A Child’s Christmas in Wales

“One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.”

— Dylan Thomas 1

    Tales of our past are told and written out of nostalgia. Reflecting on our most memorable times is how many great stories are written. Nostalgia allows a writer to interpret a story in their own way that pull in readers. In the short story A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas, Nostalgia is an important theme in this book as the narrator is looking back to the amazing christmas he had when he was young.

Nostalgia is an important theme in ones life. In the short story A Child’s Christmas in Wales, nostalgia is an important theme as the entire story is a man remembering back to this special time for him. The narrator in this story is remembering back to a Christmas where strange things happened. In a whirl of different experiences all during the same time the author describes how special and unordinary this Christmas was. At the very beginning of the story the narrator and his friend Jim are at Mrs. Prothero’s house who is the friends aunt. They threw snowballs at the cats on the back fence until they heard Mrs. Prothero scream. Once they heard her, they knew they needed to check it out.

“Fire!" cried Mrs. Prothero, and she beat the dinner-gong. And we ran down the garden, with the snowballs in our arms, toward the house; and smoke, indeed, was pouring out of the dining-room, and the gong was bombilating, and Mrs. Prothero was announcing ruin like a town crier in Pompeii.” (Thomas 2)

In this moment of intensity the boys threw their snowballs at the fire. Seeing that their snowballs were failing they quickly called the fire department. The narrator then said that this was a much louder Christmas than usual. I thought that this was important because it served the boys more adventure and put danger into the mix of themes as well. This seemed like a moment that the narrator cherished and thought was funny and so this shows the theme of nostalgia strongly as well. When a person grows old and lets their mind wander off into their glory days they find peace. It is always important to be able to remember something in your past that is important to you.

    Writing techniques are the key to make a more descriptive and interesting story. In this story many sentence building techniques are used; however, I think that parallel structure, and similes and metaphors are two of the most important. Throughout the book these two techniques are used frequently and grace paragraphs with their addition of detail. These techniques are used very well in this short story. This excerpt from the book emphasizes both of these two writing techniques in a beautiful and powerful sentence that just pulled me in. Once I got a feel for what the story was really about, I started to pay attention to the detail put in and this quote really caught my eye.

“Sleek and long as jaguars and horrible-whiskered, spitting and snarling, they would slink and sidle over the white back-garden walls, and the lynx-eyed hunters, Jim and I, fur-capped and moccasined trappers from Hudson Bay, off Mumbles Road, would hurl our deadly snowballs at the green of their eyes. The wise cats never appeared.” (Thomas 2)

This entire quote is just a giant piece of parallel structure. Within that parallel structure are a few examples of similes and metaphors as well. I loved how the author was able to integrate multiple writing techniques into small pieces of the short story. It really gave me something very interesting to read and it will help me with my writing in the future. Sentence building techniques are some of the most important parts of writing and this story was a prime example of how the sentence building techniques the right way.

   A Child’s Christmas is Wales is stuck in my head with all of the great themes and sentence building techniques the author used to write it.

Tradition

“It takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition.”

—Henry James

    Tradition is something carried on by those who find it important. An important tradition for my family is going to New Hampshire. Even though this is quite broad and it dosent happen annually, my family on my mothers side have always loved going up to New Hampshire. We have rented houses, visited friends, and stayed at camps together in New Hampshire. These trips have been great bonding moments for my family and help bring us closer together. I have gone up to New Hampshire since I was only months old, I have gone to camp there and I have been there with my family on multiple occasions so it has been a part of my life for a while. This tradition started with my grandfather as he loved going to New Hampshire and even bought a beautiful house there. A few years ago my family rented a large house on squam lake in New Hampshire. A large portion of my family drove up to the house and we stayed together for ten days. One of the most memorable parts of this trip for me was the night where we were eating Ghost pepper with meatloaf for dinner. A bunch of the boys were eating Ghost pepper grown by my uncle with their meatloaf. Dininar my brother decided to try it. He took a very large piece of pepper and ate it with a small piece of meatloaf. Immediately after he had chewed and swallowed his mouthful he started crying in pain from the heat of the pepper. He then cried for the next half an hour while my parents tried to make the heat go away with milk, beer, and ice cream. This night was extremely funny and we still laugh about it today. Although this experience wasn’t funny in the moment, it has been a great memory told almost every time we are in New Hampshire. It’s so funny even my Grandmother laughs at it. This is just one of the great moments we have experienced in New Hampshire. Our tradition brings us joy and things to laugh about so I enjoy it greatly. Tradition is so important because of the obligation to continue something started by someone important to you. My family has many great traditions and this is just one of them.