The witching hour

Tonight, even though it's nowhere near either Hallowe'en or Christmas, we treated ourselves to The Nightmare Before Christmas.

I loved the film, and picked up this copy from the pulp shelf when I worked at Penguin - long before little a was even a twinkling in the eye. As far as I can remember, I hadn't opened it again until this Christmas.

It claims to be written by Tim Burton - I have no idea if a ghost was involved (no pun intended. Actually I hate it when people say that. It's like saying 'I don't mean to be rude but ...' Clearly the pun was intended, and clearly I had a clever self-conscious moment thinking oh how witty that would be. But anyway, back to the point). It's illustrated by him too, and he is clearly a talented and impressive man, even if he did manage to make Alice in Wonderland too scary for little a to watch until she's about 21.

If you're not afraid of a bit of gothic, and your child has a slightly strange attraction to skeletons*, then The Nightmare Before Christmas is a refreshing change to all schmaltzy Christmas ick that I gritted my teeth through this year. Do you find me still reading Just For You Blue Kangaroo or Angelina's Christmas as the tulips are blooming? No - they are safely tucked up with the stockings in the loft. The Nightmare is fun enough, and dark enough, to haunt us all year round.




*When little a was about two and a half, the Wellcome Institute held an exhibition of skeletons unearthed in London. There was a poster at the tube stop we saw each day, with a huge skull on it. She loved it. So I took her to the exhibition, and she loved that too. I revelled in the contrasts: bouncy toddler in a crowd of serious academics, full of life but fascinated by relics of death. Somehow it wasn't morbid at all, but felt like a celebration of life. I suppose because the bodies were displayed as insights into history. We bought a book there - Allan Ahlberg's Bump in the Night. Sad to say, not up there with Each Peach or Burglar Bill, but fun enough if you like your skeletons a little less, well, skeletal.