A Mark Twain Christmas

It is my heart-warming and world-embracing Christmas hope and aspiration that all of us, the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the admired, the despised, the loved, the hated, the civilized, the savage (every man and brother of us all throughout the whole earth), may eventually be gathered together in a heaven of everlasting rest and peace and bliss, except the inventor of the telephone.

I was pleased to find A Mark Twain Christmas in my stocking on Christmas morning – a small volume, well-suited to stocking stuffing – yet it wasn't until I cracked it open today that I truly discovered exactly what it is; and while I had expected this to be a collection of Twain's own Christmas-related writings, it's both more, and as a result, less than that. In the end, this book is the fruits of Carlo DeVito's exhaustive research into Twain's Christmas-related writing: according to the Acknowledgements, this involved poring over “more than five hundred original sources, including some one-thousand letters and interviews with Twain, his children, their household members, and biographies of friends and literary partners, searching for hints of Christmas here and there to weave into this story.” The fact that these “hints of Christmas” add up to such a slim result might argue against the necessity of this collection; I assume that DeVito thought he would find more than this when he began his research. 

The approach of Christmas brings harassment and dread to many excellent people. They have to buy a cart-load of presents, and they never know what to buy to hit the various tastes; they put in three weeks of hard and anxious work, and when Christmas morning comes they are so dissatisfied with the result, and so disappointed that they want to sit down and cry. Then they give thanks that Christmas comes but once a year.

Ultimately, DeVito shares the stories of three Christmases at the Clemens' homes: from 1908 is the comical tale of the household staff trying to get Twain's country estate prepared for the imminent arrival of an unusual present (a story told entirely by DeVito, which serves as an introduction to Twain's beloved final home known as Stormfield); a story from the Christmas of 1875, when Twain's three daughters were little and he wrote them a letter from Santa Claus whose physical effects can still be seen in the (present-day-historical-site) family home in Hartford, Connecticut (a story told by DeVito which includes the letter in full, and padded with much biographical information about the Clemens family); and the final story is set in 1909 – the final Christmas of Twain's life – in which tragedy visits Stormfield (a story told by DeVito, with the inclusion of much of Twain's own writing in the aftermath, and which further serves as more biography than yarn-spinning). 

Jean lies yonder, I sit here; we are strangers under our own roof; we kissed hands good-by at this door last night – and it was forever, we never suspecting it. She lies there, and I sit here – writing, busying myself, to keep my heart from breaking. How dazzlingly the sunshine is flooding the hills around! It is like a mockery.

In the end, I don't know if even ten per cent of this book came from Twain's own hand (and note: I've only quoted Twain himself here), and as it is overwhelmingly moreso a briefly sketched biography of the Clemens family than it is a “Christmas collection”, the title is a bit of a stretch. As I have read The Autobiography of Mark Twain, there weren't really any surprises here, and again, I can only assume that DeVito expected to find more Christmas references when he began his research. Since this book couldn't have worked if it was any shorter (ie, just the Twain at Christmas bits), and only just sort of works as it is, DeVito may have been better off rejecting the Christmas slant and compiling everything he found interesting about the Clemens family into a longer work. A Mark Twain Christmas is enjoyable, if “padded”, and I'm still pleased that it appeared in my stocking.

Because this short book yielded a short review, here is Mark Twain's idea of a letter from Santa Claus in 1875:

Palace of St. Nicholas
In the Moon
Christmas Morning

MY DEAR SUSIE CLEMENS:

I have received and read all the letters which you and your little sister have written me by the hand of your mother and your nurses; I have also read those which you little people have written me with your own hands--for although you did not use any characters that are in grown peoples' alphabet, you used the characters that all children in all lands on earth and in the twinkling stars use; and as all my subjects in the moon are children and use no character but that, you will easily understand that I can read your and your baby sister's jagged and fantastic marks without any trouble at all. But I had trouble with those letters which you dictated through your mother and the nurses, for I am a foreigner and cannot read English writing well. You will find that I made no mistakes about the things which you and the baby ordered in your own letters--I went down your chimney at midnight when you were asleep and delivered them all myself--and kissed both of you, too, because you are good children, well trained, nice mannered, and about the most obedient little people I ever saw. But in the letter which you dictated there were some words which I could not make out for certain, and one or two small orders which I could not fill because we ran out of stock. Our last lot of kitchen furniture for dolls has just gone to a very poor little child in the North Star away up, in the cold country above the Big Dipper. Your mama can show you that star and you will say: "Little Snow Flake," (for that is the child's name) "I'm glad you got that furniture, for you need it more than I." That is, you must write that, with your own hand, and Snow Flake will write you an answer. If you only spoke it she wouldn't hear you. Make your letter light and thin, for the distance is great and the postage very heavy.

There was a word or two in your mama's letter which I couldn't be certain of. I took it to be "a trunk full of doll's clothes." Is that it? I will call at your kitchen door about nine o'clock this morning to inquire. But I must not see anybody and I must not speak to anybody but you. When the kitchen doorbell rings, George must be blindfolded and sent to open the door. Then he must go back to the dining room or the china closet and take the cook with him. You must tell George he must walk on tiptoe and not speak--otherwise he will die someday. Then you must go up to the nursery and stand on a chair or the nurse's bed and put your car to the speaking tube that leads down to the kitchen and when I whistle through it you must speak in the tube and say, "Welcome, Santa Claus!" Then I will ask whether it was a trunk you ordered or not. If you say it was, I shall ask you what color you want the trunk to be. Your mama will help you to name a nice color and then you must tell me every single thing in detail which you want the trunk to contain. Then when I say "Good-by and a merry Christmas to my little Susie Clemens," you must say "Good-by, good old Santa Claus, I thank you very much and please tell that little Snow Flake I will look at her star tonight and she must look down here--I will be right in the west bay window; and every fine night I will look at her star and say, 'I know somebody up there and like her, too.' " Then you must go down into the library and make George close all the doors that open into the main hall, and everybody must keep still for a little while. I will go to the moon and get those things and in a few minutes I will come down the chimney that belongs to the fireplace that is in the hall--if it is a trunk you want--because I couldn't get such a thing as a trunk down the nursery chimney, you know.

People may talk if they want, until they hear my footsteps in the hall. Then you tell them to keep quiet a little while till I go back up the chimney. Maybe you will not hear my footsteps at all--so you may go now and then and peep through the dining-room doors, and by and by you will see that thing which you want, right under the piano in the drawing room-for I shall put it there. If I should leave any snow in the hall, you must tell George to sweep it into the fireplace, for I haven't time to do such things. George must not use a broom, but a rag--else he will die someday. You must watch George and not let him run into danger. If my boot should leave a stain on the marble, George must not holystone it away. Leave it there always in memory of my visit; and whenever you look at it or show it to anybody you must let it remind you to be a good little girl. Whenever you are naughty and somebody points to that mark which your good old Santa Claus's boot made on the marble, what will you say, little sweetheart?

Good-by for a few minutes, till I come down to the world and ring the kitchen doorbell.

Your loving SANTA CLAUS 

Whom people sometimes call "The Man in the Moon"

And apparently, when Santa made his second trip into the Clemens home that Christmas morning, he left an indelible footprint on the foyer's marble floor which can still be seen  by visitors today.