CHRISTMAS TALES: ONE FOR THE STOCKING

I have to thank William McInnes for putting me onto Lyrics for Lovers, the spoken word album by Dirk Bogard.

In McInnes’ latest book, CHRISTMAS TALES, he recounts that his mum used to play a few tracks on Christmas morning, “her idea of a bit of festive fun because this record is beyond the entertainingly terrible.”

To the contrary, the album is terribly entertaining, and the same can be said of CHRISTMAS TALES.

Steeped in Yule tide nostalgia, McInnes is an unapologetic Christmas tragic, reveling in past festive season revels with family and friends, and musing over the competing Christian and Capitalist iconography of the celebration.

The young McInnes, ‘Cabbagehead’, engages his dad in conversations and discussions on the players in the Nativity scene as well as the origins of Santa Claus, philosophical musings regarding the spiritual and the commercial aspects of Christmas.

For some reason, Where Eagles Dare became McInnes and his brother’s Christmas movie and the games he and his brother make up over its television screenings with something called a Clint-ometer, a tradition that is carried over to this very day.

Of course, before McInness became a bestselling author – CHRISTMAS TALES is his eleventh book – he was an actor (still is) and there’s many an actor – myself included – that has donned the big red suit and white wig and beard. He too did duty in the Claus-trophobic face mask, a role he was grateful to be “unsuited”.

But before he played Santa, he incongruously was cast as an elf, a six foot four helper to a Communist Claus who delighted in singing Have Yourself A Marxist Little Christmas.

Although CHRISTMAS TALES is a collection of stories, it’s best to read them in order as the narratives evolve and reference is made of Christmases past. Adult McInnes memory is triggered to instances of younger Will, Bill, Cabbagehead, Old Cock or whatever appellation he was under at the time.

Unabashedly, CHRISTMAS TALES is a message of joy to the world, for it needs all the joy it can get.

CHRISTMAS TALES by William McInnes is published by Hachette