A Child's Christmas in Wales

Illustration by Edward Ardizzone

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices 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. 

Photo from A Child's Christmas in Wales, 1963, 
a film produced and directed by Marvin Lightner, 
presenting Dylan Thomas's story, 
including a recording of the poet's voice reading the tale.

Always on Christmas night there was music. An uncle played the fiddle, a cousin sang "Cherry Ripe," and another uncle sang "Drake's Drum." It was very warm in the little house. Auntie Hannah, who had got on to the parsnip wine, sang a song about Bleeding Hearts and Death, and then another in which she said her heart was like a Bird's Nest; and then everybody laughed again; and then I went to bed. Looking through my bedroom window, out into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steady falling night. I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept. 

Above are two excerpts (the beginning and ending) from A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas, one of the most beautiful pieces of writing I know.  We read it aloud today while the storm that slammed the whole East Coast of the US raged outside.  Tonight is clear, cold, and bright.  Thinking of you all and wishing you joy and peace this season.