Med julen hører også julesangene til. Eller kanskje vi kan kalle det julelyrikk? Mange sanger har jo flere melodier…
På denne dagen før dagen vil jeg rett og slett dele min Spotify-liste med julemusikk. Den finner dere her:
Yule
Og som bonus, denne:
Årets julekalender åpner med en liten hilsen fra en for mange kjær krimforfatter:
En riktig god og kriminallitterær jul ønskes alle landets boklesere, med de beste hilsener fra
Varg Veum & Gunnar Staalesen.
Det var engang en liten nisse som het Putti Plutti Pott – Putti etter oldefaren sin og Plutti etter tippoldefaren sin – og Pott til etternavn. Men det som var så ekstra gøyalt med lille Putti Plutti Pott var bestefaren hans, for det var selveste Julenissen.
Og nå skal du få høre hvordan Putti Plutti Pott kom til å treffe Petter og lille Caroline, som er ganske alminnelige menneskebarn sånn som du, og hvordan hele Nisseland ble satt på hodet – og det bare var såvidt Julenissen kom seg avsted til alle snille barn på julaften.
Det var en kveld like før jul. Det hadde snedd tett hele dagen, og alt var blitt så mykt og fint og stille, med spennende blå skygger i det bleke måneskinnet. Inne i stuen var det trygt og godt, og det knitret og smalt festlig i et stort bål på peisen.
Fra Putti Plutti Pott og Julenissens skjegg av Per Aspelin.
Personlig synes jeg Tori Amos’ Midwinter Grace er årets vakreste juleplate, og her kommer en smakebit. Teksten til julesangen først, deretter kan du lytte til sangen. Det er Amos’ datter som synger sammen med henne på sangen.
Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming
From tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse’s lineage coming
By ancient sibyls sung
A rose doth bear a flower
All in the cold midwinter
And at the midnight hour
And he waits for who to find
The heart she left behind
And he prays she’ll find her way
To be his bride someday
Ivy
Of all the trees in the wood
Holly wants/woos the Rose
Holly and the Ivy
When they are both full grown
Of all the trees in the wood
Holly bears the crown
Holly and the Ivy
The running of the deer
For his Rose to bloom
Holly waits every year
He waits for who to find
The heart she left behind
He prays she’ll find her way
To be his bride someday
Ivy
Of all the trees in the wood
Holly wants/woos the Rose
Holly and the Ivy
When they are both full grown
Of all the trees in the wood
Holly bears the crown
The holly and the Ivy
The running of the deer
For his Rose to bloom
Holly waits every year
For his Rose to bloom
Holly waits every year
Waits every year
Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming
From tender stem hath sprung!
The frozen air perfuming
That tiny bloom doth swell
Its rays the night illuming
The darkness quite dispel
O flower beyond compare
Bloom in our heart’s midwinter
Restore the springtime here.
Nå skal jeg fortelle om en nisse sm bodde i en vaskekjeller. Det var ute på landet et sted, i en liten, tufsete landsby som ingen kan huske navnet på lenger.
– Ha ha ha, sier alle barn i munnen på hverandre.
_Nisser bor ikke i kjellere, de bor på låver! Og dessuten gidder vi ikke å høre om nisser. Vi vil heller høre om sjørøvere og cowboyer og bankran.
Men akkurat denne nissen bodde nå altså i en vaskekjeller fordi det ikke fantes noen låver i nærheten. Og akkurat denne historien handler nå altså om en nisse og ikke om alt mulig annet rart. Og dermed basta.
Fra Nissen som ville bli berømt av Kim Fupz Aakeson.
Oppe på loftet sover nissene på halmmadrasser på golvet. Bare Bestefar Snork og Gamlemor ligger nede. De er begge 274 år gamle og klarer ikke å klatre opp stigen lenger, dessuten fryser de ofte og liker seg best på en skinnfell borte ved varmen.
I vinduskarmen sover musa Neserynken og trostungen Pimpen, og oppi støvelen til Bestefar Snork sover Feiekosten som er en røyskatt.
Fra Det spøker på nissegården av Fris Ingulstad.
Det har blitt laget mange filmer av Charles Dickens’ klassiker A Christmas Carol, og i år kom det en ny versjon: Animert fra Disney med Jim Carrey i hovedrollen. Her er traileren:
(A Christmas Circular Letter)
The city had withdrawn into itself
And left at last the country to the country;
When between whirls of snow not come to lie
And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove
A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,
Yet did in country fashion in that there
He sat and waited till he drew us out
A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.
He proved to be the city come again
To look for something it had left behind
And could not do without and keep its Christmas.
He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;
My woods—the young fir balsams like a place
Where houses all are churches and have spires.
I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees.
I doubt if I was tempted for a moment
To sell them off their feet to go in cars
And leave the slope behind the house all bare,
Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.
I’d hate to have them know it if I was.
Yet more I’d hate to hold my trees except
As others hold theirs or refuse for them,
Beyond the time of profitable growth,
The trial by market everything must come to.
I dallied so much with the thought of selling.
Then whether from mistaken courtesy
And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether
From hope of hearing good of what was mine, I said,
“There aren’t enough to be worth while.”
“I could soon tell how many they would cut,
You let me look them over.”
“You could look.
But don’t expect I’m going to let you have them.”
Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close
That lop each other of boughs, but not a few
Quite solitary and having equal boughs
All round and round. The latter he nodded “Yes” to,
Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,
With a buyer’s moderation, “That would do.”
I thought so too, but wasn’t there to say so.
We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,
And came down on the north. He said, “A thousand.”
“A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?”
He felt some need of softening that to me:
“A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.”
Then I was certain I had never meant
To let him have them. Never show surprise!
But thirty dollars seemed so small beside
The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents
(For that was all they figured out apiece),
Three cents so small beside the dollar friends
I should be writing to within the hour
Would pay in cities for good trees like those,
Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools
Could hang enough on to pick off enough.
A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!
Worth three cents more to give away than sell,
As may be shown by a simple calculation.
Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.
I can’t help wishing I could send you one,
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.
av Robert Frost
Good for Christmas time is the ruddy colour of the cloak, in which – the tree making a forest of itself for her to trip through, with her basket – Little Red Riding-Hood comes to me one Christmas Eve to give me information of the cruelty and treachery of that dissembling Wolf who ate her grandmother, without making any impression on his appetite, and then ate her, after making that ferocious joke about his teeth. She was my first love. I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding-Hood, I should have known perfect bliss. But, it was not to be; and there was nothing for it but to look out the Wolf in the Noah’s Ark there, and put him late in the procession on the table, as a monster who was to be degraded. O the wonderful Noah’s Ark! It was not found seaworthy when put in a washing-tub, and the animals were crammed in at the roof, and needed to have their legs well shaken down before they could be got in, even there – and then, ten to one but they began to tumble out at the door, which was but imperfectly fastened with a wire latch – but what was THAT against it! Consider the noble fly, a size or two smaller than the elephant: the lady-bird, the butterfly – all triumphs of art! Consider the goose, whose feet were so small, and whose balance was so indifferent, that he usually tumbled forward, and knocked down all the animal creation. Consider Noah and his family, like idiotic tobacco-stoppers; and how the leopard stuck to warm little fingers; and how the tails of the larger animals used gradually to resolve themselves into frayed bits of string!
Fra novellen «A Christmas Tree» i Some Christmas Stories av Charles Dickens.
