Perhaps everyone has a favorite Christmas tale. As a child, I knew of Christmas through the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen. Andersen’s stories are beautifully written, magical, and enchanting, with an inkling of poignancy only realized with age. Among the Christmas stories he wrote, a favorite is The Fir-Tree. The fir-tree lived far out in the forest, spoiled by the warm sun and fresh air, but it longed to be a Christmas tree. Finally Christmas arrived, and they axed it down and hauled it into a courtyard. There it’s fastened with ornaments and sweets and gilded apples and walnuts, hundreds of small candles, human-like dolls, and a glittering star in tinsel. In the night, the children rushed in to plunder all the goods on the tree. Then all together, they listened to the story of Humpty-Dumpty.
The following day, the tree thought it would be decorated again, but instead it was dragged into a dark corner of the garret. There it lived through the winter. When the mice came by, the tree recounted the tale of Humpty-Dumpty that it had heard on Christmas-Eve to them, until the mice became bored and stopped visiting, and then the tree was all alone.
Finally spring arrived, and the fir-tree thought life would begin again. It spread out its branches, but they were all withered and yellow. Instead it was chopped into a bundle and set on fire. As its branches crackled, the fir-tree sighed, thinking of a summer day in the woods, a winter night when the star sparkled, and the glorious Christmas-Eve and the story of Humpty-Dumpty, until all was ash.
Another favorite is The Little Match Girl. It was the last evening of the year, and a barefoot match girl went along the streets. Snowflakes covered her long tresses, lights were shining in all the windows, and the air wafted with a tempting smell of roast goose. As the night went on, it became bitter cold, and the girl struck a match on the wall to keep warm. There upon the wall she saw a white-clothed table decked with shining china and a glorious smell of roast goose stuffed with apples and dried plums. The goose hopped down with a knife and fork sticking in its breast, and came waddling across the floor toward her.
When the match burnt out, she struck another; now she was sitting under the beautiful Christmas tree. Its green boughs were lit up with thousands of candles. She stretched her hands toward them, but the candles rose higher and higher until they were only stars in the sky; one of them fell, leaving a long fiery trail behind it.
She struck another match and before her stood her old grandmother, dazzling and bright, kind and loving. The little girl cried out, “Take me with you!” and struck the whole box of matches so that her grandmother would not leave her. The grandmother took the little girl in her arms, and flew up into the sky, where they knew neither cold, nor hunger, nor sorrow – for they were with God.
Like other fairytales, death is a common topic in Andersen’s stories, yet it didn’t appear upsetting to my childish eyes. For all I knew, the fir-tree lived a glorious life, and the little match girl got to be with her grandma AND with God in the end. What could be better than that? It was only when I reread the stories as an adult that I could read into the layers beneath. That his stories appeal to a wide audience attests to the brilliance of Andersen’s writing. For the little match girl who had become an angel and be with God, this silk gown is bedecked with purple lace embroidery of an angel. It is molded from one large rectangle of bridal silk, and is adorned in front with floral appliqué.
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