CSotD: What it takes to get me in the mood
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I'm not a Scrooge, but I'm not much for about 80 percent of Christmas stuff and I like to think that's because about 80 percent of it is either too early or too … um … too much like drinking maple syrup.
Which I did, by the way, at the age of about 10. And I didn't eat anything maple-flavored again until I was about 13.
That would be a long time to go between Christmases, so I loaded up my MP3 player at Thanksgiving to take in the car because I knew the non-NPR, non-ESPN radio stations were about to switch formats and I would prefer not to hear, not just "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" but "The Little Drummer Boy" or "Feliz Navidad" or "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree," either.
Though I really got ambushed in the grocery store the other day when they played some Nat King Cole, which is okay, and just as I started listening to the Musak, they blindsided me with "Manic Monday," which isn't Christmas music at all but certainly produced much the same effect.
The point is, I don't want my Christmas much before December 22, and then it's fine and I can get into it.
Howsoever, I got into the mood unexpectedly today, a good two weeks early, when Tom Spurgeon linked to this blog wherein Arthur Rackham's take on "The Night Before Christmas," is housed.
That's being blindsided in a really good way.
First of all, while I despise all modern parodies of the classic poem, the original itself is a nice story, sparingly told in a verse form that flows nicely.
Second, it's illustrated by Arthur Rackham.
I'm a sucker for old classic illustrators, and, in fact, the logo for my children's stories is taken from Margaret Evans Price's illustrations for the version of "Beauty and the Beast" as retold by Katharine Lee Bates. Which is a pretty cool pedigree, and it's a pretty cool picture.
Price was the first art director at Fisher-Price toys and, while she isn't featured at the blog where Rackham's poem is housed, you will find some work by Charles Robinson there, another artist whose work I've used, as well as lots of more contemporary art.
If you just go to that blog and read the poem and enjoy Rackham, you'll have spent an amusing 10 minutes.
If, on the other hand, you should happen to glance over at the left rail and start clicking on things, I cannot be responsible for what happens to the rest of your day.
And if you were to click on that link to Margaret Evans Price's work, it would lead you to another web site where you might also stumble onto works by another of my favorites, H.J. Ford, who illustrated Andrew Lang's various Fairy Books, and you'll find Maxfield Parish at both sites and once you start poking around, well, I think you'll find that whatever traces of Scrooginess and Grinchitude may be hanging around your door will be pretty much gone.
Along with your job, but that's your fault for checking this site out before you leave for the office.
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