Rhona Haszard, Artist, Writes of Two Christmases

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 851, 20 December 1929, Page 5 (Supplement)

Rhona Haszard, Artist, Writes of Two Christmases

Rhona Haszard is as clever with her pen as she is with her brush. One of her paintings was recently purchased for the Auckland Art Gallery. In private life she is Mrs. Leslie Greener, and she lives at Alexandria, in Egypt.

LONG before my childish years could fathom the mystery of the seasons, hemispheres, and the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn,

Christmastide was a puzzle to me. To be sure Santa Claus duly arrived to fill our hung-up stockings; but never once did he leave a snowflake behind; never did a robin hop on to the windowsill to puff out his shiny red breast; never did the wind come wuffling through empty branches, or pile up the snow at our door. And yet it teas Christmas, for didn’t we have candled trees and lighted puddings; holidays to run wild in? Yes, Christmas, but not the Christmas of our story-books or the cards that came by post.

So with me, and I expect to all those who have been brought up on The Opposite Side of the World, Christmas came to have a double significance—a holiday time of summer; and an imaginary story book time, of yule-logs and holly, roofs half-hid in snow, and waits blowing not only trumpets, but frost-bitten fingers as well. Then after many happy New Zealand Christmases, the PictureBook opened, and for the first time the Unreal became the Real. It was in France, in the Valley of the Marne. Monsieur le Curd had asked us to attend Midnight Mass. At a quarter to twelve we left the house. Clreen-shuttered houses stood shoulder to shoulder on the lane leading down to the river. In summer, great trees, casual as to their own side of the road, lean over and make archways, but now, looking up,, we saw only the tracery of black branches, with frosty stars beyond. Snow lay thick about us, and lit our way; the Ivy on the walls hung heavy; it filled the clefts of the tree-trunks, and covered the roof of the tiny Norman church whose eaves sloped down to shoulder height. From cold blu9 snow-light to yellow candle-light we passed; only the lovely glow of little points of flame, burning so steady In the keen atr, to show us the way to our pews, at the end of which a long burning taper was tied. All the villagers were there, wrapped up'in their thickest clothes —Monsieur GrAgroire, who grew those immense hyacinths in the spring: Madame LApolard who keeps the cafd and such delicious cider; Monsieur DAmolin who fishes all day long ... To the low Latin chanting of the priest, my thoughts swung to and fro from this to other Christmases in New Zealand; times when swimming and boating filled up hot summer days . . . blue harbours and white-winged yacht 3 . . . robins seen this morning . . . sliding down tussock hills .. . carols sung on snow . covered cobbler . . . trees scarlet with rata, now trees scarlet with holly . . . Each time so beautiful in its own way, each giving such value to the other, that when the peasants tHanked the Christ-Child for this and that benefice, I thanked Him that at last I should know the Two Christmases of my childhood. RHONA HASZARD