The Books: The Birds’ Christmas Carol (Kate Douglas Wiggin)

Daily Book Excerpt: Children’s books:

Next book on the shelf is The Birds’ Christmas Carol by Kate Douglas Wiggin

I can’t remember where I got my copy of this book but I have had it for what feels like my whole life. This book was published in 1886 and I think the copy I have was actually issued in the 1880s. It’s a hard cover, and it has those shiny pages I’ve mentioned before – old-fashioned paper, which has a sheen to it – and where you can see the imprint of the typeface. Also – it has wonderful illustrations – dark scratchy drawings – very Victorian-era. That’s the only way I can describe it. Beautiful illustrations. My Alice in Wonderland book is an old book as well – a Victorian-era printing of it. I love it. The Birds’ Christmas Carol is one of the most sentimental treacly proselytizing children’s books I’ve ever read – YET – it has its charms, and she’s a good writer. You can certainly see how Lewis Carroll kind of fucked up other writer’s plans in this era. He actually described a REAL little girl. Alice is REAL. She has faults, she gets angry, she has a sense of SELF … In general, kids’ books were Sunday School tracts, teaching morals, and lessons, and showing you how to be “good”, and blah blah blah Yawn.

So The Birds’ Christmas Carol is definitely in that moralizing vein. And add to it that the whole thing is a Christian metaphor – you have the potential for a pretty boring pompous book. Yeah, yeah, I got it, Christ died for my sins, I’ll be a good little girl … Uhm, can I go play now?

But Wiggin, although the sentimentality here is overwhelming, has some lovely passages. She really does. Nobody ever really comes to life – they are all caricatures, two-dimensional – but I do like some of her writing. Briefly: the plot.

On a Christmas Day – a child is born. A little girl. The proud and happy mama and papa don’t know what to name her. Since it is Christmas, they hear the choir singing in the church beside the hospital and decide to name her Carol. Their last name is Bird. So her name will be Carol Bird. You can probably already see where we are going here.

For the first 5 years of her life, Carol Bird has a perfect childhood. Her hair is golden and curly, her eyes sparkle with blueness, her cheeks flush – her little laugh makes the world seem like a better place. She is adored.

Then tragedy strikes. Carol begins to walk with a little limp. Her parents notice it, and cling to one another in terror. The limp gets worse until finally Carol is completely crippled and must lie in her bed all the time. I’m assuming polio, but I have no idea.

Poor little Carol. The Christmas child meant to spread joy and happiness … confined to her room!

Then on her 11th birthday – which is, of course, Christmas, she decides to throw a party. This is her only wish for presents – that her parents help her with this party. She wants nothing for herself. (Of course she doesn’t. And why? Because she is a metaphor for the Christmas spirit, not a real little girl!) Anyway – next door there is a poor family named the Ruggles – with 8 kids or something like that. They are poor in a TOTALLY offensive and sentimentalized way. They are adorable, they fight, they have stockings that sag, and yet they all have good hearts. Their mother is stern, loving … It’s not their FAULT that they are poor!! So anyway, Carol wants to have all the Ruggles kids over for Christmas dinner. A little charity function, basically.

So the party goes off very well – we are supposed to chuckle heartily at the sight of the goggle-eyed poor kids, being confronted with the PLENTY of the Christmas table at the Birds house. We are supposed to find their poverty CUTE. But they all have a great great time – it is a night for the books- a night everyone will remember – a night when the Christmas spirit is alive and well and stalking the earth! The Ruggles fill up their poverty-struck souls with Christmas plenty – enough to get them through many a cold night – and Carol, tired yet happy, waves them goodbye from her bedroom window.

And that night … as the nighttime Christmas mass in the church next door (there is always a church next door, apparently) goes on and the choir sings a Christmas carol – Carol lies her blonde curly head down on her pillow, closes her eyes, happy because of her good deed, and then – she promptly dies.

The End.

I mean, what??

But still. With all of this treacly Christian nonsense, I loved this book when I was a kid, and was captivated by it. Not so much by Carol – because she is obviously not a real little girl and who can care about a two-dimensional cutout? But Wiggin describes her room, where she spends all her time, and how it is decorated (of course in a Christmas theme – because it is Christmas all year round for Carol!) so vividly. I loved it. I also loved Wiggin’s description of the Christmas feast – because … it’s from a different time. Another era. The food is different. It sounds old-fashioned. And I always loved books from other eras. Also – there are actually some very funny moments – all involving the Ruggles family, in their adorable poverty.

Anyway, here’s an excerpt – where Carol comes up with her plan to entertain the Ruggles.

I know I’m making fun of this book – but it’s one in my collection that I could never throw out. Especially my copy of it – which is actually from the era when the book was printed.

Oh – and written on the first page of the book – in a swoopy cursive, now discolored from age are the words:

Oliver
from Marguerite
Xmas 1912

I love that. A relic from days gone by. The book in my hands right now was a Christmas present to Oliver, probably long dead now, in 1912.

Excerpt from The Birds’ Christmas Carol by Kate Douglas Wiggin

Uncle Jack did really come on the twentieth. He was not detained by business, nor did he get left behind nor snowed up, as frequently happens in stories, and in real life too, I am afraid. The snow-storm came also; and the turkey nearly died a natural and premature death from overeating. Donald came, too; Donald, with a line of down on his upper lip, and Greek and Latin on his tongue, and stores of knowledge in his handsome head, and stories – bless me, you couldn’t turn over a chip without reminding Donald of something that happened “at College”. One or the other was always at Carol’s bedside, for they fancied her paler than she used to be, and they could not bear her out of sight. It was Uncle Jack, though, who sat beside her in the winter twilgihts. The room was quiet, and almost dark, save for the snow-light outside, and the flickering flames of the fire, that danced over the “Sleeping Beauty’s” face and touched the Fair One’s golden locks with ruddier glory. Carol’s hand (all too thin and white these latter days) lay close clasped in Uncle Jack’s, and they talked together quietly of many, many things.

“I want to tell you all about my plans for Christmas this year, Uncle Jack,” said Carol, on the first evening of his visit, “because it will be the loveliest one I ever had. The boys laugh at me for caring so much about it; but it isn’t altogether because it is Christmas, nor because it is my birthday; but long, long ago, when I first began to be ill, I used to think, the first thing when I waked on Christmas morning, ‘Today is Christ’s birthday – and mine!’ I did not put the words close together, you know, because that made it seem too bold; but I first said, ‘Christ’s birthday,’ out loud, and then, in a minute, softly to myself – ‘and mine!‘ ‘Christ’s birthday — and mine!’ And so I do not quite feel about Christmas as other girls do. Mamma says she supposes that ever so many other children have been born on that day. I often wonder where they are, Uncle Jack, and whether it is a dear thought to them, too, or whether I am so much in bed, and so often alone, that it means more to me. Oh, I do hope that none of them are poor, or cold, or hungry; and I wish – I wish they were all as happy as I, because they are really my little brothers and sisters. Now, Uncle Jack dear, I am going to try and make somebody happy every single Christmas that I live, and this year it is to be the ‘Ruggleses in the rear’.”

“That large and interesting brood of children in the little house at the end of the back garden?”

“Yes; isn’t it nice to see so many together? — and, Uncle Jack, why do the big families always live in the small houses, and the small families in the big houses? We ought to call them the Ruggles childrne, of course; but Donald began talking of them as the ‘Ruggleses in the rear,’ and Papa and Mamma took it up, and now we cannot seem to help it. The house was built for Mr. Carter’s coachman, but Mr. Carter lives in Europe, and the gentleman who rents his place for him doesn’t care what happens to it, and so this poor family came to live there. When they first moved in, I used to sit in my window and watch them play in their back yard; they are so strong, and jolly, and good-natured; — and then, one day, I had a terrible headache, and Donald asked them if they would please not scream quite so loud, and they explained that they were having a game of circus, but that they would change and play ‘Deaf and Dumb Asylum’ all the afternoon.”

“Ha ha ha!” laughed Uncle Jack, “what an obliging family, to be sure!”

“Yes, we all thought it very funny, and I smiled at them from the window when I was well enough to be up again. Now, Sarah Maud comes to her door when the children come home from school, and if Mamma nods her head, ‘Yes’ that means ‘Carol is very well,’ and then you ought to hear the little Ruggleses yell, – and I believe they try to see how much noise they can make; but if Mamma shakes her head, ‘No,’ they always play at quiet games. Then, one day, ‘Cary’, my pet canary, flew out of her cage, and Peter Ruggles caught her and brought her back, and I had him up here in my room to thank him.”

“Is Peter the oldest?”

“No; Sarah Maud is the oldest – she helps do the washing; and Peter is the next. He is a dressmaker’s boy.”

“And which is the pretty little red-haired girl?”

“That’s Kitty.”

“And the fat youngster?”

“Baby Larry.”

“And that — most freckled one?”

“Now, don’t laugh – that’s Peoria.”

“Carol, you are joking.”

“No, really, Uncle dear. She was born in Peoria; that’s all.”

“And is the next boy Oshkosh?”

“No,” laughed Carol, “the others are Susan, and Clement, and Eily, and Cornelius; they all look exactly alike, except that some of them have more freckles than the others.”

“How did you learn all of their names?”

“Why, I have what I call a ‘window-school.’ It is too cold now; but in warm weather I am wheeled out on my balcony, and the Ruggleses climb up and walk along our garden fence, and sit down on the roof of our carriage-house. That brings them quite near, and I tell them stories. On Thanksgiving Day they came up for a few minutes – it was quite warm at eleven o’clock – and we told each other what we had to be thankful for; but they gave such queer answers that Papa had to run away for fear of laughing; and I couldn’t understand them very well. Susan was thankful for ‘trunks‘, of all things in the world; Cornelius, for ‘horse-cars’, Kitty, for ‘pork steak’; while Clem, who is very quiet, brightened up when I came to him, and said he was thankful for ‘his lame puppy‘. Wasn’t that pretty?”

“It might teach some of us a lesson, mightn’t it, little girl?”

“That’s what Mamma said. Now I’m going to give this whole Christmas to the Ruggleses; and, Uncle Jack, I earned part of the money myself.”

“You, my bird; how?”

“Well, you see, it could not be my own, own Christmas if Papa gave me all the money, and I thought to really keep Christ’s birthday I ought to do something of my very own; and so I talked with Mamma. Of course she thought of something lovely; she always does: Mamma’s head is just brimming over with lovely thoughts – all I have to do is ask, and out pops the very one I want. This thought was to let her write down, just as I told her, a description of how a child lived in her own room for three years, and what she did to amuse herself; and we sent it to a magazine and got twenty-five dollars for it. Just think!”

“Well, well,” cried Uncle Jack, “my little girl a real author! And what are you going to do with this wonderful ‘own’ money of yours?”

“I shall give the nine Ruggleses a grand Christmas dinner here in this very room – that will be Papa’s contribution – and afterwards a beautiful Christmas tree, fairly blooming with presents – that will be my part; for I have anotherw ay of adding to my twenty-five dollars, so that I can buy anything I choose. I should like it very much if you would sit at the head of the table, Uncle Jack, for nobody could ever be frightened of you, you dearest, dearest, dearest thing that ever was! Mamma is going to help us, but Papa and the boys are going to eat together downstairs for fear of making the little Ruggleses shy; and after we’ve had a merry time with the tree we can open my window and listen together to the music at the evening church-service, if it comes before the children go. I have written a letter to the organist, and asked him if I might have the two songs I like best. Will you see if it is all right?”

Birds’ Nest, December 21, 188-
Dear Mr. Wilkie – I am the little girl who lives next door to the church, and, as I seldom go out, the music on practice days and Sundays is one of my greatest pleasures.
I want to know if you can have “Carol, brothers, carol,” on Christmas night, and if the boy who sings “My ain countree” so beautifully may please sing that too. I think it is the loveliest thing in the world, but it always makes me cry; doesn’t it you?
If it isn’t too much trouble, I hope they can sing them both quite early, as after ten o’clock, I may be asleep.
Yours respectfully,
Carol Bird
P.S. — The reason I like “Carol, brothers, carol” is because the choir-boys sang it eleven years ago, the morning I was born, and put it into Mamma’s head to call me Carol. She didn’t remember then that my other name would be Bird, because she was half asleep, and could only think of one thing at a time. Donald says if I had been born on the Fourth of July they would have named me “Independence” or if on the twenty-second of February, “Georgina”, or even “Cherry”, like Cherry in “Martin Chuzzlewit”; but I like my own name and birthday best.
Yours truly,
Carol Bird

Uncle Jack thought the letter quite right, and did not even smile at her telling the organizt so many family items.