Christmas Message 2025
2025 has been an interesting year…
Little Shrew continues to take part in international film festivals, and has been reaching out to different audiences. Thank you to everyone who has responded to the animation by making a donation to War Child or other charities involved in helping children caught up in wars.
Huge congratulations to the wonderful Duffer Bros for their latest series of Stranger Things. Bravo! It’s absolutely fantastic! You can see the enormous amount of craft and hard work that’s gone into every episode. It feels like every character is getting the chance to shine and the whole look of this series is stunning with just incredible visual effects. I feel so, so privileged and honoured that RUTH has been chosen as Max’s totem. I can’t wait to find out where it all goes.
It’s been wonderful to see the response to the vinyl release of Best of the Other Sides. To put the running order together, I had to listen to songs I hadn’t heard since they were first released. My favourite part of revisiting those songs was listening to the middle section of The Meteorological Mix of The Big Sky. My favourite line is delivered brilliantly by my brother, Paddy. It still makes me laugh… “That cloud looks like industrial waste“.
There are also lines in that section of the track that were spoken by my mother and father. I love to hear their voices. It makes it feel like they’re still with us. Over the last few years, I often wonder how they would’ve felt about the major events that have happened. Particularly the pandemic, the undeniable effects of climate change, and of course all the wars.
I think they appreciated that Golden Age we had until recently in a way we can’t imagine. They had lived through a war and seen the horror, they’d felt the exhaustion that Britain had experienced afterwards. My father had practised medicine before the introduction of antibiotics and my mother had been a nurse, but I still feel they would’ve been bewildered by the intensity and the speed of the many changes over these last four to five years.
I remember when I was little, how our parents would carry in the Christmas tree every Christmas Eve. It was always in the evening and made the Christmas tree even more special and magical because it was only with us for a few days. We always used the same decorations, going back years, and this real tree would be draped in tinsel. A rather worn fairy would grace the top of the tree in her faded pink dress.
The Christmas tree is still the centre of our festive Christmas decorations at home. Of course, like most people this goes up and is decorated weeks before Christmas Eve, but it still holds a truly special magic for me.
I really hope you all have a beautiful Christmas and who knows.. it might even be white!
All best wishes,
Kate
