Hello booklovers,

As we get closer and closer to Christmas Day, our festive blogs delve closer and closer into the long rooted family traditions of our bookish writers. Today Anna, a festival volunteer and writer for our blog, shares with us the significance of the family Christmas tree, branching out to beloved decorations Christmas books and a delightful Christmas poem. Sit back and soak up this wonderful segment of pure comfort and joy…

“Comfort and joy”, words, taken from one of my favourite carols, reassuring during these difficult days, as has been this joyful festive blog series provided by our wonderful Felixstowe Book Festival. I was delighted to be asked to contribute.

More words, this time from a favourite Christmas poem by ee cummings, ‘little tree’.

“look the spangles

that sleep all the year in a dark box

dreaming of being taken out and allowed to

shine,”

A great joy to me every Christmas has been the family Christmas tree. When I was little, dad was in charge of getting the tree and potting the tree, with varying degrees of help from myself and my brother as we got older. Mum was in charge of decorating the tree and keeping it watered, again with help, more enthusiastic, from the offspring as the years went by. I missed one family Christmas tree, whilst spending a year in California, and even then mum sent decorations to adorn my American foliage and cause a sentimental tear or two.

As the years passed, my husband and I brought both our families’ tree traditions to bear on our own lives together, (we’ll gloss over the year, early on in our married life, when a cupboard draped with 2 strands of fairy lights was deemed sufficient as we were not going to be at home for that year’s festive period – rest assured that that never happened again!).

Our children arrived and brought their own magical delight and tradition to the creation of our Christmas centre piece. One day in every December is still spent in seeking out the perfect tree and dressing it, with everyone having their role to play, as it has been in all the 50 plus years that I can remember. We’ve had trees that toppled as soon as they were placed in the pot, trees that waited till the final glorious placing of the fairy doll after hours of careful arrangement, before a gentle sigh and faint bell like tinkle indicated an imminent sagging. All the family cats over the years have contributed to our Christmas tree saga. My best beloved black cat of childhood could teach Lynsey Dodd’s wonderful Slinki Malinki a thing or two about arboreal destruction; our little kittens first Christmas 23 years ago was marked by two furry faces amongst the upper branches of our Spruce, miraculously the tree itself remained upright (unlike the pelmet and newly hung curtains behind it!). Our current feline companion, a traumatiised rescue cat, finds our tree a thing of wonder and has spent many an hour just sitting and looking at it.

For me, this year’s tree has been even more of a source of comfort as well as joy. Husband and daughter selected as always a glorious adornment to our sitting room, it went straight into its pot first time, with not a wobble in sight (collective sigh of relief through the generations, my dad and my husband have been known to utter some rather unfestive words at this delicate juncture in the process!), the decorations, benefitting from careful wrapping last year emerged unscathed, including a bauble that was considered absolutely the height of luxury when it was hanging from our tree in suburban London all those decades ago. For years my brother and I alternated who was to hang it, and woe betide the one who tried to snatch it out of turn! . Christened the Queen ball, it felt like quite a royal progress the year that my mum handed it over for me to hang in my Suffolk home. This has given me years of it always being my turn to place it, though when my brother is able to visit us on decorating weekend, I grudgingly hand it over! . This year that venerable decoration is hanging alongside our newest acquisitions, a hot air balloon and a polar bear in tribute to some favourite family literature and tv viewing.

My reflections on Christmas trees and the comfort and joy they have brought to me over the years has nailed for me that of course the tree and its mix of decorations, old and new, lovingly handcrafted or bought for their beauty or appropriateness, itself embodies the actuality of the beloved family and friends who have been with me round the tree over the years as we decorate, who have given or made a bauble that we are hanging, who have stood back in admiration, picked the tree up when its fallen, shared fond and hilarious memories of trees past, school or home made decorations resolutely still with us 20 years down the line (or in some cases, 50, I swear my mum still has a silver bell I made at Blue Peter’s instruction out of an egg box, silver foil and string!). The pine needley smell is enough to evoke a fond thought about those whom I love best.

Mum and dad no longer have the huge tree of family Christmases gone by, but the smaller version that each year now their granddaughter persuades them to display, exhibits where all the comfort and joy that I am lucky enough to have known all my life first began.

Life is difficult at the moment but I would wish us all the most comfort and joy filled Christmas that we can manage this year.

‘and looking up at our beautiful tree

we’ll dance and sing

“Noel Noel” ‘

Merry Christmas,

Anna x

Hello booklovers,

Some comfort and joy is much needed today here at the Felixstowe Book Festival and who better to ask to cheer us along than local author Ruth Dugdall? Read on to find out all about the tree and the festive decorations that make Ruth’s Christmas…

Christmas will be different for us all this year. The things that bring us joy are perhaps even more precious, talismans from Christmases past, hopeful symbols of better times to come.

Given the understandable limits on sharing our homes, there are signs that people are focussing  on the outside, lighting hedges and trees, making our streets twinkle. My Nordic spruce is by the window, so it can be seen from the doorway, to spread joy to folk I would normally welcome in, but this year will greeting on the stoop.

On that tree are other things to bring joy: I’ve been collecting tree ornaments since 1996, when I first met my husband, Andrew. That first year we visited Lake Bled, where I bought a nativity set. Some of the figures are chipped, and a donkey is missing its ear, but it will still find a home in the stable.

Hanging from the branches is a centaur from Russia where we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. I have an articulated lobster from Cape Cod, where our daughter Amber learned to swim, and a mini bottle of Guinness from a (freezing) trip to Ireland, when Eden was a baby. Baubles from Luxembourg and California, where we lived for a time, are more recent additions. As we’ve been unable to journey anywhere this year, these trinkets feel precious. Symbols of memories we made, but also the significance of returning home.

From my home, to yours, I wish you a peaceful and happy Christmas.

Ruth x

Born and bred in Felixstowe, Ruth is a crime writer. Her novels include Humber Boy B, The Woman Before Me and The Sacrificial Man. Alongside her writing Ruth works within the Criminal Justice System – most recently this role has taken her to Luxembourg. Despite her travels taking her far and wide, Ruth continues to be a brilliant supporter of the Felixstowe Book Festival. 

Hello booklovers,

It’s one week until Christmas Day! December has sped by bringing with it an odd mix of uncertainty mixed with the festive rituals and familiarity that we all become re-acquainted with at this time of year. Children’s author Francesca Armour-Chelu brings comfort and joy to us today as she shares memories past and present of happy family Christmases.

When I was very small, my dad would wait until we’d gone to bed on Christmas Eve before decorating the tree, so the first time we’d see it would be on Christmas morning, as if it had been conjured up overnight from a snowy Northern forest, already laden with baubles and tinsel. It was one of the things that made the tree seem most magical; its miraculous arrival, that it meant Christmas was really here. When we got older my sisters and I would help decorate it too, with carols playing and the room lit by candlelight. My dad still liked to hang up the glass baubles though; almost ceremoniously lifting them from their box. They were big as grapefruits, iridescent with age, fragile as egg-shells – and if one dropped, even onto carpet, it’d smash to smithereens revealing a mirrored interior like a Fabergé egg. The tree was done once the star was up and my Mum would say ‘Isn’t it lovely!’

Although Christmas is about family customs, my Dad used to believe families should make new traditions for themselves too, so although I have the old baubles, I now keep them stowed away (partly because I’d hate to break them!) On the night of the winter solstice, we hang these lead-crystal drops instead; they’re from an old chandelier, so heavy they bend the branches, and once the lights are switched on, they make the tree sparkle like a firework. Finally, we put the shuttlecock angel up, with its wonky felt-tip pen eyes that our eldest made when he was in primary and only then is the tree done. Before I say ‘Isn’t it lovely!’ one of the kids will say it for me, because I’m nothing if not predictable when it comes to flattering Christmas trees.

With the kids teasing me and goofing around with lametta, Christmas is underway. I raise a glass to my parents for giving me so much love for its magic – and for the luck of having kids to pass it on to.

Merry Christmas!

Francesca x

Francesca is a children’s author whose excellent works include Fenn Halflin and the Fear-Zero, Fenn Halflin and the Seaborn and The Butterfly Circus. Alongside her writing Francesca works for Suffolk Libraries and runs creative writing workshops.

Hello booklovers,

We have welcomed bookish folk to our blog over the past few weeks to share with us what makes their Christmas joyful. We’ve had all sorts of different festive offerings, from book recommendations to handmade stockings, to a piece about the scent of Christmas. Today we bring you something completely different – Elizabeth, one of our writers, whisks us away to the wilds of wintery Russian literature with some reading resolutions for the new year. Enjoy…

Nothing speaks Wintery landscapes more than the harsh crispness of Leo Tolstoy’s Russia. Strangely enough, this is what came to my mind when presented with the theme ‘comfort and joy’. Although the themes of Tolstoy’s novels are not very joyful at all, there is something very fun about being swept into the depths of the narratives from the comfort of your home. I have to confess, I am one of those people who claims to be obsessed with Russian literature, without having ever braved any of the tomes. Maybe it’s more that I love the atmosphere and images they bring to mind; icy Moscow and snowy St Petersburg, sad but beautiful women adorned in fur coats being pulled along in sleds, attractive men duelling over forbidden love against a backdrop of snow. That sort of thing.

I associate the Christmas period with cosy days curled up on the sofa, fire burning and candles lit, watching my favourite adaptations of a classic Russian novel. Joe Wright’s 2012 adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina has to be top of the list. It is a feast for the eyes and visually spectacular. Alongside this, is the 1999 version of Alexander Pushkin’s (Eugene) ‘Onegin’, directed by Martha Fiennes and starring Ralph Fiennes as Eugene, and Liv Tyler as Tatiana. I had hot tears running down my cheeks by the end, the first time I watched this. I think I was 12 and it was probably the beginning of my career as a hapless romantic. There are some great furs in this one. Perhaps it will tempt you to give the 19th-century Russian look a try? If you are in for the long haul, then I would recommend committing to the BBC adaptation of War and Peace, which graced our screens back in 2016. Paul Dano plays the ever comforting and sweet-faced Pierre Bezukhov, in a really moving performance. Adapted by period drama expert Andrew Davies, known for his well-loved adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, I have re-watched and loved the six episodes many times.

As much as I love the ease of settling down to watch these meaty narratives play out before my eyes, it is my resolution to have read at least one of the Russian classics by the end of next year. ‘The Anna Karenina Fix; Life Lessons from Russian Literature’ by Viv Groskop, is a brilliant collection of essays that has completely inspired me to take a new approach to the Russians. Groskop proclaims that ‘it’s time to take all the doubt and fuss and snobbery and pretence out of this kind of reading’. ‘Don’t be afraid not to finish or to come back years later’. Extremely refreshing advice! Groskop’s collection untangles what some of the Russian greats (including Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina, Dr Zhivago, Three Sisters, and many more), can teach us about our own lives. At the heart of many of these narratives are complex family dynamics that are completely relatable. The context of the times we live in may have changed, but the human condition has not. Groskop’s commentary is light-hearted, witty, and is guaranteed to inspire you to delve into that crusty second-hand copy of War and Peace, that may or may not be collecting dust on a shelf somewhere.

Russian Literature is probably not the most obvious place to seek comfort and joy. In fact, one can expect to encounter the opposite. However, the comfort I seek in reading is in the lives reflected on the page, in which a sense of humanity can be found. As this year has taught us, life is a trajectory full of twists and turns and it is impossible to expect it to be easy all of the time, (I am sure Tolstoy has something wise to say on this topic). It is key then, to take pleasure in small things. And what could be more glorious, than allowing yourself to be transported by the written word?

Merry Christmas!

Elizabeth x

Hello booklovers,

In today’s festive blog offering the bringer of comfort and joy is author Esther Rutter. Esther shares with us a beautiful family treasure which will certainly bring much magic to many Christmases to come and serves as a reminder of the simple joys of the season.

My source of ‘Comfort and Joy’ is a small red sock which we hang up each December. Sewn from an old red blanket and hand-stitched with stars, it is my little daughter’s Christmas stocking. We’ve only had it for a couple of years – she’s just a toddler – but I’ve already become very attached to it, and unwrapping it from its tissue paper nest after a year of exile in the attic always feels extra special.

As a child I loved the excitement of opening stockings – though mine was always one of Dad’s thick woolly socks, stretched into strange knobbles as it struggled to contain a bounty of oranges, chocolate coins, and little presents. Opening stockings always came first on Christmas morning – no need to wait until dawn flooded the windows, or the adults dragged themselves from bed. Christmas began with that bundle of just-for-me joy.

This stocking was by Ericka Eckles, a sensitive and skilled seamstress and knitter who decided to make my daughter a trio of beautiful woollen gifts to celebrate her birth – and the birth of my first book This Golden Fleece (2019). Though I’ve only met Ericka once, I think of her as a ‘sister-in-wool’: we are both Suffolk born and bred, and share a love of knitting, baking, and books. As my daughter pulls out her presents from her stocking this year, I’ll tell her about the woman who made this just for her, and hope that next year they might be able to meet in person for the first time.

Happy Christmas!

Esther x

Esther Rutter is a non fiction writer and writer in residence at the University of St Andrews. Her first book, This Golden Fleece, was published last year. Esther grew up on a sheep farm in Suffolk and has woven a love of all things woolly into her fascinating work.

Hello booklovers,

We have a festive treat in store for you this weekend. Helen Bott of Treasure Chest Books, a magnificent second hand book shop in the heart of Felixstowe, shares with us the book that brings her comfort and joy at Christmas.

When I mentioned the book I was thinking about for this blog at the family dinner table, there were howls of derision. ‘That’s not a Christmas book’ and ‘Of course you’d choose that book’ amongst other comments. But the opening line of the  book in question is ‘Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents’ and the title of the second chapter is  ‘Merry Christmas’. I rest my case

The book is, of course, Louisa May Alcott’s ‘Little Women’, my favourite childhood book. I loved reading and rereading about the lives of the March sisters and have welcomed the chance to reread it again almost 50 years later. My 1970s paperback copy is just about holding together. There was so much I didn’t understand at the time. What was this war which had taken father away? What was a poplin dress? Why did they eat muffins for breakfast? What was a russet apple? But so much else made sense especially the relationships between the sisters. And their experience of Christmas still rings true. With hindsight the sanctimonious, proselytising tone can grate a little (my own daughter refused to read it when she was young) but the opening chapters are still a wonderful, warming Christmas read.

The sisters know that there isn’t enough money for lots of presents this year, they all have a dollar to spend and would like books, music, drawing pencils but decide to spend their money on gifts for Marmee. In return they receive matching religious tracts which they plan to read every day. I loved the description of these books, all different colours, how that appealed to my 10 year old’s love of all things matching, I’m not sure I would have wanted such a gift myself. Then they decide to take their Christmas Day breakfast to a poor starving family, competing with Dickens here and of course their kindness is rewarded when old Mr Laurence sends a Christmas tea of ice cream, cake and ‘French bonbons’ (I never did understand why the tea included toffees covered in icing sugar…)

The best and funniest section is the description of the play the sisters put on for Marmee and other friends in which the scenery collapses, Meg wanders around looking beautiful, Jo overacts and Amy refuses to throw herself into the role of romantic heroine, ‘her ‘Ow’ was more suggestive of pins being run into her than of fear and anguish’. As a child who used to dragoon her younger siblings into performing a play for parents and grandparents, I felt Jo’s pain.

So if you want a change from Tiny Tim and his turkey, dig out your old copy of ‘Little Women.’ Look past the nineteenth century moralising, Meg does actually say ‘That’s loving our neighbour better than ourselves and I like it’ and there’s a very human description of a family celebrating Christmas. You can almost feel the heat from the blazing fire and taste the treats sent by Mr Laurence. Now I’m going to reread the whole book and ‘Good Wives’ too.

Happy Christmas!

Helen

Hello booklovers,

Today author Louise Millar brings us comfort and joy by sharing precious memories of Elvis’ crooning tunes as the soundtrack to her family Christmases past and present. Warning: a festive tear may well be brought to your eye…

Elvis Presley runs a fine thread through my family story. I don’t remember a time, as a child, when his music wasn’t playing in our car, on the way to the shops, or on holiday, or home to Glasgow at Christmas, the four of us singing along to Wooden Heart, making up the German lines: ‘Moosy den, moosy den…’

In our own house at Christmas, Elvis’ comforting croon was accompanied by the smell of smoke from the fire and my father’s cigar, laughter rising, as family and friends arrived. My dad and uncles’ competitive story-telling starting up at lunch, becoming sillier and funnier, the day ending with dancing in the sitting-room, and a late-night singalong.

But Elvis was not just for Christmas in our family. He had famously instilled an exuberant new spirit in my parents’ post-war 1950s generation. They just loved him. In the 1970s, on a business trip to California, they decided, after a party, to peek over the wall of his mansion, my mum teetering on my dad’s shoulders. Was the shadowy figure who emerged to chase them away a security guard or, in fact, Elvis? As kids, we decided Elvis, of course.

Their love of him transferred to me. Decades later, I would drive across Mississippi interviewing people whose lives had been changed by their state’s famous son. The highlight was meeting Reverend Frank Smith, who’d taught young Elvis his first guitar chords. That story became my first published newspaper article, and the start of my journey as a professional writer.

Today, Elvis still says ‘home’ to me. I still play his music at Christmas. And when I do, I think fondly of my father, cigar and brandy in hand, mischievous smile as he told another silly story, never happier, I now realise, than with all of us on Christmas Day.

Merry Christmas,

Louise x

Louise Millar is a crime writer and the author of four acclaimed psychological thrillers. Her work focuses largely on the darker layers of the domestic sphere.

Louise was also a journalist and senior editor for Marie Claire and her travel writing has featured in The Telegraph, The Guardian and The Observer.

Alongside her writing, Louise is a founding member of two writing groups, and co-founder of Killer Women, a professional collective of twenty-one female crime authors created to amplify and support women’s voices in crime writing. She is co-founder of the annual Killer Women crime writing festival in London, and publisher of the multi-award-nominated Killer Women anthology.

Hello booklovers,

Advent is well and truly underway – I hope you all had a good weekend. Today’s Comfort and Joy instalment will certainly get your week off to a good start. We are delighted to welcome Nick Holland to our blog, as he shares what brings him comfort and joy at Christmastime with a wonderful literary twist…

Christmas is a time for loved ones and loved things, and for all the comfort and joy that familiarity brings, so at this time of year I like to re-read my very favourite novel: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. It was first published, alongside her beloved sister Anne Brontë’s debut novel Agnes Grey, in 1847 and has captivated readers worldwide ever since.

Wuthering Heights is a book that has everything but at its heart is a tale of thwarted love, and a desperate lifelong act of revenge. Its wintery opening make it a perfect Advent read, and is also contains a Christmas scene which tells us much about how the Brontë family themselves spent Christmas Day in Haworth Parsonage. The Earnshaws and Lintons are enjoying a Christmas party, replete with drinks, feasting and a visit from the local brass band, although Catherine’s mind is on an absent party: Heathcliff, who has been banished after bashing his love rival Edgar Linton with a tureen of apple sauce.

In this we can see a reflection of a Brontë Christmas – hopefully without the tureen on head incident. Christmas day itself would have been a joyous one for the Brontës; beginning with a Christmas service at their father’s church, they would then settle down to a festive meal and doubtless the Haworth Brass Band would have called at the parsonage too.

Contrary to the perception of some, the Brontë sisters loved fun and laughter, and they especially loved music, so we can easily imagine them gathered round the parsonage piano. We know that Emily was a brilliant pianist, indeed she briefly gave piano lessons in Brussels, and that Anne Brontë liked to sing along in a voice described as ‘soft, yet sweet’. Perhaps Anne had this in mind in the opening lines to her poem, ‘Music On Christmas Morning’:

“Music I love – but never strain

Could kindle raptures so divine,

So grief assuage, so conquer pain,

And rouse this pensive heart of mine –

As that we hear on Christmas morn,

                                                                   Upon the wintry breezes born.”

This year has been a strange one and this Christmas will find many of us separated from those we love and want to be with, but better times are rapidly approaching and until then we can find solace and escape in great books such as Wuthering Heights.

Happy Christmas and may God bless us, every one!

Nick x

Brontë expert Nick Holland is the author of Crave the Rose: Anne Brontë at 200. Throughout this excellent biography Nick examines the life of one of the most overlooked members of an astounding literary trio. A fitting celebration of Anne’s 200th birthday, Nick delves deep into the somewhat unknown life of a woman who was extremely talented in her own right.

Hello booklovers,

Next up in our Comfort and Joy series, author Sophie Green spreads some cheer and tells us about what makes her feel Christmassy…

For me, the festive holiday is conjured up by warm and delicious smells – citrus and spices, mulled wine, cinnamon and marzipan, represented here by a clove an orange pomander – I make a few of these a couple of weeks into December and they fill the house with good cheer and mix deliciously with the pine scent of the tree.

Merry Christmas!

Sophie x

Hello booklovers,

Our first instalment of our 2020 Christmas blog series is suitably bookish and comes from our Festival Director, the lovely Meg Reid.

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without some new books waiting to be explored. My children and now grandchildren know to expect at least one book in their present pile.

I even have a treasured Christmas tree decoration which is a book, a tiny Santa shaped edition of “The Night Before Christmas”. I have no idea where I got it but it has hung on our tree every Christmas for years.

Another book which has been with me forever is “Christmas At Timothy’s” given to me by my mother when I was a baby. Turning the pages takes me back to childhood. It’s a story about a girl who goes to stay with her cousins at Christmas time. The children go to the market in the fog to choose a Christmas tree, they make paper chains, roast chestnuts and have a happy old fashioned time!

“The Snowman” is a family favourite. As well as reading the story all the pianists in my family know they must  play “Walking in the Air” when they visit. I’m chuffed that, despite Covid stopping the piano lessons I started last year, I’ve just discovered that I can now make a reasonable attempt at playing myself!

Of course there is a pile of Christmas books ready to read to the granddaughters (now via Facetime) My favourites are “The Jolly Christmas Postman” and “Mog’s Christmas” but there are plenty of others to choose from including a recent addition “Little Bear’s Christmas” about a little bear who sets an alarm clock to wake himself up from hibernation to try to see Father Christmas. (He does of course)

I hope you get lots of books for Christmas and if you are buying them as presents please do use our wonderful indie bookshops.

Meg x