The Night Before Christmas

"The Night Before Christmas"

I began with the best intentions on Saturday with blog expert Steven to start my blog about creative planning for teaching. It's a subject I feel passionate about and will enjoy digging into.

A fellow blogger George showed up and was pleased Steve and I had made progress with my first post. He asked, So, did you blog about Santa Claus?

He's right. I should've blogged about Santa, there being only a few weeks until Christmas and all. Why start talking about creative teaching right now in December when I have this news about Santa just itching to get out? Where is my sense of timing? What was I thinking?

So I will digress. Creative teaching can wait for another day. Let's go with Santa.

My news is that I just finished a children's DVD about "The Night Before Christmas" and I'm eager for people to know about it. I'm excited for many reasons, one being that the production I'm calling "Christmas Medley" has been years in the planning and another being that I think it's unique. I burned a few copies and would just love to send them to folks by Christmas Eve.

Here are the contents on one DVD:

"The Night Before Christmas" (5 minutes) -- Clement Clarke Moore's 1823 poem that he called "A Visit from St. Nicholas" is read aloud by George Phenix. Illustrations are from the 1940 edition of the poem illustrated by Eleanora Madsen and published by Whitman Publishing of Racine, Wisconsin.

"The Night Before -- En Español" (6 minutes) -- An anonymous version of Moore's classic -- part English, part Spanish -- is read aloud by Lyn Lacy. Illustrations are from a visit to New Mexico in 1986 by Kathleen Hall. A brief introduction sets the stage for this humorous and gentle satire -- one of many that appear every holiday season -- of the most well-known and well-loved poem in the English language.

"Christmas House" (14 minutes ) -- Subtitled "The Story of A Visit from St. Nicholas", this is the story of how Moore is said to have written the poem for his children at Chelsea House in New York. The little book was published in 1943 by Charles Scribner's Sons and is adapted and narrated by Lyn Lacy. Illustrations are by Flavia Gág.

The DVD is offered by oxcartproductions.com. The website is under construction to include this latest production, but the mailing address is there to reach me and just mention in correspondence that you want "Christmas Medley".  It sells for $18 plus $3 shipping/handling and 6% tax, total $22. I really want to send them out, so drop me a note or email. Enough said.

Production of the Medley actually fits into a conversation about creative planning when I think about it. In my workshops about creative teaching, I often repeat the mantra: teach old things in new ways (or new things in old ways). The Medley is a manifestation of that principle, both looking in a new way at the old and looking in an old way at the new.

For instance, "The Night Before -- En Español" began twenty years ago when my cousin Kathleen Hall visited my mother in Albuquerque, heard the parody of "The Night Before Christmas in Spanish" and drew 10 little pictures for it with colored pencils. I collect editions of the poem, and this wee original by Kath has always been a favorite. But only when I got the Mac5 with Photoshop and Final Cut could I find a way to share those pictures with others. I had to narrate it myself for this year, but I hope to find a male Spanish-speaker to do it for me one day.

As for the original "Night Before Christmas" itself, the edition I used from my collection was my own as a child, saved all these decades by my mother. What a joy to revisit this raggedy old edition and use digital technology to clean up and expand seventeen illustrations into sixty frames, some with a bit of animation, for the enjoyment of today's kids. And then George came along, agreeing to narrate for me if he could go into the sound studio with photos of his grandchildren to look at as he read what is one of the simplest, sweetest narrations the poem could have.

"Christmas House" satisfies my desire for the time being to produce a history for children of How America Got Its Santa Claus. The book by Thyra Turner is the story for children of Moore writing the poem that Christmas Eve in 1822 (it was published the next year). Thomas Nast and Coca Cola came along later to add other things the world has come to accept as America's own version of Santa. But it was Moore who first described what the jolly old elf looked like. The book was illustrated by Flavia Gág in 1943. I have spent over twenty years researching and writing about the creative Gág family of artists, authors and illustrators (father Anton and daughters Wanda and Flavia), and the executor of the Gág estate, Gary Harm, graciously gave me copyright permission to adapt the book for the DVD. I had long wanted to do just that but needed to also produce at least one edition of the poem itself so chose my childhood favorite. Then I was lucky to have the parody as well, so I feel it's a wonderful combination with all three stories.

George was right. I should've been on top of things and blogged about Santa right from the start. Back to creative teaching tomorrow.