the river with the dogs! It was raining so I hadn’t brought my camera. I was cold just watching them, but they have English blood.

It was a good distraction, as the children were going crazy waiting to open presents. This could not commence until after the Queen’s speech although my son suggested just watching it later on You Tube (half a million did!) At 3pm we gathered round “the telly” to hear the longest reigning British monarch address her nation. Then it was time for more tea and gifts. I got 2 umbrellas! That scared the rain away, and we were treated to a rare sunset. Note the balls of mistletoe in the tree.

Christmas dinner in England is always turkey, roast potatoes and Brussels sprouts. My husband and his sister Charlotte prepared the feast while the rest of us played charades. Nicola already made a traditional chestnut and sausage stuffing. There was also bread sauce made by simmering a clove-studded onion in milk (or, yet again, cream) and then dissolving breadcrumbs into it with seasonings.

The climax of the evening is the flaming Christmas pudding. Brandy is ignited that spreads to the sprig of holly. The pudding itself is alcohol infused fruitcake with hidden sixpences. The lucky make a wish on the old currency; the unlucky break a tooth!


Christmas was not over the next morning. On Boxing Day we journeyed out on the ancient ridgeway for a long walk. We passed through the site of the old Roman temple (below). The undulating greens were from a pastoral painting. An English Christmas is like stepping back in time.


Today it was 64F/18C! My son and I walked along the canal into Oxford. Last week's frost seems so long ago. Have a Happy New Year! It's been a fun first year of blogging for me, and I've enjoyed your comments. Thank you!

Philip Pullman on Writing Myth & Religion

I thought it was a joke: Philip Pullman, young adult author and outspoken critic of organized religion, in a public discussion with, get this, the vicar in a church. So it’s okay to be organized in a church so long as the topic is writing.

I grabbed my teenaged son, who loved His Dark Materials trilogy even more then Harry Potter, and joined throngs of Oxford students at The University Church of St. Mary the Virgin on October 22nd. What a dramatic setting: stained glass, vaulted ceilings and gargoyles dating back to the 13th century. I half expected to find a daemon lurking in the pews. The fantasy series was set in his hometown of Oxford in this universe and in others.

Philip Pullman fitted the collegiate venue. He looked and sounded more like a tenured college professor than a bestselling author and iconoclast. He was warm and friendly with his host, Canon Brian Mountford.

Pullman referred to himself as a “Church of England Atheist.” He praised the Bible for its beautiful prose and noted religion’s value in building community. Pullman’s quarrel is not so much with religion but that “the church abandoned people in my position.” He cited religious wars, persecution and intolerance.

The Church of England was an important part of his personal history. He seemed to regard it more like an eccentric relative than the enemy. When Pullman was only seven, his father died. His grandfather, an ordained minister, partially raised him. Pullman praised his beloved grandfather for being a gifted storyteller. Later Pullman claimed that parents could do better by telling moral stories as opposed to religious ones.

In a Hollywood minute, the conversation jumped from religion to the upcoming film version of His Dark Materials. When Mountfield asked if the adaptation was true to the book, Pullman replied that the film is but one in a long series of different ways of telling the same story. Since writing the novels, there have been abridged audio books, a radio dramatization and 2 stage plays. Each has a different emphasis that reflects the genre.

His Dark Materials film will have special effects not possible on the page. It won’t be the same because the book takes eleven hours to read out loud, compared to a two-hour film. Pullman also wrote some special scenes just for the movie.

What impressed me most was Pullman’s eloquence and lack of conceit. He seemed to see the writer as a tool in the process: “stories only come into being when you read them; you can’t tell the meaning.”

Pullman has no problem with readers having different interpretations or leaving questions unanswered. When writing, the author is a tyrant and the process is despotic. Once the book becomes published, it becomes a democracy of the readers. “Reading is engaged in silence and secrecy, and there is nothing I can do about it.”

Writing is still hard work. The Northern Lights (The Golden Compass in the USA) took Pullman seven years to write. It still isn’t faultless. “If you want to write a perfect piece of literature, write a haiku or a sonnet but don’t bother writing a novel.”

Nonetheless, Pullman appreciates the craftsmanship of forming sentences and the discipline of using words precisely. He frequently consults the dictionary and loathes clichés. His focus is as much on enjoying the medium of language as on telling the story. With experience writing gets both harder and easier. “It is easier because there are more ways to say the same thing, but it is harder to choose.”

What sets Pullman apart from most contemporary writers of children’s fiction are his literary references. His work draws heavily from the Judeo-Christian tradition and from John Milton’s Paradise Lost. His books resonate with the notion of fall and redemption. There is also a fair bit of science, including string theory, in creating his parallel universes and “dust.”

His Dark Materials leave readers of any age with questions. The biggest one is “what is dust?”

Pullman explained, “It is the visual analogue of all things known, all thoughts. What I call dust is what makes us what we are.” He avoided using the term soul but instead referred to the human “sense of consciousness.” The purpose of dust was “to develop a myth as a place to stand like in the Judeo-Christian tradition.”

I’m wondering how much of this will be clear to my ten-year-old daughter, who just started reading the series. To her, it is all about the daemons, those lovable animalistic beings that are the other half of humans. My daughter would calls them cute, little shape changers, but Pullman said they are the “aspect of oneself.”

Pullman claims that his best idea was having the daemons constantly changing form until their humans hit puberty. At heart, it is a young adult book dealing with this magical transformation from child to adult.

Biggest laughs came when Pullman answered the question of what would be his daemon. “My daemon would be a scruffy bird that steals from his neighbors.” He elaborated on how his imaginative fiction is rooted in research.

There is no doubt in my mind that his best character is the drunken, armored polar bear. Pullman created this creature and the dueling scene after reading an 1812 essay about fencing with a bear. His magic brings it to life.

The view from St. Mary's tower of Oxford

On the way out, we dropped a couple pounds in the church collection box. St. Mary’s also raises funds from visitors to the tower and by running a café called Vaults and Garden. The food is fresh and wholesome. Still, it’s hard to imagine any of this happening in an American church. That’s the fun of living abroad.

A blog is the ultimate democracy of the readers. What’s your take on Philip Pullman’s mythology?

Children's Author Cynthia Lord

“It must be something in the water,” Cynthia Lord surmised. Cindy’s first children’s book, Rules, just won a Newbery Honor Medal and the Schneider Family Book Award. We both live on the same street as Charlotte Agell who has published eleven children’s books. I guess I should drink more water.

Rules is fiction, but it rings true. Twelve-year-old Catherine tries to teach her autistic younger brother the rules of life. David has to be told that it’s okay to take his shirt off to swim but not his pants. Catherine creates the words to communicate with her paraplegic friend, Jason, and struggles to get her busy parents to listen to her needs too. The characters have challenges that restrict their lives but don’t define them. They find happiness on their own terms without a miracle cure.

When I read Rules aloud to my children, it made us laugh and almost cry. It was quite an accomplishment to create a book that would appeal to both a nine-year-old girl and a twelve-year-old boy, not to mention their mother. The book was flawlessly well written.

“Most books about autism are so sad,” Cindy said, “but a family has to learn how to laugh or they’re not going to make it.”

CYNTHIA LORD INTERVIEW:

Is there a true story behind your story?

When my son was first diagnosed with autism, I spent forty hours a week on Behavior Modification Treatment because Maine didn’t offer it. The state flew up experts from New York and paid for the student helpers I trained. It was worth it to see my son recover the words he had lost at eighteen months.

Now my fourteen-year-old son attends the junior high for special classes like cooking and art. It’s too noisy there for him to concentrate in such a big school, so he does his schoolwork at home. His seventeen-year-old sister attends the high school.

How did you find the time to write Rules when your son was only five?

I realized I would have to make time for writing or not want it anymore. I set my alarm for 4am and wrote every morning until my family got up at 7am. In four months I finished the first draft and then spent a year revising it with help from readers.

Was the road to publication as short?

The first two publishers rejected Rules but sent the manuscript back with helpful comments. I rewrote it and sent out a query letter and two sample chapters to four more publishers. One rejected it with a form letter, but the other three asked for the complete manuscript.

I loved the Scholastic Book Club as a child, so I granted Scholastic an exclusive read. Then September 11th happened, and everything ground to a halt. After eight months, I finally got a call from the editor saying they would be running some numbers and planned to acquire it. I realized that I needed an agent to negotiate the contract, so I called Tracey Adams in New York. We had met at a conference.

So why did the book not come out until 2006 – almost five years later?

As a first time author, I was put on the slow track. The manuscript went from one over-committed editor to a second one. There were revisions to add more drama. Even when the manuscript was ready, I was bumped off the list by established authors. New authors were the first to be cut when the list had to shrink for financial problems.

How did you deal with the long wait?

It was demoralizing, but I kept writing. Scholastic bought my picture book; it’s waiting for illustration. My second middle reader (grades 4-8) was pending senior editorial approval when Rules won the Newbury Honor Medal. Scholastic immediately made an offer on that book and another one I have yet to write.

What is the next book about?

Halfway Between Hope and Hurricane takes place on an island off the coast of Maine with a protagonist whose mother teaches at the school. I drew from both my own experience as a teacher on Chebeague Island and an historical incident on another island. In the 1960’s Frenchboro Island tried to head off closure of their school by bringing in foster children from the mainland. For me the ethical question is the most important part. Do the means justify the end?

You won’t have to wait too long to find out. Halfway Between Hope and Hurricane is projected for a fall 2008 release. Since the Newbury Honor, Rules has spent 10 weeks on the NYT bestseller list and is in its fourth run. Cynthia Lord is on the fast track!

Literary Heroes

On Valentine’s Day it’s snowing and nine degrees. The kids are home from school with up to eight inches expected. They're outside, installing a second ice window in their fort. My husband is coming home rather than meeting me for a romantic lunch in town. Still, fresh snow is good, like a blank sheet of paper waiting for new words.

My favorite non-fiction author,Tracy Kidder, had “a problem of goodness” when writing Mountains Beyond Moutains. It is a chronicle of Dr. Paul Farmer's global quest to cure the poor of illness. Kidder explained to a packed auditorium at Bowdoin College last Friday that it is the reporter’s duty to dig up the dirty secrets. And yet Kidder couldn’t find a chink in Farmer’s armor. A friend had told me that Farmer is called “the saint” by his coworkers. He seemed too good to be real. “Honesty is necessary but not sufficient to make what you believe to be true to be true to readers.”

In order to make the book believable, Kidder inserted himself as a character in his book for the first time. He became the everyman foil to the selfless, brilliant Farmer and takes the reader along for a ride through a world of darkness, following the light of hope. We travel with Kidder and Farmer to poverty stricken Haiti, Russia and Peru and see first hand what a difference a small group of people can make in setting up clinics to cure the poor of TB and other illnesses. Partners in Health succeeded where governments had failed.

Kidder’s other literary problem was that he might alienate his reader. “Good provokes and makes us think about things we are not comfortable about.” Such as the fact that our American “life of privilege is built at least in part by misery elsewhere.” Employing the first person narrative, Kidder candidly shows how he, like you the reader, is less than perfect and even selfish. Even so we can still so do our bit to narrow the gap between rich and poor to a more “dignified poverty.” It’s a message of hope instead of despair.

At the end of the moving presentation, a preppy Bowdoin student turned to her friend and said, “Now, I want to be a doctor!”



I joined a long line of students and professors at the signing. Bowdoin senior Selina Asante was raised by grandparents in Ghana before moving to New Jersey. Like Farmer, she chose to study anthropology and science at college. After graduation, she will return to Ghana to volunteer with Unite for Sight. She found Kidder’s words inspiring as I did hers. Kidder was thrilled to hear about Selina’s plans from me. He said that his own daughter was in medical school but modestly took no credit for it.

Kidder, so well spoken and charmingly funny on stage, seemed almost shy when talking one-on-one unscripted. I was surprised that the author, who won a Pulitzer for his engaging book on emerging computer technology, had never read a blog, but he asked for my website address with the curiosity of a journalist. What I love the most about Kidder’s writing is how he sucks you completely into the world of computers, house builders, school children or health aid workers. His characters are believable and his true books read like novels, which was why I had wrongly assumed he was a computer nerd.

Then again Kidder also wrote Hometown about small town life in Western Mass. and his first question to me was, “You live here?” This from a man who had just visited Farmer’s plumbing free shack in Haiti! Maine in winter must appear equally remote and not the first place where you’d expect to find a blogging novelist in a black turtleneck and boot cut jeans. I love that when talented writers, like Kidder, come to Maine, I actually get the opportunity to meet them.

I met one of my favorite fiction authors, Haruki Murakami, in my mudroom. My husband was taking him out to dinner with other Japan scholars at Bowdoin. I had just that day finished writing the first draft of Moose Crossing. Odder than the talking cat in Kafka on the Shore was the reclusive author’s appearance in my home on that auspicious night.

Murakami was soft-spoken and surprisingly down to earth given the surreal, disturbing tone of his original work. With almost child-like delight, he spoke about discovering some rare jazz records at Vinyl Haven in town and found Maine charming. Murakami shared my joy in finishing a manuscript and wished me the best of luck in getting published. It must have been good karma because that draft of Moose Crossing led me to my agent, Jean Naggar.

There are many fine writers who reside in Maine. My favorite elementary school author is my daughter. She wrote a scary story, The Nevergreen Forest, featuring a white-faced witch with a “voice like fingernails screeching against the chalk-board.” Even adult writers can learn a lesson from her book. Remember to employ all the senses, not just sight, when writing descriptive prose, and draw from your own experiences even when writing fantasy.

When she grows up, my daughter wants to be a writer or a photographer (she took the photo of me on skis in the second blog 1/24/07.) With help from friends, she is starting back up the school newspaper. Always drawing, writing or reading, my daughter won’t leave the house without a notebook. She’s been very curious and excited about my book. I read only the first chapter of Moose Crossing to my children (with a few sentences removed.) They laughed and loved it. It’s fun to be a literary hero, if only in my nine-year-old daughter’s eyes!

Haruki Murakami photo by Marion Ettlinger.