Autumn makes me nostalgic for days gone by: going to the Scituate Reservoir to gather autumn leaves, taking a yearly trek to New Hampshire on Columbus Day weekend to "see the colors," buying fresh-picked apples at Highland Orchards, putting the summer clothes in the attic and retrieving the winter ones from the same place, your winter coat needing airing because it reeked of camphor. Autumn was new school shoes, and a new skirt and/or jumper or two (no pants allowed on girls back then!) and a blouse or sweater or two to go with them, and new knee socks for when the snow began to fly. By the time Thanksgiving was over it was time to seriously think about Christmas: what you could get mom and dad with your meager allowance, what you wanted to ask Santa Claus for (and was he real, anyway?), dreaming about decorating the tree and putting up the Nativity set and dinner with the relatives.
So I picked up this book I found in an antique shop a few years ago and started to read.
Merry Christmas, Mr. Baxter, Edward Streeter
Perhaps you had to read it when it was published.
This humorous Christmas-themed novel was written back in 1956 by Streeter, who wrote two books which were later made into the much-remembered classic films Father of the Bride and Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation. I've never read any of his books, but if the description of them holds he seems to write about good-natured businessmen who like their lives to proceed in orderly fashion, nice fellows who love their wives and their children, but who are sometimes bewildered by them and the fuss that goes on around certain events. In this case, George Baxter is once again overwhelmed by the Christmas season. He wishes to spend less money and have less fuss, but there are traditions to uphold and people you don't want to forget, even if you can't make out their signature on a Christmas card or don't want to attend that one more office Christmas party.
So George pretty much just goes with the flow—or perhaps the inexorable tide or flood—as October leads into November, thence to December and finally to Christmas Eve.
Streeter makes some funny commentary on the Christmas rush we push ourselves into because it's "traditional," including the tipping of service employees (who apparently multiply at the holidays), going to office parties where they're just waiting for the boss to leave, and leaving one's shopping until Christmas Eve and coping with hysterical crowds in packed stores while churchbells ring out "Silent Night." (There's also a bit of pointed commentary about salesladies who misconstrue Baxter's shopping for his wife as shopping for Someone Else.) He also paints a vivid picture of New York City's hustle and bustle and sheer claustrophobic feeling, interspersed with brief minutes of beauty, like choirboys singing carols at Grand Central Station. I guess I just kept waiting for something unexpected or heartwarming to happen. (Nothing sentimental or corny, mind you; it's not that type od humor, but more like Saki or Thurber.) It didn't. Christmas went on as usual, his wife was tired out, but somehow they loved it all the same. So I apologize to fans of this book if I didn't like it quite as well as you did, as it seems to be much beloved.
However, my favorite passages in this book were these, which I felt kinship with: "In New York the fall was to the year what morning was to the day and youth to a lifetime. It was a beginning time, a time of adventure, a period when the city became like ancient Bagdad—a place of mystery and romance where anything might happen.
"In the fall Mr. Baxter felt ready for the world, vigorous, as after a good night's sleep. He was always full of resolutions and determinations in the fall, unperturbed by previous failures. It was then that one renewed business connections and picked up the friendly threads of social intercourse. It was the time when new plays appeared, new books were published, football games were played, and the countryside burst into vivid reds and yellows. Elections were at hand. Then came Thanksgiving and before you knew it Christmas had caught you completely unprepared as usual.
"Then, right in the middle of everything, came that thing called New Year's Day. What was new about it? Mid-year's Day perhaps if you had to have a holiday so soon after Christmas. Certainly it didn't mark the beginning of anything, except, possibly, that by the first of January everyone was beginning to pant slightly and to think of winter vacations. To call this New Year's Day was like firing a starting gun in the middle of a race."
No comments:
Post a Comment