December Stories and Songs, Part 9

Continuing the Christmas tree theme, today’s story is The Tree that Didn’t Get Trimmed by Christopher Morley. It’s available in a couple of solo editions, which are out of print and quite expensive; but I also located it in A Christmas Treasury and The Home Book of Christmas, which should be easier to find. Like the tree in H. C. Andersen’s The Fir Tree, the tree which is the protagonist of this story wishes very much to be a Christmas tree; to enjoy the merriment and be decked with shiny baubles. But he languishes on the tree lot and there is a different fate in store for him – a far more cheerful one than that of Andersen’s tree!

Although I only chose two songs to accompany this tale originally, I’m giving you three today. I found a beautiful rendition of Sang til Juletræet by Christopher Pedersen. However, it appears (at least to my tin ear) to be sung to a classical setting by Edvard Grieg and not to the tune I am familiar with from Mike and Else Sevig’s A Norwegian Christmas. So here’s the Sang til Juletræet that I was able to find.

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And to show how important the tree is to a Scandinavian Christmas, here’s another familiar song from our Danish Sangaften, Højt fra træets grønne top (High upon our Christmas tree).

And last but not least, a funny song by the late Erik Darling, which you can listen to here. You will need to download RealAudio (free and safe) before you can listen to Revenge of the Christmas Tree. Erik Darling, who died in 2008, had a long career in folk music. One of the first folk records I bought was Travellin’ on with the Weavers, on which Darling replaced Pete Seeger in the group.