The Everything Family Christmas Book (42 page)

7. On the seventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Seven swans a-swimming, six geese a-laying …

8. On the eighth day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Eight maids a-milking …

9. On the ninth day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Nine ladies dancing …

10. On the tenth day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Ten lords a-leaping …

11. On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Eleven pipers piping …

12. On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Twelve drummers drumming …

We Three Kings of Orient Are

Lyrics and Music: John Henry Hopkins, Jr. (1820–1891)

1. We three kings of Orient are,
Bearing gifts we traverse afar,
Field and fountain, moor and mountain,
Following yonder star. Refrain: O,
    star of wonder, star of night, Star of royal beauty bright,
    Westward leading, still proceeding,
    
Guide us to thy perfect light.

2. Born a King on Bethlehem’s plain,
Gold I bring to crown Him again,
King forever, ceasing never
Over us all to reign.
(Refrain)

3. Frankincense to offer have I,
Incense owns a Deity nigh:
Prayer and praising
All men raising,
Worship Him, God on high.
(Refrain)

4. Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume
Breathes a life of gathering gloom;
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,
Sealed in the stone-cold tomb.
(Refrain)

5. Glorious now, behold Him arise,
King, and God, and sacrifice;
Heaven sings alleluia:
Alleluia the earth replies.
(Refrain)

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

Lyrics and Music: Traditional English

We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas
And a Happy New Year!
Glad tidings we bring,
To you and your kin!
We wish you a Merry Christmas
And a Happy New Year!

What Child Is This?

Lyrics: William Chatterton Dix (1837–1898)
Music: Sixteenth-century English

1. What Child is this, Who, laid to rest,
On Mary’s lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet,
While shepherds watch are keeping?
Refrain: This, this is Christ the King,
     Whom shepherds guard and angels sing:
        This, this is Christ the King,
    The Babe, the Son of Mary.

2. Why lies He in such mean estate,
Where ox and ass are feeding?
Good Christian, fear: for sinners here
The silent Word is pleading.
(Refrain)

3. So bring Him incense, gold, and myrrh,
Come, peasant, king, to own Him;
The King of Kings salvation brings,
Let loving hearts enthrone Him.
(Refrain)

While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks

Lyrics: Nahum Tate (1652–1715)
Music: George Frederick Handel (1685–1759)

1. While shepherds watched their flocks by night,
All seated on the ground,
The angel of the Lord came down,
And glory shone around.
“Fear not,” said he, for mighty dread
Had seized their troubled mind,
“Glad tidings of great joy I bring
To you and all mankind.”

2. "To you, in David’s town this day,
Is born of David’s line
The Savior who is Christ the Lord,
And this shall be the sign:
The heavenly Babe you there shall find
To human view displayed,
All meanly wrapped in swathing bands,
And in a manger laid.”

3. Thus spake the seraph, and forthwith
Appeared a shining throng
Of angels praising God and thus
Addressed their joyful song:
“All glory be to God on high
And on the earth be peace,
Goodwill henceforth from heaven to men
Begin and never cease.”

9
Christmas on the Silver Screen

W
hen you think of Christmas, you may think of the joy that’s brought each season by television, music, and the movies. The Grinch, George Bailey, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and a host of other figures who came to prominence after World War II now play an important part in our celebration of the holiday. While some of them have little connection to the origins of Christmas, they nonetheless provide a window into the holiday and how you recognize it today.

It’s a Wonderful Life

If you asked twenty people to name their top-ten Christmas films of all time, odds are that nineteen of them would find a place on the list for Frank Capra’s 1946 Christmas classic,
It’s a Wonderful Life.
It graces our television screens every season, to the point where the season wouldn’t be quite the same without it.

The Movie Background

During World War II, Capra, who had scored with such hits as
It Happened One Night, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,
and
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,
headed the government’s Office of War Information, and directed the powerful
Why We Fight
series of documentaries. When the war ended, Capra returned to Hollywood and, with William Wyler, George Stevens, and Samuel Briskin, formed Liberty Pictures—an independent production company in an era of big-studio moviemaking.

For Capra’s first Liberty Pictures project, he bought the rights to a short piece by Philip Van Doren Stern called “The Greatest Gift.” It told the tale of a man who was afforded the opportunity to see what life would have been like if he had never been born.

Capra asked Jimmy Stewart, who had returned from active duty as an Air Force pilot, to be his leading man in
It’s a Wonderful Life.
To win Stewart’s commitment before any script existed, Capra had to give a verbal summary of the plot he had in mind. According to Stewart, the account was a rambling one that had to do with an angel who didn’t have any wings yet, a good man named George Bailey who wanted to see the world but never got to, a savings and loan company, a small town, and a misplaced wad of money—among many, many other things. Although Capra’s summary left Stewart more baffled than ever about what the film was actually about, he agreed to do the picture. Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, and Thomas Mitchell also signed on.

The picture was filmed over the summer of 1946. All the snow in the winter scenes is fake; all the actors in overcoats and mittens were sweltering. When the movie was released in late December 1946, it received generally positive critical notices, but not such a positive welcome at the box office.

A Movie Flop

One argument goes that the film failed because it was Capra’s darkest effort to date.
It’s a Wonderful Life
includes a child-beating scene, a suicide attempt, and a nightmarish tour of a very seedy, very depressing outpost that could no longer call itself Bedford Falls. It may well be that the many down moments of the film just weren’t in tune with the mood of the moviegoing public shortly after World War II. Even though the film features what may be the happiest (or, depending on your perspective, corniest) ending in movie history, that ending is a long time coming, and a war-weary audience may simply have been looking for more upbeat entertainment in late 1946 and early 1947.

Another line of reasoning has it that Liberty Films had trouble competing with bigger, better-promoted, and better-distributed studio films. This may well have been the case; even though RKO was handling the distribution of the picture, the number of theaters initially showing the film seems quite low for a major release, and Liberty apparently had trouble collecting from theaters.

The third theory suggests that bad timing was the film’s undoing. It was released to a few dozen theaters very late in December 1946, with broader distribution coming only late the following January. Not, perhaps, the best way to launch a Christmas movie. Another obstacle may have been the weather: A major blizzard put a huge hole in East Coast movie attendance during the film’s run.

Whether it was because of the tone of the film, the competitive pressures from the big studios, the timing, or a combination of all three,
It’s a Wonderful Life
was anything but a wonderful experience for the fledgling Liberty Films studio. By the end of the year, that project and others like it had brought the company into serious financial trouble. To avoid personal responsibility for Liberty’s debts, Capra and his partners dissolved the studio—and, in so doing, paved the way for the remarkable revival of the story of George Bailey of Bedford Falls.