Toronto Reference Library Blog

Christmas Eve. The wrapping is finished, the plans have been made for tomorrow, it’s time for a quiet moment before bed.

In the dark living room the tree glows with warm colours, and it feels so cozy and sleepy. A cup of tea or a little nightcap, and a few minutes lost in listening to the snowy, nostalgic story of Dylan Thomas' 'A Child’s Christmas in Wales'. Even though these are not my own Christmas memories, it somehow rings so true and familiar, after so many years of hearing it, as I will do again this Christmas Eve.

Now my daughter shares the pleasure of this holiday tradition with me. We both find ourselves reciting favourite bits along with the recording, finding a comfort in the familiar cadence of Thomas’ voice:

"One Christmas was so much like the other, in those years around the sea-town corner now, out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices that I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve, or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six."

This year would have been Dylan Thomas' 100th birthday. It makes revisiting the story this Christmas a bit more special.

When I was young, my paren'ts had the Caedmon LP album recording  of "Dylan Thomas Reading A Child’s Christmas in Wales and Five Poems", recorded by Thomas in 1952. I remember being entranced as I heard the story, lost in his magic words and images, seeing the snowy Welsh hillside and the narrow streets of his town.

I still have the record and played it for many years, until I found a cassette version. Now, of course, it's also available on CD.

The record jacket is an illustration by the Uruguayan-American woodcut artist, Antonio Frasconi, one of six he designed for Caedmon's Dylan Thomas recordings.

Caedmon Records was started in 1952 by two women, Barbara Holdridge and her best friend, Marianne Roney. Just graduating from college, they were looking for a way to get into the recording business. They heard that the Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, would be giving a reading at the Poetry Center at the 92nd Street Y in New York, and they decided to go and meet him. Turned away by the usher, they persisted, and finally did get in touch with Thomas. He came to the recording studio with some poems, but not enough to fill the B side of the LP. He remembered having published a Christmas story in Harper's Bazaar, and they managed to track down a copy of the December 1950 issue of the magazine. 

Thomas read the story for the LP. It was 'A Child's Christmas in Wales'. The story as recorded was actually an amalgam of two different works, 'Memories of Christmas', a script written and broadcast in 1945 for BBC Wales, and 'Conversation about Christmas', a piece published in The Picture Post in 1947. Serendipity, fate, good fortune all led to the discovery of a beloved Christmas story that may well have been lost and forgotten.

The rest is history, as Caedmon (named after the earliest known English poet) went on to record many of the major figures of the literary world.

Today, we can listen to the complete story, on the Naxos Music Library site, accessed with a library card through the library’s website. Search for 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' in the Naxos Music Library.

In an unusual reversal of audiobook production, it was the recording of the story that made it famous. Then publishers took interest and put it into book form.

Many beautifully illustrated versions have since  been published. One of my favourite children's book illustrators, Edward Ardizzone, created just the right images to suit the story. Other children's illustrators have delighted families with their own interpretations. Two very different versions are by Trina Schart Hyman and Christopher Raschka.

Artists and printmakers have created beautiful art books, interpreting Thomas' evocative words and images in their own way.

Fritz Eichenberg's wood engravings may not appeal to younger audiences but they create a unique vision of the uncles, sleeping in front of the fire, and the "few, small aunts". Ellen Raskin's simple woodcuts, illustrating a lovely small edition of the story, leave more to our imagination.

'A Child's Christmas in Wales' never fails to delight, no matter how many times I hear or read it. I see the boys chasing "iron flanked and bellowing he-hippos" in the snow, the postmen with "sprinkling eyes and wind-cherried noses", and of course, Miss Prothero, who "said the right thing, always".

I look forward to this Christmas Eve as I turn down the lights, get comfy on the couch, and re-visit the "wool-white, bell-tongued ball of holidays resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea…"