A Topsy-Turvy Christmas — A Reader’s Guide

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In Category - Fantasy Juvenile Worlds

Authors: Guptill, Elizabeth F. (Elizabeth Frances), 1870- Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2019 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Christmas plays Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 12,925

Reading time 57 min

Text sections 9

This digital edition of A Topsy-Turvy Christmas — A Reader’s Guide is described by source-level measurements including 12,925 words, 57 min estimated reading time, and 9 detected text sections.

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Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Christmas plays,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #59605

A Christmas play where Earth children tumble into Topsy-Turvy Land, meeting reversed-name characters like Gother Moose and Derf. The script uses wordplay, repetitive storytelling, and a topsy-turvy logic that inverts familiar nursery rhymes and holiday traditions.

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File: pg59605

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A Topsy Turvy Christmas

PAINE PUBLISHING CO. DAYTON, OHIO

New Entertainment Songs

By Edna Randolph Worrell.

These songs can be used in all manner of entertainments. The music is easy, and both music and words are especially catchy. Children like them. Everybody likes them. Sheet music. =Price 25 cents each. Five copies, $1.00.=

=WE HOPE YOU’VE BROUGHT YOUR SMILES ALONG.= A welcome song that will at once put the audience in a joyous frame of mind and create a happy impression that will mean half the success of your entire program. Words, bright and inspiring. Music, catchy.

=WE’LL NOW HAVE TO SAY GOOD-BYE.= This beautiful song has snap and go that will appeal alike to visitors and singers. It is just the song to send your audience home with happy memories of the occasion.

=WE’VE JUST ARRIVED FROM BASHFUL TOWN.= This song will bring memories to the listeners of their own bashful school days. Words, unusually clever. Music, decidedly melodious. A capital welcome song, or it may be sung at any time on the program with assured success.

=MY OWN AMERICA, I LOVE THEE.= A song that will bring a thrill of patriotism to the heart of every one who hears it. The children and grown-ups just can’t resist the catchy music. It makes a capital marching song.

=COME AND PARTAKE OF OUR WELCOME CAKE.= A merry welcome song and a jolly one, too. The audience will be immediately curious about the Welcome Cake, and the children will love to surprise the listeners with the catchy words. Music, easy and tuneful.

=LULLABY LANE.= The music and words blend so beautifully that people will be humming the appealing strains long after they hear this charming song. A wonderfully effective closing song, whether sung by the school or as a solo by a little girl, with a chorus of other little girls with dolls.

=JOLLY PICKANINNIES.= Words by Elizabeth F. Guptill. Music by Edna R. Worrell. This spicy coon song will bring down the house, especially if you use the directions for the motions which accompany the music. The black faces and shining eyes of the pickaninnies will guarantee a hit. The words are great and the music just right.

=THE LITTLE BIRD’S SECRET.= Here is just the song for those two little folks to sing together. They won’t have to be coaxed to sing it, especially when they find that the whole school is to whistle the chorus. This is a decided novelty, and will prove a rare treat to your audience.

=A GARDEN ROMANCE.= This is a dainty little song telling of the romance and wedding of Marigold and Sweet William. It is just the song for dainty little girls to sing.

=COME TO THE NURSERY RHYME GARDEN AND PLAY.= Here is something different for the little folks to sing. The Nursery Rhyme Folk are so familiar to children, it will be no trick for them to remember the words. The music has a most captivating swing.

Paine Publishing Company - - Dayton, Ohio

A TOPSY-TURVY CHRISTMAS

_By_ ELIZABETH F. GUPTILL

_Author of “Christmas at Punkin Holler,” “Christmas at McCarthy’s,” Etc._

PAINE PUBLISHING COMPANY DAYTON, OHIO

FRANK--A boy of twelve} The Earth children. ALICE--A girl of ten }

KNARF--A Topsy Turvy boy; really a boy of fourteen or fifteen.

ECILA--His sister; a girl somewhat taller.

DERF--Their little brother; the tallest boy obtainable.

MOM--Their mother; a girl of nine or ten.

DAD--Their father; a boy of seven or eight.

MARG--Their grandmother; the smallest girl who can learn the part.

THE SPANKETY MAN--A boy of ten or twelve.

THE TEACHER--A boy of ten or twelve.

CLANTY SAUCE--A very tall, thin boy.

GOTHER MOOSE--A short, fat girl, of seven or eight.

GREENIES--Any number of small girls. Two will do, but four are better.

A small boy to be in CLANTY SAUCE’S box is also needed.

_Copyright, 1916, by Paine Publishing Company Dayton, Ohio_

COSTUMES AND PROPERTIES

FRANK and ALICE wear the usual school clothes of children of their ages.

MARG, the tiny Grandmother, has her hair powdered, parted in the middle, and combed down over her ears. She wears a cap, and spectacles, from which the lenses have been removed. Her dress is long, of gray material, with white apron and kerchief, which may be on wrong side to.

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The play opens with Earth children Alice and Frank tumbling into Topsy-Turvy Land, where they encounter characters with reversed names—Gother Moose, Derf, Ecila—and a logic that turns familiar stories inside out. Gother Moose tells a version of “Jack Horner” that dwells on each bite of pie, counting them aloud until the audience protests. The scene establishes a pattern: the script toys with expectation by stretching a simple action into comic repetition, then subverts the expected ending (a plum) with a flat statement that the pie is simply gone. This early moment signals that the play’s humor depends on knowing the original tales and watching them get dismantled.

Wordplay and Reversed Names

The most immediate feature of the play is its systematic inversion of names and roles. Mother Goose becomes Gother Moose; the children are named Derf (Fred backward), Ecila (Alice), and Knarf (Frank). This is not merely a gimmick: the reversed names signal that every rule of the familiar world is upended. When Alice asks if Mother Goose is real, Derf replies, “’Course her is!”—a grammatical inversion that matches the topsy-turvy premise. The script extends the wordplay to objects and actions: cats have no tails, and the terrible Wincheopactylus wears its tail over its left shoulder. These details are delivered without explanation, as if the characters themselves find nothing odd about them. The cumulative effect is a linguistic game that rewards attention to how words are twisted.

Repetition as Comic Structure

Gother Moose’s storytelling relies on exaggerated repetition. In the “Hackey Jorner” tale, the narrator lists each bite: “he took another, then he took another, then he took another, then he took another, then he took another, then he took another, then he took another, then he took another, then he took another, then he took another, then he took another, then he took another, then—”. The audience (and the Earth children) grow impatient, but the storyteller insists on counting. This technique turns a simple action into a running gag, testing how long the listener will tolerate the pattern before demanding progress. The same structure appears in “Little Po Beeb,” where the counting of woolly cats (one through twelve) is drawn out. The play uses repetition not as filler but as a deliberate pacing tool that mirrors the topsy-turvy world’s indifference to narrative efficiency.

Shifts in Pace and Audience Interaction

The script varies its tempo between rapid dialogue and extended set pieces. The Greenies’ entrance, for example, shifts into a rhyming chant: “The Greenies are we. / As sly as can be, / We creep to your window, at night, you see.” The stage direction instructs them to “shout out the fourth line as loudly as possible,” creating a sudden burst of energy. In contrast, Gother Moose’s stories slow the action to a near halt, forcing the audience to sit through the repetition. The Earth children’s interjections—Frank’s “Oh, go on!” and Alice’s attempts to guess the endings—serve as a proxy for the audience’s own reactions. This interplay between performer and listener is built into the script, making the pace feel responsive rather than fixed. The play thus becomes a collaborative game of expectation and surprise.

Readers approaching A Topsy-Turvy Christmas as a performance text will find its humor depends on timing and audience familiarity with the original nursery rhymes. The script rewards those who catch the inversions and tolerate the deliberate drags. It is best read aloud, with attention to the rhythm of the repeated lines and the deadpan delivery of absurd rules. The play does not explain its world; it simply presents it, leaving the reader to piece together the logic of Topsy-Turvy Land from the clues scattered in the dialogue.

I keep thinking about how the chaotic warmth of A Topsy-Turvy Christmas lingers, its playful inversions reminding me of winter evenings spent wrestling with Strindberg’s own strange worlds. There’s a quiet kinship in how both scripts twist expectation into something tender and unsettling. I drifted to Plays by August Strindberg, Second series — Text and Context almost without noticing, like following a familiar trail in fresh snow.