The Hollisters at Hallowe'en

The Happy Hollisters and the Mystery of the Golden Witch, Jerry West

Finally! It's book 30 in the Hollisters series and the family is finally home in Shoreham! And it's October to boot. Pete (age 12), Pam, 10, seven-year-old Ricky, and Holly, age 6, plus 4-year-old Sue are off with their parents to the Johnson farm to buy pumpkins for their annual Hallowe'en party. They find Farmer Johnson stuck in the lane that leads to his pumpkin farm, his tractor broken. This means he won't be able to harvest his pumpkins and sell them at his farm stand. The warmhearted kids offer to help him harvest, tend the stand, and loan him their little burro, Domingo, and his cart until the crop's in, as well as offering their collie Zip as a watchdog for the burro. They also, while exploring the farm, discover a private graveyard and a riddle on an old headstone that hints there might be a treasure hidden on the farm! Plus Farmer Johnson has an old Model-T Ford in his barn, and the kids spot a strange young woman prowling near it. But it's when Pete and his friend Dave meet a man who offers them a reward if they find a weathervane in the shape of a witch that the mystery really starts.

 

We're taking a break from the travelogue stories of the last few books with a homegrown mystery involving the witch weathervane, why the mysterious "Curie-Us" is looking for it, the young lady who was found wandering near the barn, and even a woman entrepreneur, Aunt Nettie, who runs the local cider mill. Of course there's Joey Brill and Will Wilson to toss in a few mean pranks, and the Shoreham Hallowe'en festivities. An enjoyable entry in the series, with a couple of novel Hallowe'en items (like the RSVP for the party invitations) that I'd never heard of before.

 

Today Valentine's Day seems mostly like an excuse to chivvy one person into buying expensive jewelry or gifts for another (with the burden being especially on young men to buy diamonds to "prove their love" to a young woman). And indeed it's always been associated with "courting" and romantic love in some way. But children also have celebrated Valentine's Day in school in past years. A big box was covered with red paper and you bought Valentine cards at the five-and-ten cent store for all your classmates and dropped them in the box. Back in those days children didn't have as many allergies as they do now, and cupcakes and candy were often provided on the holiday to be enjoyed after the cards were distributed.

 

❥ 1950s Children's Valentine Cards 

 

❥ 1960s Children's Valentine Cards 

 

Children in the 19th century didn't have pre-made Valentine cards and relied on their imaginations to have a successful Valentine gathering. The second half of this chapter of the classic novel What Katy Did shows inventive Katy hosting an clever Valentine celebration despite the fact she is confined to bed after a spinal injury.

 

❥ Chapter 10: St. Nicholas and St. Valentine 

Chapter 5: "Dulce Domum" (Christmas from The Wind in the Willows)

Illustration by Inga Moore

Chapter 5: "Dulce Domum"

Thanksgiving Stories, Part 2

1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving, Catherine O'Neill Grace and Margaret M. Bruchac

A whole myth has grown around the 1621 report from Plymouth of the Separatists (history later referred to them as "Pilgrims") holding a harvest festival in the autumn of that year to which they invited the Native tribe who had helped them get through the first winter, all told from the point of view of the European settlers. The Pilgrim village and the reproduction of the Mayflower have long told only this version, but in the past 30 years progress has been made and now the settlement tells both sides of the story, with Wampanoag people recreating the life of their ancestors.

 

As Alistair Cooke explained so long ago in his America series, the Pilgrims, and later the Puritans, who came to the American shores were not "model" Christians, and were not just there for religious freedom. Their belief was diametrically opposite to those of the natives: if they did not come to this new land and improve it—make farms or a city or some type of business—they were sinners in the eyes of God. The Wampanoag, on the other hand, believed they were placed on the earth with the express blessing of their Creator, to take their living from the land as it was. Naturally, these two ideas would clash. Sadly, the Europeans possessed more power than the Natives. They were pushed to the sidelines, converted to Christianity if possible, and driven off their birthright given to them by the Creator. Many were killed and their culture was suppressed.

This book from National Geographic, for children, gently tries to set the record straight about the myths of the first Thanksgiving while providing information about the original inhabitants of the land the Wampanoag called Patuxet.

The Thanksgiving Treasure, Gail Rock

In 1972 CBS asked executive Alan Shayne to come up with a Christmas special in the vein of their previous year's hit, The Homecoming: A Christmas Story. From the postwar memories of his co-worker, Roberta Gail Rock, Shayne, Rock, and Eleanor Perry came up with The House Without a Christmas Tree, featuring bold, artistic, and stubborn 10-year-old Addie Mills. This sequel, aired the following year, was also very popular. Rock later novelized all four of the Addie Mills CBS specials.

Shayne recounts in his book A Double Life that once given the germ of the idea of the special, he asked Gail Rock to write down all her memories of her childhood. She must have written a prodigious memoir, as the books include details that couldn't possibly be squeezed into a 75-minute special. As in its predecessor novel, we learn more about Addie's relationship with her best friend, her father, and her grandmother, and her encounter with what will be a new friend: crusty, crabby elderly Walter Rhenquist, who owes Mr. Mills money and won't pay him. When Addie's beloved teacher Miss Thompson suggests, during a lesson about Thanksgiving, that people should try to befriend their enemies, it sets into motion a series of events that involve Addie, Rhenquist, and a horse named Treasure.

There are little changes and additions from the special: we hear about the path Addie and her best friend have worn between their houses; the school conversation about Thanksgiving goes a little differently and the poem featured is not quoted; where in the television story cousin Henry calls Grandma "your grandmother," implying Henry is not also her grandson, the book Henry does call her "Grandmother"; Walter Rhenquist tells a third story about his old friend Pearlie Blake; Addie talks about an event we only see the very end of in the film.

At once amusing, sad, thoughtful, and troubling, and a snapshot of midwestern life during post-war Nebraska, The Thanksgiving Treasure is a fine followup to the sterling original story.

Thanksgiving Stories

Molly's Pilgrim, Barbara Cohen
Here's a short, simple, almost-a-picture book story that introduces us to Molly, a Russian Jewish girl whose family recently moved from New York after escaping religious persecution. In New York, at least, Molly knew other Jewish girls and other immigrants. In their new home, Winter Hill, the girls at school—the popular ones led by the conceited Elizabeth—make fun of her unfashionable clothing and her bad English, and Molly is also self-conscious of what her strict but fashionable teacher would think of her, or even worse, of her mother, who wears clothing from "the old country." Things come to a head when the children are asked to dress a clothespin as a Pilgrim for Thanksgiving. Fresh in her knowledge of the story, Molly is fearful when her mother says she will dress the clothespin—and her worst fears come true.

What is a Pilgrim? As Molly's mother so eloquently proves, it is not just a starched black-and-white separatist made from a clothespin used as a decoration, a gentle lesson that should not be soon forgotten. Get the edition with the Daniel Duffy illustrations; the newer editions have more abstract illustrations that look as if the story takes place in the 1960s. The Duffy illustrations are detailed pen-and-ink pieces that capture the 1920s setting, children's clothing, Molly's mother's dress, etc. wonderfully.

A Pioneer Thanksgiving, Barbara Greenwood, illustrated by Heather Collins

In 1998, Greenwood and Collins published A Pioneer Sampler (known as A Pioneer Story in Canada) about a Scots-Irish family, the Robertsons, making a living in the wilderness in 1840, along with their German-heritage neighbors the Burkhalters. They build a home, start to farm, befriend and trade with their Ojibwa neighbors, have small family crises, and eventually settle in. The books are unique in that they are a Little House-like children's narrative, mostly told from the point of view of the middle children Sarah and Willie, interspersed with nonfiction pullouts about Native peoples, methods of farming and home building, plants, etc. and also projects for children (cooking, games, making simple tools) all illustrated beautifully by Collins.

 

In this, one of two sequels, the Robertsons and Burkhalters have finished their harvest and are preparing for a "harvest home" celebration, known by the new name of "Thanksgiving." As the story opens, Sarah is worried about Granny, who is not feeling well and spending much time in bed. She decides to pick some cranberries for Granny as a treat, but it means she will have to navigate the treacherous bog, with 5-year-old Lizzie in tow. There are similar adventures before the families can sit down to feast. Projects include learning how to play "conkers," making bread and cranberry sauce, and crafting a nutting basket, and the pullouts include pieces on cranberries, Native thankfulness ceremonies, the importance of nutting, etc. Charming and homey (and will make you thankful you don't have to prepare food like our ancestors did!). Even better, although Greenwood wrote this as taking place in Canada, it could actually take place in either that country or the United States, as both have a holiday called "Thanksgiving."

66 Days Until Christmas: That's What Christmas is All About...

 

What is Christmas? Well, to some people it's a deeply religious holiday chronicling the birth of the Christ Child and the events surrounding it. Celebrants attend religious services, erect nativity scenes, do good works in the name of Jesus, and some also indulge in the secular events of the season. To most people it's a happy holiday revolving around light displays, a pine tree (real or artificial) hung with lights and shining decorations, gift giving, eating tasty food (some of which is only eaten at Christmas), gathering with family and/or friends, and, sometimes, indulging in activities eschewed during the rest of the year.

 

To too many people it's a shop-till-you-drop, massive financial outlay, exhausting ordeal of buying presents, erecting tasteful decorations, corralling overexcited children and dour older relatives, cooking until your ankles swell and you hate the smell of cinnamon, and the constant thrum of the advertisers to "Buy! Buy! Buy!" so that your family may be happy and you will be fulfilled.

 

If that sounds all too familiar, the following three books may prove useful:

Celebrate the Wonder: A Family Christmas Treasury by Kristen M. Tucker and Rebecca Lowe Warren

Unplug the Christmas Machine by Jo Robinson and Jean Coppock Staeheli

The Christmas Survival Book by Alice Slaikeu Lawhead

All discuss the crazy hopes we have piled on Christmas, once just a reverent celebration of the birth of a special child intertwined with older, secular customs celebrating the turn of the year, when the days have begun lengthening again, featuring feasting and drinking, games, conviviality, gatherings, and singing: elaborate meals that will dazzle all who eat them, extravagant gifts that will prove our worth or fulfill our dreams, celebrations that will magically heal our marriages, revive our down-at-the-heels home, banish our teenagers' disinterest, cure our ex-spouse's selfish ways...oh, and make it snow. In Phoenix, Arizona. Just this once.

These are a breath of fresh air about how to make Christmas meet your expectations rather than you have to march to its: that you can simplify preparations, work out quiet spots, lose traditions that you hate, plan to deal with the unexpected without being torn emotionally about "how Christmas is supposed to be celebrated." The Lawhead book focuses the most on the Christian aspect of the celebration, and Celebrate the Wonder has a lot more about Christmas customs not native to the United States, but all three have a lot to say about quieter holidays, alternate celebrations, and peace on earth.

The bad news is that these are out of print. The good news is that they can all be found to borrow, albeit under their sad new "borrow for one hour" rule (there's no rule that says you can't read for one hour and then immediately "re-borrow" the volume) at the Internet Archive. I recommend all.

81 Days Until Christmas

What's in your Christmas reading stack?

Here's mine:

Plus I have the new Ideals Christmas ordered.

Vintage Christmas Readings

"With Yule-Tide Holly and Mistletoe" from "Catholic World," 1902

Book: Christmastide: Its History, Festivities, and Carols, William Sandys

The Book of Christmas; Descriptive of the Customs, Ceremonies, Traditions, Superstitions, Fun, Feeling, and Festivities of the Christmas Season, Thomas K. Hervey, 1845

Christmas: Its Customs and Carols, William Wallace Fyfe

A Christmas Book, Carla Wenkebach

Yule and Christmas: Their Place in the Germanic Year, Alexander Tille

Christmas in Song, Sketch and Story, J.P. McCaskey

Is Santa Claus Really the Heir of St. Nicholas?

Re-read: Santa Claus: Last of the Wild Men, Phyllis Siefker
I hadn't read this book since I bought it, and I had forgotten the amazing case Siefker makes for her theory.

We all know the story: a selfless man named Nicholas became a bishop, performed various miracles and was canonized as a saint. He became one of the primary gift-givers in Europe at Christmastime, and then was brought to the United States by the Dutch. They called him "Sinter Klaas," which was mutated into "Santa Claus."

Well...maybe. Because, according to Siefker, the jolly old elf of Clement Clark Moore fame who became popular in the the US, a chubby man all tarnished with ashes and soot who came through chimneys, consorted with reindeer, carried a big sack on his back, and who could seemingly travel the world in the wink of an eye didn't descend from Nicholas at all, but from the enigmatic, vengeful partner that the good saint had in Europe, the one who actually punished the bad children (since kindly St. Nicholas was too gentle to do so). This creature was variously known as "Black Peter," or "Knecht Ruprecht," or "Hans Trapp," and even then he wasn't even what he seemed, but was descended from the pagan "Wild Man" who was the spirit of the forest and who kept the land fertile. When he appeared in village plays he was usually portrayed in fur and sometimes half animal, such as a goat, and phallic symbolism was often used. Some of his other legendary relatives were Robin Hood, Robin Goodfellow (Puck), and Herne the Hunter, and he was also the ancestor of the mischievous Harlequin. And there were also female spirits of the forest who were associated with winter: Frau Holle, for example, and the spirits Berchta and Perchta. He was even associated with the elves and fairies, which past histories declared to be true.

The only existing traces of this Wild Man today, we are told, are the rapidly disappearing Ainu on the north island of Japan, who are intermarrying with the Japanese. They still carry on the customs of their ancestors, which include raising bears (today they are kept as pets until age two, but previously they were sacrificed).

Some fascinating theories in this offbeat Christmas book. (But, beware, it's a McFarland small press book, so it's expensive!)

There's More to the Christmas Story...

Light of the World, Amy Jill Levine
This is an Advent book with a twist. The author is Jewish, and teaches New Testament classes at a university. As a Jew, she knows the Old Testament history behind the heritage, customs, and forebears of the main characters in the Christmas story: Zechariah and Elizabeth, and then Mary and Joseph, and finally the young Jesus, and also the historical events that help anchor the story to what was happening in the area that is now the Middle East.

Levine also gives more than a cursory reference to the women involved in the story, including the involvement of Elizabeth, who would give birth to the boy known later as John the Baptist, and other Biblical women, including Moses' sister Miriam, Deborah, Hannnah, Anna (St. Anne, mother of Mary), and another Anna, a prophet who meets Jesus as an infant when he is presented at the temple. She weighs the differences between the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew, and discusses the erroneous details we have given to events like the arrival of the Magi (they are never referred to as Kings, nor do we know how many there were).

I enjoyed Levine's threading of the events approaching the Nativity back to details mentioned in the Old Testament, and the explanation of traditional Jewish customs and how this would have affected each of the main characters in a story we have all learned by heart. Recommended if you are looking for a new aspect to Advent devotions.

For Your Thanksgiving Library

• Thanksgiving: The Holiday at the Heart of the American Experience

• This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving

• The Mayflower: The Families, the Voyage, and the Founding of America

• Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War

• Thanksgiving: The Biography of an American Holiday

• Thanksgiving: An American Holiday, an American History

• 1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving

• Mayflower 1620: A New Look at a Pilgrim Voyage

What Are You Reading for December?

Here's my pile!

This is all but Merry Midwinter, which I liked so much as in e-book I bought a real one, but it hasn't yet arrived.

A Lakes Christmas, A Fenland Christmas, and A Wartime Christmas are part of Sutton Publishing's Christmas series; they are short excerpts of Christmas/Christmastide passages from various British novels, memoirs, and poetry books, with the action taking place in that shire or era. I buy these when I can find inexpensive copies (these were 38¢ each plus postage). I chose the fenland one in memory of The Nine Tailors (and was surprised to find the opening passages from that book in the text) and the Lakes book due to Beatrix Potter and Arthur Ransome and was equally surprised to find no contributions from either, although Potter's town of Sawrey was mentioned.

I've never read a Georgette Heyer book. I hear her Regency romances are better than the mysteries, but I shall try this one out. I love English country house mysteries.

There's also a book in one of my series (the Witch City mysteries) that is set at Christmas.

Of course I plan to re-read my annual favorites: A Christmas Carol, Sleigh Bells for Windy Foot, Christmas After All, and The Cottage Holiday.

What's in your book pile?

Thanksgiving Books Online

The first book in this list is on archive.org and is out of print, so is readily available to borrow. To read all but the last book, you must register with archive.org (it's free) and then borrow the book for fourteen days. The final book is free on Google. (Archive.org is a great source for older books which are still under copyright, but out of print. You may enjoy being registered there.)

Thanksgiving: Its Origin, Celebration and Significance

Thanksgiving: Memories of the Day, Helps to the Habit

Thanksgiving: Feast and Festival

Thanksgiving: The Biography of an American Holiday

The Thanksgiving Ceremony: New Traditions for America's Family Feast

The Fast and Thanksgiving Days of New England

From Under the Maples by John Burroughs

THE FALLING LEAVES

The time of the falling of leaves has come again. Once more in our morning walk we tread upon carpets of gold and crimson, of brown and bronze, woven by the winds or the rains out of these delicate textures while we slept.

How beautifully the leaves grow old! How full of light and color are their last days! There are exceptions, of course. The leaves of most of the fruit-trees fade and wither and fall ingloriously. They bequeath their heritage of color to their fruit. Upon it they lavish the hues which other trees lavish upon their leaves. The pear-tree is often an exception. I have seen pear orchards in October painting a hillside in hues of mingled bronze and gold. And well may the pear-tree do this, it is so chary of color upon its fruit.

But in October what a feast to the eye our woods and groves present! The whole body of the air seems enriched by their calm, slow radiance. They are giving back the light they have been absorbing from the sun all summer.

The carpet of the newly fallen leaves looks so clean and delicate when it first covers the paths and the highways that one almost hesitates to walk upon it. Was it the gallant Raleigh who threw down his cloak for Queen Elizabeth to walk upon? See what a robe the maples have thrown down for you and me to walk upon! How one hesitates to soil it! The summer robes of the groves and the forests—more than robes, a vital part of themselves, the myriad living nets with which they have captured, and through which they have absorbed, the energy of the solar rays. What a change when the leaves are gone, and what a change when they come again! A naked tree may be a dead tree. The dry, inert bark, the rough, wirelike twigs change but little from summer to winter. When the leaves come, what a transformation, what mobility, what sensitiveness, what expression! Ten thousand delicate veined hands reaching forth and waving a greeting to the air and light, making a union and compact with them, like a wedding ceremony. How young the old trees suddenly become! what suppleness and grace invest their branches! The leaves are a touch of immortal youth. As the cambium layer beneath the bark is the girdle of perennial youth, so the leaves are the facial expression of the same quality. The leaves have their day and die, but the last leaf that comes to the branch is as young as the first. The leaves and3 the blossom and the fruit of the tree come and go, yet they age not; under the magic touch of spring the miracle is repeated over and over.

The maples perhaps undergo the most complete transformation of all the forest trees. Their leaves fairly become luminous, as if they glowed with inward light. In October a maple-tree before your window lights up your room like a great lamp. Even on cloudy days its presence helps to dispel the gloom. The elm, the oak, the beech, possess in a much less degree that quality of luminosity, though certain species of oak at times are rich in shades of red and bronze. The leaves of the trees just named for the most part turn brown before they fall. The great leaves of the sycamore assume a rich tan-color like fine leather.

"November"

from Marmion by Sir Walter Scott

"November’s sky is chill and drear,
November’s leaf is red and sear:
Late, gazing down the steepy linn,
That hems our little garden in,
Low in its dark and narrow glen,
You scarce the rivulet might ken,
So thick the tangled greenwood grew,
So feeble trill’d the streamlet through:
Now, murmuring hoarse, and frequent seen
Through bush and brier, no longer green,
An angry brook, it sweeps the glade,
Brawls over rock and wild cascade,
And, foaming brown with double speed,
Hurries its waters to the Tweed.

No longer Autumn’s glowing red
Upon our Forest hills is shed;
No more, beneath the evening beam,
Fair Tweed reflects their purple gleam;
Away hath pass’d the heather-bell
That bloom’d so rich on Needpath-fell;
Sallow his brow, and russet bare
Are now the sister-heights of Yair.
The sheep, before the pinching heaven,
To sheltered dale and down are driven,
Where yet some faded herbage pines,
And yet a watery sunbeam shines:
In meek despondency they eye
The withered sward and wintry sky,
And far beneath their summer hill,
Stray sadly by Glenkinnon’s rill:
The shepherd shifts his mantle’s fold,
And wraps him closer from the cold;
His dogs no merry circles wheel,
But, shivering, follow at his heel;
A cowering glance they often cast,
As deeper moans the gathering blast."

Ten things you didn't know about November.

Rudolph Day, October 2019

"Rudolph Day" is a way of keeping the Christmas spirit alive all year long. You can read a Christmas book, work on a Christmas craft project, listen to Christmas music or watch a Christmas movie.

This month's books are about having the Christmas you want, not the one you're told you should have.



Unplug the Christmas Machine, Jo Robinson and Jean Coppock Staeheli
The Christmas Survival Book, Alice Slaikeu Lawhead
I like to pull these two books out before the holiday season gets up too much steam to remind me that the Christmas season is what you make it, and not what the advertisers, the magazines, and the media tell you what it's supposed to be.

In its strictest sense, Christmas is about the celebration of the birth of Jesus and the beginnings of Christianity ("Christ's Mass," after all). We really don't know when Jesus was born, but so that it was more easily acceptable to people who were not Christians (in the hope these people might convert), an early Pope attached this feast to the Roman celebration of Saturnalia, a time of the year when the light was dying but was given over to feasting, dancing, and other celebration. Non-Christians in the north called this same celebration "Yule," where we get the word "Yuletide" for a Christmas season synonym. Sound familiar? Sure it does, because that's what the broader celebration of Christmas is today: eating a delicious meal, visiting with friends and family, noise, music, lights (all December holidays, from Christmas to Hanukkah to Kwanzaa to St. Lucy's Day emphasize light in some fashion, since the winter solstice will bring the longest night of the year), alcoholic beverages, and most of all gifts, which was a holdover custom from the Romans, although they gave them at the new year.

Early Christians actually disowned the holiday. "Christ should not have his birth celebrated as if he is some King Pharaoh!" was one of the comments. Later Christians complained bitterly about its licentiousness. It was pretty much a holiday that allowed too many liberties, like cross dressing, eating and drinking to excess, and clandestine sexual activity. You might decry them as being a bunch of Puritans, but these Christmas revelers did things that would be considered illegal today. For instance, what we think of as the quaint, sweet tradition of caroling was originally carried out by young men who expected a shot of something alcoholic at each house. Even in those days when everyone drank "small beer," even small children, because the water was so polluted, and all became accustomed to some alcohol in their systems, after several home visits these young men would be dead drunk. If they knocked on your door and you chose not to answer, or chose not to give them a libation, they might break in, break your windows, or otherwise vandalize your house. Women or anyone who the young men thought might have money on their person were not safe to travel alone. It was only until Christmas morphed into the child-centered gift-giving celebration we claim it is today that these behaviors were checked (and even then old habits died hard: long into the early 20th century it was still common for young men to get dead drunk on New Year's Eve, to the point that some of them passed out and froze to death in chillier climes).

Today there's more pressure than ever to have "a perfect Christmas." This means you must entertain flawlessly, with beautiful table settings and expensive food; buy your spouse/significant other and children costly gifts to show that you love them; stuff yourself with every goodie known to man, foodwise and alcohol wise, to properly appreciate the season; and generally spend lots of money, even if you have to go into debt to do so.

These two books remind you that all that is whitewash to sell products, that Christmas isn't about $2000 tennis bracelets, matching SUVs, drinking yourself silly on expensive champagne, stuffing rich food into yourself. They also remind you that fictional stories always require a happy ending, but that Christmas won't fix the problems you have with your life: little Christmas elves or Christmas Spirit aren't going to make your Dad stop drinking, your Mom criticizing your housekeeping; it won't bring back your estranged sibling or spouse, and it can't cheat death. Those things only happen in movies or in the few miracles we're allowed.

Instead the authors talk about having a Christmas that suits you, with no ideal to live up to. You can have a lively noisy holiday with family or friends, or you can celebrate with one person, or alone. You can give fancy gifts if you can afford it, or what your budget will allow, or no gift at all. There's no requirement that Christmas live up to magazine ads, television commercials, and Hallmark films. Nor is there any requirement that Christmas stop dead at 11:59 on December 25, leaving you to cram all your Christmas activities into the short season between Thanksgiving and the big day; go ahead, do as your ancestors did and celebrate all the way to Epiphany (just ignore all those Valentines Day cards and candy that suddenly appeared on the 26th)!

While both books make the same point and offer good suggestions, I like having both and suggest both be procured if the subject interests you. The Lawhead book focuses a little bit more on the Christian celebration, but there is no proselytizing and the church suggestions can just as easily be used for organization, club, or work situations. Both books were published in the early 1990s, so there's no reference to internet sites, but the basics can easily be looked up online. I especially enjoy Lawhead's prologue "What is Christmas?" which starkly compares the idealized holiday we get from the media versus its real-life counterpart.

And both include the same message: Slow down. Savor. As we would say today, Be Mindful. Enjoy.

Rudolph Day, September 2019

"Rudolph Day" is a way of keeping the Christmas spirit alive all year long. You can read a Christmas book, work on a Christmas craft project, listen to Christmas music or watch a Christmas movie.


Silent Night, Deadly Night, Vicki Delany
Fourth in the year-round Christmas mystery series.

It's almost Thanksgiving and Merry Wilkinson is looking forward to her favorite holiday, even though she lives in the year-round Christmas town of Rudolph, NY, which reinvented itself after industry moved out. Two of her three siblings will be home as well. Right now she's helping her mother Aline, a former opera singer, prepare her home for the visit of five old college friends, anticipating a happy reunion. Unfortunately, it's less than happy: the women are always quarreling with each other, one is a wealthy show off, one a high-powered lawyer, one a dipsomaniac, one not well off financially, one always complaining even though she and her husband have a thriving lumber business. And one of them, Merry has discovered, is a shoplifter, after a pricy necklace vanishes from her gift shop, Mrs. Claus's Treasures. Surely they'll be able to endure the backbiting for a few days?

And then Karla, the complainer with a deadly peanut allergy, goes into anaphylactic shock at the Wilkinson dinner table. Her Epi-Pen, which she carries with her everywhere, has vanished. Her death, then, can only be deliberate.

Once again Merry is faced with a mystery. I found this one a little hard to get through, not because it was bad, but because Aline's friends are just so toxic. Even after Karla dies they snipe at each other continuously. Plus, Sue-Anne, Noel Wilkinson's bete noire in the mayor's office, is making noises about Noel's annual role as Santa Claus again. A new man in town, Wayne Fitzroy, is angling for the job and talking about changing the town's image to have a more "adult" Christmas.

The mystery is easy to puzzle out if you pick up on the clues, and there's a relationship change in the story that I found quite appealing. I'm sorry not to have met Merry's siblings, however, and really want to see Chris and/or Carole and/or Eve show up in a future story. And oh, how I would like to visit a place like Rudolph some day! (And what more appropriate to be reading about a town named Rudolph on Rudolph Day?)

More Christmas Reading!

Santa Claus: A Biography, Gerry Bowler
Bowler, whose World Encyclopedia of Christmas is a classic, has tackled a smaller field in this history of "jolly old St. Nicholas." The original Nicholas was a Christian Bishop who was born in Turkey; he ended up being the patron saint of children, sailors, pawnbrokers, students, repentant thieves...and more. How he ended up delivering presents in a sleigh drawn by eight reindeer (two named after "thunder" and "lightning") and wearing a red suit is a convoluted tale that includes Holland, Spain, wooden shoes, and a New York society devoted to the good saint.

Once the history lesson is over, Bowler gets into juicier territory with chapters about Santa Claus as an advocate for good causes, in advertisements, in wartime (with creepy little details about how Adolf Hitler made the holiday all about him), and in the media, with a final, wistful chapter about the future of his persona.

Bowler is, as always, a delight to read, and his final four-paragraph conclusion may leave you with tears in your eyes. If you're looking for a history of Santa Claus, this one is excellent.

Christmas Ideals 2018, from Worthy Publishing Group
Ideals annual Christmas is the usual cheery combination of simple poetry, cozy essays, and charming photographs mixed with nostalgic artwork. Of the poems, "The Colors of Christmas" is my favorite ("Little Lights" is also sweet). There's a breathtaking photograph of a red covered bridge in the snow, and two other familiar places popped up: a beautiful white church in Queechee, Vermont, and a shot of the Public Garden in Boston in the snow. Homesick now. I'm also partial to the lovely painting of the stable animals overlooking the baby Jesus, and the essays "Planting Hope" and "Christmas Photographs."

Lovely as always.

And the last two (unless I find a copy of Christmas in Puerto Rico) of the World Book Christmas books,
Christmas in Greece 
Christmas in Finland
These are lovely books of interest to both children and adults, with color photographs and text talking about how the people in that particular country (or, in the case of some of the books, region) celebrate the December and January holidays. The Greeks celebrate the Advent period (while so many of the rest of us are running around shopping) by fasting and do not start preparing for Christmas until Christmas Eve. Even then, the day is reserved for religious pursuits, and it's only then gift-giving preparation begins, because the Greeks reserve New Year's Day (St. Basil's Day) for that purpose. During the 12 days of Christmas everyone must beware of the kalikantzari, evil imps who will bring bad luck if you don't stay on your guard! The Greeks even have a version of "First Footing" on New Year's Day, like the Scots.

To the folks in Finland, Lapland is where Santa Claus lives, and you can indeed go visit him in Santa Claus Land and interact with his reindeer, but the Finns have other unique customs: a Christmas sauna, the making of complex ornaments out of straw (straw used to be scattered on the floors of home, to remind people of the child in the manger, but it's now considered a fire hazard), their version of Santa Claus having evolved from a goatlike character who now looks like everyone else's Santa (but still has a goat's name), and the Finns' fondness for St. Ann, the mother of the Virgin Mary.

There are insets about the Sami, the original inhabitants of Lapland, who believed in magic; the annual proclamation of peace that means Christmas can begin; the visit from joulekuppi (Santa) in person to the children. And in both books, as in all of the World Book Christmas volumes, there are crafts, songs, and recipes at the back.

Christmas Strolls and Christmas Cookies

Yesterday I thought I'd take my annual Christmas stroll through downtown Marietta. This is not as fun as it used to be, as many of my favorite stores are gone. Willow Antiques disappeared just about the time our own Willow died, and the Christmas store apparently shut down earlier this year. I did go in the antique shop on the corner where Luke the poodle "holds court." He was there on Tuesday, a big dignified white Standard Poodle with grave eyes. I looked at the old cameras and typewriters and records with envy.

Skipped the Local Exchange because the pretzels I like now give me indigestion, and The Corner Shop (the British store) wasn't open. I did duck into the Australian Bakery Cafe, but alas, no gingerbread men. So I walked on to the old DuPre's hardware store, which is now called "Park West Antiques" (after the street). Didn't seem to be as many Christmas decorations dotted about as usual. Very few books. Saw a fancy old parrot cage that looked as if Aunt March of Little Women kept her parrot in it. The antiques just seemed to make me sad this year.

The second place I usually go is Cobb Antiques Mall, but that moved in January of last year. I had to drive all the way up to Canton Road near Piedmont Road to their new location. They are in a rather deserted strip mall behind the Cherokee Cattle Company restaurant (LOL...in the old Ryan's where I got food poisoning so long ago). It's a nicer building, but doesn't have anywhere near as many vendors as it used to, and the person who had all the books lined up behind a barrier of chairs and shelves is no longer there. I wandered about admiring the old furniture (and trying to figure out why they called an old Hoosier a "Dutch cabinet") and some electric typewriters the vintage of my original manual (1970), a lovely old Victrola, a wringer washer (glad I don't have to use that thing, and yet it was a godsend for people who had scrubbed their clothes on washboards), and other wonderful old things. Got a little thoughtful when I found a dish of old photographs for sale, the posed kind from the photographer's studio. All those faces stared out, people who lived, had their photo taken, went through their lives, and who are now gone, yet their images remain impressed upon paper. Were they happy? Did they live long? Did they marry? Have good jobs? My favorite was a little girl posing with her baby brother, with Mom carefully hidden under draperies to keep the baby quiet. You can see her skirt peeking out at the foot of the photo.

I did buy a book: Barnes' The Wonderful Year about a girl who moves to Idaho during the early part of the century. The illustrations are by Kate Seredy, but they aren't the lovely ones she did for her own books, or for Caddie Woodlawn and Winterbound. They're more sketchy. I wonder why.

Stopped by Book Exchange further up the street, but all the romance books were overwhelming and I was hungry, so I just lit out for Tin Drum, which I'd promised myself as a late birthday treat, even though I really didn't have the money. When I got there and opened the app, I found out I had enough points to get the meal for free! Yes!

Came home to watch Geraldine Page in Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory, and then the original broadcast of Amahl and the Night Visitors that I'd found on YouTube, which I did not realize was the very first Hallmark Hall of Fame. (I miss the Hallmark Hall of Fame. Now all Hallmark Channel does are kitschy Christmas love stories. Yech.) The composer himself, Gian Carlo Menotti, introduces the story. It was funny because next to me was the little hardback book in which the story was retold in print form in 1952, with pen-and-ink and brightly colored illustrations, which I'd found at one of the book sales. (Even funnier was that it was adapted to print by Frances Frost, who wrote the Windy Foot books, one of which, Sleigh Bells for Windy Foot, I was reading right at that moment.)

Had a happy moment during Jeopardy: they had a series of questions at the American Helicopter Museum, which we visited in 2009.

Today I baked wine biscuits and did laundry. James worked and we listened to Christmas music. He had found a bag of gingerbread cookie mix on the clearance aisle at Publix, and I made those, too. We got six gingerbread boys and four stars out of them. There was a fifth star, which I split in half. If they all taste like this, it will be delightful.

This evening we watched A Peter, Paul and Mary Holiday Concert. I can't believe this is thirty years old already!

"Dulce Domum"

One of my favorite Christmas stories is the chapter "Dulce Domum" from Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. It is excerpted in several Christmas books and can be read (and heard) here:

NPR 2009 Christmas Story: "Dulce Domum"

Here's also an animated adaptation, Mole's Christmas.

And here is a lovely rendition of the song sung by the field mice, "Villagers All."