tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59299722024-03-07T15:13:14.106-05:00Holiday HarbourA journal of fall, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and winter preparations and celebrations.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1362125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-35735938690536455452024-01-05T23:51:00.003-05:002024-01-07T15:08:26.819-05:00Ending With "Ideals"
Ideals Christmas 2023, from Ideals PublicationsWhat more can I say about these pretty books containing poetry, essays, and artwork/photographs? They are definitely a cozy "go to" during the Christmas season: the nostalgic soft-focus vintage paintings, the still-life items of Christmas decorations, the annual narrative of the Nativity story with appropriate artwork, etc. This issue had an Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-35027356119634621882024-01-04T23:09:00.003-05:002024-01-05T20:54:49.757-05:00On the Eve of Twelfth Night
Christmas in Puerto Rico, from World Book, Inc.
Well, this is it. With this volume, I've finished my collection of World Book's "Christmas Around the World" books, started way back when I came upon at least a dozen of them at the Cobb County Library Sale (and found most of them there later. This one, however, came via online.It's a colorful volume packed with all the unique celebrations that Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-87947464208609932302024-01-04T22:50:00.004-05:002024-01-04T22:50:37.312-05:00Christmas As It Was
A Shropshire Christmas, compiled by Lyn Briggs
I found my first volume of the Sutton "Christmas anthologies" (A Worcestershire Christmas, if you care) at a library book sale many years back. When A Surrey Christmas turned up at a subsequent sale I realized this was a series. Every time I found a book from this series, I bought one and have now managed to accumulate all of the regional ones. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-64438736505069536152024-01-02T22:04:00.001-05:002024-01-04T19:32:56.503-05:00Is There a Santa Claus?
'Twas the Night Before, Jerry B. Jenkins
Tom Douton is a self-made journalist with a knack of writing cynical stories about the victimized "little people" in life. Noella Wright is an optimistic university journalism instructor. When these two opposites meet, they unexpectedly fall in love. Noella doesn't understand his cynicism, nor does Tom understand her happy outlook to life; they just know Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-64949877255336538172024-01-01T21:35:00.004-05:002024-01-01T21:35:49.063-05:00Decades of Christmas
A Hertfordshire Christmas, compiled by Margaret Ashby
I found my first volume of the Sutton "Christmas anthologies" (A Worcestershire Christmas, if you care) at a library book sale many years back. When A Surrey Christmas turned up at a subsequent sale I realized this was a series. Every time I found a book from this series, I bought one and have now managed to accumulate all of the regional Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-61767965491509830982023-12-28T21:09:00.000-05:002023-12-28T21:09:17.073-05:00Heartwarming Essays and Short Stories
Fifty Years of Christmas. edited by Ruth M. Elmquist
This is a charming vintage book of poetry, short stories, and essays from the "Christian Herald" from 1901 to 1950. Sounds preachy, you think? Well, although many of the essays and some of the stories involved the Nativity, this collection is no didactic, gloomy collection. In fact, one of them is the sweetest love story ("There Was a Star") Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-10309595272726691162023-12-27T20:51:00.001-05:002023-12-27T20:51:08.847-05:00The Famous History of the Famous Poem
Twas The Night: The Art and History of the Classic Christmas Poem, written and compiled by Pamela McColl
This is a big, beautiful "coffee-table book" published on the 200th anniversary of the writing/publishing of the classic "A Visit from St. Nicholas." It talks at first of the history of the Christmas celebration as well as the history of St. Nicholas, then switches to the history of Santa Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-57748754143716770812023-12-24T01:14:00.005-05:002023-12-24T01:14:00.134-05:00Poetry for Christmas: "Christmas Eve"by Faith BaldwinThe snow is full of silver lightSpilled from the heavens' tilted cupAnd, on this holy, tranquil night,The eyes of men are lifted upTo see the promise written fair,The hope of peace for all on earth,And hear the singing bells declareThe marvel of the dear Christ's birth.The way from year to year is longAnd though the road be dark so far,Bright is the manger, sweet is the song,The Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-24933060281304281052023-12-22T20:14:00.001-05:002023-12-23T21:25:29.701-05:00Romance for Christmas
Lovelight Farms, B.K. Borison
Stella Bloom had a bleak childhood; daughter of a philandering husband, her mother never recovered from being abandoned by her lover; subsequently she grew up learning not to count on people who might abandon you. When her mother died, she accidentally met Luka Peters, a statistician. Luka becomes her best friend, supporting her dreams when she bought a local Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-22669337183410487052023-12-21T01:14:00.002-05:002023-12-23T23:21:28.745-05:00Poetry for Christmas: "The Shortest Day"Happy Winter Solstice!by Susan CooperAnd so the Shortest Day came and the year diedAnd everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white worldCame people singing, dancing,To drive the dark away.They lighted candles in the winter trees;They hung their homes with evergreen;They burned beseeching fires all night longTo keep the year alive.And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awakeThey shouted, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-68467370946555990362023-12-20T19:31:00.003-05:002023-12-20T19:31:42.532-05:00Poetry for Christmas: "A Song for a Christmas Tree"by Louisa May Alcott
Cold and wintry is the sky,
Bitter winds go whistling by,
Orchard boughs are bare and dry,
Yet here stands a faithful tree.
Household fairies kind and dear,
With loving magic none need fear,
Bade it rise and blossom here,
Little friends, for you and me.
Come and gather as they fall,
Shining gifts for great and small;
Santa Claus remembers all
When he comes with goodies piled.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-65716522220895798862023-12-18T20:47:00.000-05:002023-12-18T20:47:17.902-05:00The Belgian Detective Sees It Through
Hercule Poirot's Christmas, Agatha Christie
Simeon Lee has a fiendish plan for Christmas: invite all his family, including his estranged sons, to a family reunion. Already home caring for him is his stolid son Alfred and his wife Lydia. Visiting will be George (the cheap one) with his spendthrift wife Magdalene, the artistic David and his wife Hilda who hopes seeing his father will destroy his Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-2900524738609285852023-12-15T23:44:00.003-05:002023-12-15T23:44:24.760-05:00Scrooge, Pickwick, and Other Fellows
Dickens' Christmas, compiled by John HudsonThis is one of the Sutton Christmas anthologies that is not concentrated on a certain shire, but a certain era, and contains compilations from mostly Charles Dickens' Christmas writings (chiefly A Christmas Carol, but also from his monthly magazine "Household Words"), but also has Dickens' era offerings, including the tale of an ordinary man who got Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-37073366496794113192023-12-15T01:15:00.000-05:002023-12-15T01:15:00.154-05:00Poetry for Christmas: "Triolet"by F. W. HarveyWinter has hardened all the ground, But flowers are on the window pane;No others are there to be found; Winter has hardened all the ground.But here, while earth is bare and bound, Bloom ghosts of those his frost has slainWinter has hardened all the ground, But flowers are on the window Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-30359701075004537432023-12-13T18:54:00.000-05:002023-12-13T18:54:49.723-05:00Poetry for Christmas: "Singing in the Streets"by Leonard ClarkI had almost forgotten the singing in the streetsSnow piled up by the houses, driftingUnderneath the door into the warm room,Firelight, lamplight, the little lame catDreaming in soft sleep on the hearth, mother dozing,Waiting for Christmas to come, the boys and meTrudging over blanket fields waving lanterns to the sky.I had almost forgotten the smell, the feel of it all,The comingUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-70062604800522514962023-12-12T23:45:00.000-05:002023-12-13T20:40:08.445-05:00Christmas in the Forest of Dean A Forest Christmas compiled by Humphrey PhelpsAlan Sutton Publishing has a series of these "Christmas anthologies," the first which I bought at a book sale several years ago, and I try to pick up inexpensive copies when I can find them. Most of them concentrate on a certain shire or area in England (there are a handful, like A Dickens Christmas, A Wartime Christmas, and A Bronte Christmas that Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-79829130333325624622023-12-05T22:08:00.002-05:002023-12-05T22:08:39.519-05:00Behind the Scenes at a Christimas Favorite
Charlie Brown's Christmas Miracle: The Inspiring, Untold Story of the Making of a Holiday Classic, Michael KeaneThere's another "making of" book about A Charlie Brown Christmas, but this one has a novel tack: tracking the different personalities who combined to bring the unconventional special to the screen: of course the creator of "Peanuts," Charles Schulz, a quiet man with unresolved fears Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-89523114900222577292023-12-03T01:07:00.002-05:002023-12-03T01:07:00.145-05:00Poetry for Christmas: "The Shepherd's Calendar: December"by John Clare
Glad Christmas comes, and every hearth
Makes room to give him welcome now,
E’en want will dry its tears in mirth,
And crown him with a holly bough;
Though tramping ’neath a winter sky,
O’er snowy paths and rimy stiles,
The housewife sets her spinning by
To bid him welcome with her smiles.
Each house is swept the day before,
 Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-58360143186187996032023-12-02T22:40:00.000-05:002023-12-02T23:17:53.222-05:00Poetry for Christmas: "The Christmas Wreath"A wreath for merry Christmas quickly twine,A wreath for the bright red sparkling wine,Though roses are deadAnd their bloom is fled,Yet for Christmas a bonnie, bonnie wreath we'll twine.Away to the wood where the bright holly grows,And its red berries blush amid winter snows,Away to ruin where the green ivy clings,And around the dark fane its verdure flings;Hey! for the ivy and holly so bright,Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-21563040519414476392023-12-01T00:01:00.005-05:002023-12-01T00:01:00.130-05:001914 A Christmas Carol (British Silent Film)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-19996673960083270302023-11-29T21:17:00.001-05:002023-11-29T21:17:54.388-05:00Guising and Other Traditions
A Cornish Christmas, Tony Deane and Tony Shaw
This is the final volume of the Sutton Christmas books from the different shires of England that I've been collecting for several years now (not the last book in the series, just the one I bought last). Not sure why this is in a different format: a much smaller volume with teeny-tiny print and photos as compared to the others, but once again a seriesUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-10908486257930138652023-09-02T14:53:00.002-04:002023-09-02T14:53:42.869-04:00Sugar and Spice and Ancient Ways
The Secret History of Christmas Baking: Recipes & Stories from Tomb Offerings to Gingerbread Boys, Linda Raedisch
This is, at its heart, a recipe book, and I don't do recipe books...but-!This is by the same author who did The Old Magic of Christmas, which is a delightful, nonstandard history of Christmas' pagan antecedents—truly, "not your mother's Christmas book." This volume is about the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-51872496125123767462023-01-13T01:03:00.011-05:002023-01-13T01:03:00.252-05:00"Calennig" -- a Welsh Holiday CustomThe name "Calennig" comes from the Latin "Kalends," which was the name for a Roman New Year's festival. The Romans gave each other olive branches as a way of wishing others good health for the new year.In Wales, the offering is traditionally an apple, stuck with cloves, with an evergreen branch (usually boxwood, but sometimes pine or holly) through its stem and three small sticks of wood to form Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-68494221718264165952023-01-05T12:54:00.001-05:002023-01-06T00:20:12.727-05:0075 Years of Miracle on 34th Street
Miracle on 34th Street: The Perfect Christmas Classic (75 Years)
Technically this is a special interest publication put out by the people at "Time" magazine under the old "Life" moniker, but it's a nice tribute to this classic film, and I'm glad to have found it, because I believe there's too much fuss made about It's a Wonderful Life when this is such a satisfying Christmas fable. There are Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929972.post-81271182894442904612023-01-04T19:54:00.001-05:002023-01-04T19:54:07.782-05:00Shepherds--and Carolers, Tipteers, Etc.--Arise!
A Sussex Christmas, compiled by Shaun Payne
Alan Sutton Publishing has a series of these "Christmas anthologies," the first which I bought at a book sale several years ago, and I try to pick up inexpensive copies when I can find them. Most of them concentrate on a certain shire or area in England (there are a handful, like A Dickens Christmas, A Wartime Christmas, and A Bronte Christmas that areUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0