William D. Crump

If Christmas in popular culture is your thing, if you watch every made-for-TV Christmas movie or want movie reviews to nudge you in the direction of a new favourite Christmas horror flick, this is the book for you. If Smurfs or Yogi Bear or Bewitched Christmas are your thing, this is definitely the book for you.

If you're interested in Christmas music, and you prefer the songs that get endless play on Muzak through the month of December, this is the book for you. It has, for instance, a long entry on "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer", but omits "Gaudete" and "Riu Riu Chiu" (even though the Monkees recorded the latter, which surely means it is not entirely unknown to pop culture). Of course there is an entry on The Nutcracker, with (as expected) an extensive filmography -- that, oddly, is not arranged chronologically.

If you're interested in Christmas literature, the omissions herein are more notable than the inclusions. Max Lucado's sentimental books are featured but not significant authors like Ruth Sawyer (The Christmas Anna Angel, The Remarkable Christmas of the Cobbler's Sons, and more); Tomie de Paola (a celebrated author with a significant Christmas oeuvre including The Cat on the Dovrefell, The Friendly Beasts, The Legend of the Poinsettia, and many more) Michael Kusugak (author of the Canadian classic Baseball Bats for Christmas), Elsa Beskow (Peter and Lotta's Christmas), Astrid Lindgren (Lotta's Christmas Surprise aka Of Course Polly Can Do Almost Everything), Jostein Gaarder (The Christmas Mystery), William Kurelek (A Northern Nativity -- another Canadian classic), Of my extensive collection of Christmas literature, almost the only book that found space in The Christmas Encyclopedia was Rumer Godden's Story of Holly and Ivy... and I suspect that made it in because it had a film adaptation, and the editor's comments on Rumer Godden betrayed no familiarity with her other children's books. Even Tasha Tudor, whose work epitomises Christmas, is missing!

Some truly beloved national traditions are omitted, like the Angel Tree at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (the "angel tree" entry herein refers to the Salvation Army charity trees) or the annual 100 Presepi Exhibition in Rome. Operation Christmas Child gets an entry that smacks of puffery, as if the author reprinted a publicity brochure without editing. It's all a bit off.

I was disappointed in this book, and I think it would be more appropriately entitled The Encyclopedia of Christmas in Popular Culture, but it is very good at what it does most -- it is definitely the go-to reference for obscure Christmas movies and TV episodes.… (altro)