Round pebbles, poetry, orange-peel hat on my knee

[sovay]

This year my mother and I bought a dark-patterned wrapping paper which seems to show hares and holly and green branches and birds intermingled and we have thought from the first time we saw it that there are foxes, but whenever we look we can't see them.

Ten years ago I found out that the 1935 A Tale of Two Cities was a Christmas release, hence its otherwise inexplicably invented—albeit charming rather than saccharine—scene of accidentally collecting Carton for midnight mass in the middle of his pub crawl, which in high school introduced me to "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" and all these years later seems to have fixed a slightly foxed Ronald Colman as one of my Christmas-ish icons.

It snowed thinly again this morning and is staying crust-crunching cold.

Merry Erev Christmas.

Comments

[thawrecka]

Happy holidays!

[sovay]

Happy holidays!

Likewise!

[selkie]

hares and holly and green branches and birds intermingled and we have thought from the first time we saw it that there are foxes, but whenever we look we can't see them.

This sounds really pretty and I will be over here singing Marine Marchande.

We have reached the point in the household that the gifts are fewer and highly targeted, but rest assured that the child will be inundated with socks, pajamas, books, and other terminally uncool items.

[sovay]

This sounds really pretty and I will be over here singing Marine Marchande.

If anyone sees the foxes, it's not going to be a bad sign.

*hugs*

We have reached the point in the household that the gifts are fewer and highly targeted, but rest assured that the child will be inundated with socks, pajamas, books, and other terminally uncool items.

What else are adolescent presents for?

(I am as usual almost entirely giving people books.)

[regshoe]

Merry Christmas! What beautiful ecologically-suggestive wrapping paper.

I don't think I knew that was Sydney Carton in your icon, aww. I always associate 'God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen' with Victorian Christmas stuff for some reason, so it's appropriate for Dickens, but perhaps would seem a bit strange in the French Revolution setting.

[sovay]

Merry Christmas! What beautiful ecologically-suggestive wrapping paper.

Likewise and thank you! I saw it and pounced.

I don't think I knew that was Sydney Carton in your icon, aww.

It's a production still I found in 2014 when I finally decided to make an icon of the character. I had originally planned to use a somewhat more romantic shot of Colman, but was too charmed by discovering one where he actually looked as though he'd been awake all night and was still mildly hungover about it. I imprinted on the character in tenth grade despite the best efforts of our English teacher that year to wreck any classic literature we were assigned.

I always associate 'God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen' with Victorian Christmas stuff for some reason, so it's appropriate for Dickens, but perhaps would seem a bit strange in the French Revolution setting.

In its defense, it is sung in London! I think it exploded in popularity during the nineteenth century. The internet informs me it rates a name-check in A Christmas Carol.

[regshoe]

I read the novel at a similar age and found Sydney definitely one of the more compelling characters in the various Dickens books I read around then :D (which also included A Christmas Carol, so that may be where I remember the song from)

[gwynnega]

Merry Erev Christmas!

[sovay]

Merry Erev Christmas!

Likewise in your time zone!

[pameladean]

I think I saw that movie long ago. I already had a profound crush on Sydney Carton from reading the book over and over, and a lot of juvenilia had him as a character inspiration before Hamlet for a time usurped his place.

I am agog at your wonderful paper. Averted-vision foxes!

P.

[sovay]

I think I saw that movie long ago. I already had a profound crush on Sydney Carton from reading the book over and over, and a lot of juvenilia had him as a character inspiration before Hamlet for a time usurped his place.

My mother showed it to me as an antidote to English class. It is strikingly unfaithful to the text at multiple points and I love it, as I also managed, despite English class, to love great swathes of the text. "Going home stealthily and unsteadily to his lodgings, like a dissipated cat."

(I had on the whole a positive experience of literature in high school, but one year really tried to make up for it.)

I am agog at your wonderful paper. Averted-vision foxes!

We kept saying, "Pass the fox paper!" and then remembering there are apparently none.

[mrissa]

I believe in the foxes all the same.

[sovay]

I believe in the foxes all the same.

I will send them your greetings.

[de_eekhoorn]

Happy Holidays!
I am very curious as to what this wrapping paper looks like, now...

[sovay]

Happy Holidays!

Likewise!

I am very curious as to what this wrapping paper looks like, now...

I'll see if I can get a picture of it on the other side of presents.

[asakiyume]

Magic wrapping paper with hiding foxes! Very nice. The extra stamp you put on a card if it's in a square envelope is a fox face--I had some square cards, and it was fun to put the fox next to the snowflake stamp.

[sovay]

Magic wrapping paper with hiding foxes! Very nice.

I took a picture of some of it, which I hope will explain why it looks as though it should contain foxes even when they can't be seen.

The extra stamp you put on a card if it's in a square envelope is a fox face--I had some square cards, and it was fun to put the fox next to the snowflake stamp.

I love that! I didn't know.