This year I made several ornaments for the Kansas City Repertory Theatre to sell in their gift shop during their production of A Christmas Carol. The show runs from November 17, 2017 (today) through December 24, 2017. Here's the behind-the-scenes story of the creation of these ornaments:
About the Book
The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is a classic published in 1843. It's never been out of print. If you're not familiar with the story, a miserly old man named Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by a series of ghosts on Christmas Eve, including his dead partner Jacob Marley. After the visitations, he changes his ways and celebrates his newfound Christmas spirit.
I did a little research about the story and learned a few new tidbits:
- Dickens wrote the novella (under 30,000 words) in six weeks during the fall of 1843. (Maybe he should get credit as the first to participate in NaNoWriMo? The writing speed, timing of the year, and book length feel similar.)
- He originally planned to write a pamphlet titled "An Appeal to the People of England on behalf of the Poor Man's Child." He had just read the government's report on child labor which showed that employers thought of children as the cheapest tools, easily discarded when broken. This sentence in the Time magazine article struck me as one that could be written today: "Dickens reminded his 19th century readers—and today's—not to mistake their good fortune of landing in a high place for their worth."
- The book was considered a financial disappointment. It sold out of its initial 6,000 copies quickly, but the cost of producing the book was so high (fancy binding, gold lettering, gilded-edged pages) that there was little money left for the author. It also did not help that two months after publication, another publisher pirated the book. Dickens sued and won, but the other publisher simply declared bankruptcy, forcing Dickens to pay all costs.
- Ten years after publication, Dickens started to give public performances of the book. Working people loved it, but many others thought the performances were beneath him as a gentleman.
Gathering the Materials
The materials were easy. I wanted the ornaments to have a bright, classic look. I used some little metal snowflakes that I had painted with a pearlized, snowy paint. (The photo shows a mix of painted and unpainted snowflakes.) The circles of aluminum are quite thick and difficult to bend, which is always important when creating something that's going to be handled. I used wire to create my own ornament hooks. The photo shows (in the upper right corner) some of my letter stamps that I used to create the quotes on the metal. Each letter is hammered into the metal one at a time. This is why letters may not be precisely aligned. The letters tend to be thicker and stronger than machine engraving which often travels very lightly across the surface. I enjoy this method of adding text to metal as it ensures that each item is completely unique.
Researching the Quotes
I wanted to use several quotes from the story. I did a search online and found several that seemed like good candidates. They were relatively short (a bonus when doing hand work) and well known.
But before I could start stamping, there were some problems to solve that probably only an English major (me) would care about.
A Christmas Carol is considered in the public domain. That's good news in that it means that anyone can use the story for whatever purpose without asking for permission or paying to use the rights. On the down side, it means that for over 170+ years everyone has shaped and tweaked those words however they like. I found so many versions!
For my research, I primarily used two sources. First, I found a copy of the 1843 text put out by Project Gutenberg. Founded in 1971, Project Gutenberg uses use volunteers to put plain-text versions of books online. This version isn't pretty, but its plainness makes it very quick to search.
I also found a 1911 version at the Library of Congress which showed scanned pages. This proved useful since sometimes quotes were immortalized in both illustrations and text.
Bah?! Humbug?!
For the Bah Humbug quotation, the problem was the punctuation. Here are a few of the versions I found online:
Bah! Humbug!
Bah, Humbug!
"Bah," said Scrooge. "Humbug."
"Bah!" said Scrooge, "Humbug!"
The last version is the oldest one and the one used on my Bah Humbug ornament.
God Bless Y'All
For the "god bless us" quote, I found several versions with different spacing and punctuation:
God bless us, everyone
God bless us every one
God Bless Us, every one.
God bless us, every one!
Since I used an uppercase font for the main quote, I did not worry about capitalization. (I did end up using a lowercase font for "tiny tim" just to emphasize the cute factor.)
I think these variations might stem in part from the fact that Tiny Tim says this line twice. Once earlier in the story and once at the end. Each one is punctuated differently. The one at the end tends to be the one that people remember, so that's the one I ended up using for my God Bless Us ornament.
I Can't Spell Honor Without You
I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.
The big change in this one was the spelling of "honor." In the American versions, it's spelled h-o-n-o-r and in the British versions it's spelled h-o-n-o-u-r. I decided that since Charles Dickens was a British author I would use the British spelling for my Christmas Honour ornament. (You'll see that I also shortened the quote to fit the space.)
This quote comes from the reformed Scrooge. He seems to have all the best lines!
"A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to the world." ~ Scrooge
(See what I mean? All the best lines!)