Christmas Entertainment!

Sorry the 2nd post is later this week; I didn't manage to get it finished yesterday. :)

It's only 3 days till Christmas, so today I'm sharing some festive entertainment! It's a mixture of music, books and TV. :) 

Last year I wrote my 3rd Christmas Round-up (a follow-up to posts in 2016 and 2018). You can see it here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/12/christmas-round-up-3.html

Music

 

Coco Jones- Santa Is Me/Call On Christmas

This week's Weekly Music Video is Santa Is Me/Call On Christmas, two new songs by American singer Coco Jones. Both songs are from her new Christmas EP Coco By The Fire.

Watch the video here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/12/weekly-music-video_18.html

CHUNG HA- Sleigh

Korean singer CHUNG HA/Chungha (a former member of now disbanded K-pop girl I.O.I turned solo star) released the special Christmas digital single [Christmas Promises] on 3rd December. It consists of 2 tracks- Sleigh and There Goes Santa Claus.

This is Sleigh. It's an English language pop/R'n'B song where CHUNG HA tells a love interest that she "sleighs" (a play on the slang "slay") and she will be his Santa for tonight! The music video was also uploaded on 3rd December.

 

A music video for There Goes Santa is due to be uploaded on Christmas Eve. For now, you can listen to the audio here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OlPRhHjKr4

Update 23/12/24: Here is the music video for There Goes Santa (it's already Christmas Eve in Korea!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCp_62V3sCY

 

Stream/listen to Christmas Promises here: https://ffm.to/CHUNGHA_Christmas_Promises

Stray Kids- [Christmas Love]

And here's some J-pop. This is Christmas Love by Korean boyband Stray Kids. In addition to making K-pop, they also release Japanese music and this is one of their J-pop songs. 

Stray Kids have previously released Christmas music- their 2021 holiday special single album Christmas EveL (see below).

[Christmas Love] is from Giant , the group's 2nd Japanese studio album, which came out on 13th November. I don't think it's an official single though. The music video was uploaded on 8th December.

 

To see the videos for 24 to 25, Christmas EveL and Winter Falls (from Christmas EveL), visit my Christmas Music Round-up post from 2021: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2021/12/christmas-music-round-up.html

 

And for K-pop Christmas songs, check out my post from 2022: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/12/k-pop-christmas-songs.html  

Books/TV

 

M.R. James Stories

I started reading M.R. James maybe about 10 years ago and his stories are now some of my favourite classic ghost stories. He had 4 ghost story book collections published in his lifetime- Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1901), More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1911), A Thin Ghost and Others (1919) and A Warning to the Curious and other Ghost Stories (1925). He also wrote another story called Wailing Well which was published in 1928. 

Side note: An antiquary is someone who studies the past and/or collects old things.

The book The Collected Ghost Stories of M.R. James was first published in 1931 and it contains all of his ghost stories except for 4, which hadn't yet been published. The 4 not included are The Experiment, The Malice of Inanimate Objects, A Vignette and The Fenstanton Witch.

As I said in my Christmas Round-up 2 post, the fist M.R. James book I bought was Ghost Stories of An Antiquary.  Then just before Christmas 2018, I got Collected Ghost Stories. I've read all of his stories except for the 4 mentioned above.

Wailing Well appears in vampire anthology Dracula's Brood (edited by Richard Dalby), which I have. Although to be honest, I'm not entirely sure why it's in there. I consider it's more of a ghost story but maybe it's a ghost/vampire one? 

Count Magnus is also in another vampire collection I have (can't remember which one right now, lol) but that has more hallmarks of a vampire story to me.

If you don't have any of his books, I recommend Collected Ghost Stories for the almost full collection. The prices of some of his rare books are crazy. £650 for More Ghost Stories and £1,750 for A Thin Ghost!! 

So, unless you can afford rare book prices, or come across a cheaper edition somewhere (the first Ghost Stories seems more readily available and affordable), the newer collections are probably the best option. :)

Project Gutenberg has some of M.R. James' books to download for free (I'm wary of downloading things but I think it's a legitimate site): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/2768

 

A Ghost Story for Christmas- The Stalls of Barchester (S1, Ep1)

In my Christmas Round-up 2 post (written in 2018) I wrote about A Ghost Story for Christmas, a British series of TV films which featured ghost stories. It originally ran from 1971 to 1978 and more episodes were made from 2005 to 2013. The programme mostly featured stories by M.R. James, with some from other authors as well. 

Visit the post to read more about both M.R. James' stories and A Ghost Story for Christmas (in the Books and TV section): https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2018/12/christmas-round-up-2.html

Since then there have been newer episodes, starting with The Dead Room at Christmas 2018, which was written  and directed by Mark Gatiss, one of the actors of offbeat comedy series The League of Gentlemen.

Mark has directed several more episodes, with the most recent being Lot 249 by Arthur Conan Doyle (which was shown on Christmas Eve last year) and this Christmas' Woman of Stone, based on the story Man-size in Marble by E. Nesbit (Edith Nesbit). 

Last Christmas they showed A Ghost Story for Christmas on Talking Pictures TV. I hadn't seen most of them, so that was good. 

One of my favourite stories is The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral. It can be found in More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary and The Collected Ghost Stories. 

This story was the first episode in the first series of A Ghost Story for Christmas, originally broadcast on Christmas Day 1971. It's about scholar Dr. Black (played by Clive Swift, best known as Richard Bucket/"Bouquet", the long suffering husband of Hyacinth from 90s sitcom Keeping Up Appearances!) who has the task of cataloguing Barchester Cathedral's library.

He comes across a diary which belonged to Archdeacon Haynes (Robert Hardy) who died in mysterious circumstances 50 years ago. Upon reading the diary, Dr. Black uncovers the story of ambitious Haynes, who covets the position of his long-lived predecessor Archdeacon Pulteney (Harold Bennett).

When Pulteney dies after falling down the stairs, Haynes becomes Archdeacon. But his delight in his new post is tempered by strange events, which seem related to carvings in the stalls of the cathedral.

Here's a clip:

This is a creepy story. It showcases Archdeacon Haynes' isolation as the days grow shorter and winter approaches. His sister Leticia lives with him but she leaves for Brighton during the winter months. Haynes is left on his own and writes, "I find I shrink from the dark season." 

The TV version is quite good. The ending seems to make it a bit clearer what happened to him than the story does. 

Hope you enjoyed the post! :) Merry Christmas! Hope you have a good Christmas, or another festival if you celebrate one. :)