Scenes of Quiet Reading #1 -- Beside the Christmas Tree
Refreshing the nineteenth-century genre of a magazine sketch
What better time to imagine scenes for quiet reading than the month of December? As the shortest day approaches, Christmas lights, Hanukkah candles, and evening lamps cast an aura of mystery, reverence, and enchantment. In this season, we bury ourselves in vivid novels and dream of warmth returning to our limbs. In this season also, we read timeless genres that hold still, like ice and poetry and the remembered refrains of carols.
In nineteenth-century America, with the spread of northern European Christmas traditions like candlelit trees and a gift-giving Christmas Man, seasonal stories like those of Charles Dickens became popular in magazines. Alongside those dramatic stories appeared a quieter, more restful genre called a sketch.
Magazine sketches conveyed a character or scene or tradition without the racy action of a story. Sharing them aloud to the family and guests by the evening fire, readers lavished attention on turns of phrase and filigrees of language, like artfully swirled buds of frosting on holiday cakes.
The atmosphere of a sketch transported readers elsewhere without a whiff of action or drama — just the swoosh of imagination. The best ones were short and vivid with simple subjects.
For an extra holiday post inspired by the “Quiet Reading” theme, may you enjoy this sketch of a Christmas tree as a scene for quiet reading.
My tree is up. The ornaments are down from the attic. I have only to hang them up and clear the boxes to enjoy one of my favorite rewards of the season: sitting by the tree-lights with a book, a blanket, a supplemental lamp, and at least a few moments in which nothing at all happens.
I am a parent with children at home, so I may have used all my moments imagining the scene and writing about it. We’ll see.
My association of books with the winter holiday is strong. Growing up, Christmas meant a beautifully illustrated hardback to read and reread under a blanket by the tree in new flannel pajamas and thick socks. The holiday meant spacious time with almost nothing to do but sleep late and daydream and read.
Beside a tinseled tree, I cheered the wit of Scheherazade and learned from the Arabian Nights that stories could save lives and change history. I knew nothing in those days about cultural appropriation.
I decided to learn French and have a monkey like Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Sara Crewe before I knew that her father’s work in India made him an agent of colonialism.
I decided that Little Men, not Little Women, was my favorite novel by Louisa May Alcott. I loved the boys’ mischief and Alcott’s celebration of a chaotic yet nurturing home, unaware that by maturing Jo March into a splendid foster mother, Alcott was limiting my imaginings for female adulthood.
I have appointed today for decorating the tree and putting away the boxes. The anticipation for this year’s book begins to mount. What will it be?
It does not matter whether the book introduces critical problems in modern daylight. By the white glow of Christmas tree lights, augmented by a good lamp, I can be carried away with enchantment.
Shall I reread an old favorite such as William Pène de Bois’s The 21 Balloons or John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman to see how the books hold up with me today? Or shall I start something new, with no Christmas or classical associations?
Feel free to advise:
Beside a succession of Christmas trees, I came of age with the sound of forced-air heat whooshing on and off, light holiday traffic on the street outside, pages turning in my hand, and my stomach rumbling when it was time to put the book down and follow my nose to the kitchen for a tender roast, my mother having put aside her own quiet reading for a couple of decades.
I type on my table beside the bare fir tree, not yet dressed in ornaments. I watch the few leaves left on the crabapple flutter outside against a cold blue sky. A wind chime occasionally rings just enough to draw attention to the quiet, yang to yin.
The forced-air heat comes on as I prepare to click “Publish,” turn off every digital thing, and sit quietly in company with the tree.
The stillness of fir needles is miraculous, like the lull before opening a book.
Today’s post is a holiday bonus on the new name and theme of Quiet Reading. Coming up this month: More Attention Chronicles, A Book for You on “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (“‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”), and a short, immersive Scene of Quiet Reading for anyone who could use a lift up and away on Christmas afternoon. Thank you for reading!
Your conclusion here was so gentle, so inviting. Choose anything at all to read. Polar Express. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Something else. It is the quiet time and the tradition that matters most, and I appreciate you modeling that for us. 🎄
You paint THE most inviting picture, thank you! Our cat loves to lie under our tree and have adventure dreams too.
I love and appreciate you pointing out that Louisa May Alcott, bless her soul, likely accidentally limited our imaginings for female adulthood. I'm sure she would not be pleased with herself but her adoring fans will cut her some slack as we recognize she did the best she could with the cards she'd been dealt!