Christmas Stories — A Closer Reading

Dialect and Diction in the Tenement Voice

Riis renders the speech of his characters with phonetic spelling and colloquial rhythms. In 'The Kid Hangs Up His Stocking,' a boy stage-whispers 'Hi, Tom! Come up an' git on ter de lay of de Kid.' The contraction 'an'' and the phrase 'git on ter de lay' suggest a specific urban dialect, likely Lower East Side or Hell's Kitchen. This choice avoids standard English, lending authenticity to the setting. In a later scene, a child answers a teacher's question about Christmas with 'Because we always get 'em,' a line that is both grammatically simple and logically circular, revealing how the children's understanding is shaped by material scarcity. Riis does not correct or explain these utterances; he lets them stand as evidence of the speakers' world.

The Weight of Objects: Turkeys, Dolls, and Stockings

Riis invests physical objects with narrative significance. The opening paragraph of 'The Kid Hangs Up His Stocking' mentions 'six fat turkeys sizzling in the basement kitchen' and boys 'racking their brains to guess what kind of pies would go with them.' The turkeys are not merely food; they are the focus of anticipation, a concrete reward in a sparse environment. Later, a little girl writes to Santa Claus 'speaking for a doll and a bell—the bell to play "go to school" with when she was kept home minding the baby.' The bell is a practical tool, not a luxury, and the request underscores the child's domestic responsibilities. Stockings, too, are central: the title story begins with a boy hanging his stocking, and another child reports hanging hers 'last time' with no result. These objects carry emotional weight because they are rare.

Structure: Juxtaposition of Quiet and Chaos

Riis often contrasts still, indoor scenes with the bustle outside. In 'The Kid Hangs Up His Stocking,' the lodging-house is quiet—'the monotonous click of checkers on the board kept step with the clock'—while outside 'the drays ran over the pavement with muffled sounds' and shopkeepers shout 'Merry Christmas!' This juxtaposition creates a tension between the boys' contained anticipation and the city's commercial holiday. In the Sullivan Street school excerpt, the narrative shifts from the orderly 'preliminary exercises' to the chaos of a baby wailing and children shouting 'Dolls and toys!' The structure mirrors the unpredictability of tenement life, where order is fragile and joy erupts in bursts. Riis uses these shifts to highlight the gap between ideal and reality.

The Observer's Role: Riis as Documentarian

Riis's narrative voice is that of a reporter, not a participant. He describes the superintendent who 'dozed behind his desk' and the teacher who 'appears with a double armful of curly-headed dolls.' The point of view is external, noting details like 'the scratching of a little fellow's pencil on a slate' or 'the smothered exclamations of the boys.' When a child mistakes 'McKinley' for the 'King' in a Christmas song, Riis records the moment without judgment, letting the reader infer the political awareness of immigrant communities. This documentary stance aligns with Riis's background as a journalist and reformer. He does not moralize; he presents scenes that speak for themselves, trusting the reader to see the poverty and resilience.

Readers should attend to the small, specific details Riis includes—the brand of checkerboard, the type of pie, the exact wording of a child's letter. These are not decorative; they are the evidence from which the stories derive their force. The collection rewards attention to how Riis balances reportage with narrative, and how his characters' voices resist simplification. The Christmas setting is a lens, not a guarantee of sentiment.

I remember Riis's tenement rooms, how a single lit window or a child's precise word could change everything. Poverty drew its lines so firmly. Yet these stories, like dear Doris's own quiet hours, always found the small, stubborn hope within that strict frame. It is a particular, gentle kinship between them, that shared understanding of lives measured out in careful, generous acts. Leave it to Doris — A Closer Reading holds a similar heart.