#Dinner for One | From a teacher's point of view, some is old and some is new!

Many of the traditions we follow have an origin in religion or culture and may be deeply rooted for several other reasons. I remember first time I heard a reference to ”the ball drop”. Of course I did not understand what it was all about, simply because I didn’t follow American traditions for New Year’s Eve. When I watched ”When Harry Met Sally” for the first time and when I followed the Broadcast from Times Square, NYC and under Billy Joel’s guidance could meet a new millennium, I understood the connection…

Interestingly enough, from the 1950s and on, many of the Swedish traditions are closely connected to TV, but none of us watch a ball drop… As I have written before, we watch Donald Duck at three o’clock on Christmas Eve and on New Year’s Eve we also gather in front of the TV set to watch a certain TV-show, or rather gatered, since many people have changed their habits for New Years Eve. For many years we had just one single TV-channel, but when I was a child we at least had two channels… 😉

I remember watching two particular TV-shows on New Year’s Eve. The first show was a British production called ”Dinner for One” in English(”Grevinnan och betjänten” in Swedish). It was filmatised in 1948, so of course it’s black and white back then. Please follow the link below! The manuscript is written by Lauri Wylie and the two participating actors, May Warden as the Duchess ”Miss Sophie” and Freddie Frinton as her waitor ”James” have entertained Swedish viewers for decades. The repeated dialogue makes it hilarious along with excellent performance from both actors.

James: Same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?

Miss Sophie: Same procedure as every year, James!

Dinner for One

The next traditional TV-show is connected to the turning of the year, at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Many Swedish traditions are broadcasted at a famous open air museum in Stockholm, called Skansen. In the summer they have a weekly sing-along-concert with famous artists and during the winter you can for instance visit Skansen for traditional open air fairs. On New Year’s Eve a concert is held on Skansen. The performance consists of traditional choir music, such as ”Sverige” (= Sweden) by Verner von Heidenstam with music by Vilhelm Stenhammar.

At the very end of the concert, a famous actor/actress reads a poem by Lord Albert Tennyson, called ”Ring Out, Wild Bells”. See quote below! (source; wikipedia.org) This year the poem will be performed by the Swedish opera singer Malena Ernman. Since this time of the year is generally very cold in Sweden, I remember from my childhood how the actor/actress reading the poem would generally be dressed in a thick fur and the following applause from the audience was softened by gloves and mittens… This year, however, the weather is not quite as cold. Who knows? We may hear a loudlier applause by midnight!

”Ring Out, Wild Bells”(1850) by Lord Albert Tennyson

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,

For those that here we see no more,

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out thy mournful rhymes,

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.

My kids tend to watch Spongebob Squarepants day in and day out, and I have very little to say about it, so it seems… I nag about it, but I don’t really mind…honestly… I have even found a few jokes here and there that I liked, too. But what we like or not on TV has indeed changed if we give it some thought. I am a typical ”News programmes”-person. I love documentaries about the political system in a distant country or a debate of some sort about some ”big issue”… But having said that, of course I’d love to watch other things, too… but I don’t enjoy series with an unknown number of episodes, as if they are eternal… When will one have the time to watch them all???

As a kid I remember watching programmes made especially for children. They were all very pedagogical, since I was brought up during a period of time when Swedish television had just two channels. Most programmes had a hidden agenda, such as ”send your pocket money to Biafra” or ”don’t pollute our lakes or forests”. My fave show was a show called ”Ville, Valle Viktor” where two men, Ville and Valle set off for a walk through Sweden. They were very different. Ville was the bossy kind of guy and Valle was just doing whatever he was told… One day the two of them found a puppet. The puppet, called Victor, is not at all fond of Ville´s bossy manners and questions his decisions. I enjoyed the many jokes, but also the way one could learn a lot about environmental issues by just watching this show.

There were other shows with the main purpose to educate and inform. Two of them, ”Från A till Ö, en resa orden runt”

http://youtu.be/bDn08YAtneo

and ”Fem myror är fler än fyra elefanter”

are shows that are still found in the stores and my children used to watch both shows, too, when they were younger. Every now and then they indulge themselves with a nostalgic afternoon, going through the best shows together. Usually I join them, too, laughing at the same jokes as they do. Is that quality, is it just a matter of sharing the same taste, or is it just a co-incident? I don’t know…

TV-shows are sometimes not at all interesting, in my opinion… I can easily avoid shows about odd sports, or weird soap operas with dubbed sound tracks… I do however have some old favourite Britcoms I watch again and again. One of the best in my opinion, is ”Keeping Up Appearences”. I can’t help loving all of those characters, expecially working class ”Hyacinth Bucket” who pretends to be upper class…and insists on having her name pronounced ”Bouquet”…

I admit watching TV was much more easy before I had kids… 😉

I know it’s a matter of being a weak Mom, a ”Curling parent” so to speak… Instead of insisting on watching what I prefer, I let them watch whatever THEY prefer, thinking I will decide for myself once they move out…which is years from now…but… They’re worth it…

Sometimes my daughters joke about it… ”I bet you would want to watch a clay animation from the Czech Rpublic. I usually reply: No, I was planning to watch a three hours long documentary called ”Woolen yarn”…

Another thing that has struck me is that some countries have their own ”Can’t miss it!” -shows… I’d say the Americans seem to watch the ”Super Bowl”, the Brits watch ”Last Night of the Proms”, we tend to watch ”Vasaloppet” (a 90km long ski-race) etc.

Foreigners who visit Sweden are sometimes surprised at the fact that we have these shows we watch over and over again, although we know all the lines… We watch ”Donald Duck” in an hour long show every Christmas Eve at three o’clock… We watch an old sketch from Britain on New Year’s Eve. It’s called ”Dinner for One” but in Sweden it’s known as ”Grevinnan och betjänten”. I’d say most adult Swedes know all the lines and SAY THEM while watching.