Thursday 19th December - Christmas Morning

One more day and Mr Walker and I finish work for the holidays and Lily finishes school.  I suspect she might not make it to the end as she is full of cold and general child germs.  She always gets ill at the end of term, usually due to exhaustion and the fact they often have little parties in their classes where they share crisps and stuff.  Lawks, it only takes one child not washing his or her hands and we all get the plague.  Anyway, here is another pair of kiddiwinks all ready for Christmas...

Christmas Morning Agathe Rostel

I think the message of this picture is that everyone can have a Christmas, no matter how poor they are. These two are obviously from a family that cannot afford the good toys and such luxuries as hole-less shoes, but they have a spindly tree and Jesus on the wall.  What more do you need?

The Toy Barrow

Agathe Rostel (Germany, 1868-1926) seems to have done a good line in poverty-stricken urchins.  Here we have some kids, one of whom cannot even afford shoes of any sort, making their own fun with borderline hazardous rubbish they find in the street.  Ah, those were the days.  I'm hoping they are not planning any cart racing with the baby in there.  That baby is certainly looking a bit nervous...

Back to our Christmas morning moppets, both are in nightdresses, although the blonde one seems to be falling out of hers.  Across her lap is a doll holding cymbals in a way that makes me suspect that it will smash them together with nerve-shredding repetition.  I bet that was given to the girls by a family friend who either hates their parents or has never had to sit in a room with a child and a noisy toy. Anyway, possibly the message of this work is that Christmas is really the same for every child until they open their eyes.  They can all have dreams of sugar-plums and hole-less shoes and until they open their eyes it is their Christmas truth.

I think it is a great shame that this sort of image of childhood will disappear.  Not that I am advocating child-poverty, but the semi-naked state of the nearest girl would surely make it an image of suspicion these days.  I love the awkward pose she's in, although I'm worried she's not under the blankets.  I bet she's cold.  I think she's scrambled out of bed and pinched a toy before her sister could get it.  Ah, Christmas, 'tis the season to get a better present than your sibling...

Instead of a toy, I wish someone had bought those little girls a decent blanket.  Not as much fun, unless of course you make a blanket fort.  Who doesn't love a blanket fort?  I bet after a couple of hours of Mr Cymbals, the parents will dearly want a blanket fort...

See you tomorrow, I'm off to wrap pressies...