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Merry Christmas
25 December 2022
There's nothing quite like taking a family photo at Christmas. In a letter to her parents, the novelist Shirley Jackson described what happened when she engaged a photographer to capture her family in 1948 at Christmas. The minute we read it, we knew you'd appreciate it.
Christmas 2016. Christmas is for children. Of any age.
She's uncommonly amused by the whole thing (particularly how many martinis her photographer imbibed while waiting for the decisive moment).
Even in her case with a pro to do the photographing, the maintenance of critical distance evaporated on such an occasion. And it was much the same for us, serving drinks, cooking dinner, distributing presents with the family amused by its newest member a few years ago.
The Jackson had quite a clan in 1948. Shirley and her husband Stanley had a son Laurie and daughters Sally, Jannie and Joanne. Stanley's brother Frank and his wife June and his brother Arthur and wife Bunny were there for the shot but not in it. The photographer was unnamed for his own protection, we suspect.
So without further ado, we present Jackson's letter (she hated wasting time on the Shift key) to her parents a few days after the momentous occasion:
january 7 (1949)
dearest mom and pop,
...our christmas started a day early, anyway. we had invited stanley's brother and sister-in-law and june and frank (who hold an honorary position as laurie's godparents) for the christmas weekend, and they all arrived a day earlier than we expected them, so that the excitement which was due to start on chrimast eve actually started the day before. with six grownups and three children in the house you can imagine how things were, and everyone trying to keep packages hidden, so that laurie and jannie were wild. on christmas eve our photographer was due to take pictures of the whole family, and that morning i discovered that the christmas tree we were supposed to get had been overlooked and we had no tree; finally, about five o'clock, the man arrived with two miserable little trees and said that all he had left, and we should cut the branches off one and tie them on the other and it would be fine. you should have seen those bedraggled old things. the photographer came in one door as the christmas tree man went out the other, and then things started really hopping. the children were all dressed and i was too; i went up to get the baby and brought her down in her best dress only to find that jannie had not been able to stand it and had been sick on the couch and her best dress; everyone was running around except the photographer, who was calmly drinking martinis and setting up equipment. so just as i got the cover off the couch the laundry man arrived and i gave him the cover and made him wait while i stripped jannie and gave him everything she had on. as soon as i got her dressed she started again, and this time i had to change her and me. the third time she did it i had to change her and laurie. meanwhile the baby was getting handed around and admired and the photographer was drinking martinis and stanley and his brother had the christmas lights spread out on the floor hwere they had been working on them and it was like a scene from a marx brothers movie, with the photographer in the middle, surrounded by cameras ad flash bulbs, drinking martinis. he must have put away about seven, because he was certainly feeling pretty gay. so we propped the photographer up and all lined up -- our family, arthur and bunny, and no one wanted to sit next to joanne. then when the photographer plugged in his light, all the lights went out and stanley, who was looking grim and wildeyed by now, went down and changed the fuse, which promptly blew again; by this time the photographer was giggling and making faces at the children over the top of the camera; all the while we sat there in the dark while stanley changed the fuses. and june and frank, who were not in the picture, held flashlights for the rest of us. the photographer finally got half a dozen pictures, had a farewell drink, and went gleefully off carrying all his equipment, i put sally and jannie to bed, stanley made a new batch of martinis (we gave one to the laundryman, by the way; he needed it, too) and we went to work to set up our two christmas trees.
No matter what happens wherever you are, Merry Christmas!