Christmas in...April?

Yes, the Hallmark Dream Book came today!

I love it...there is a "Bolt" ornament!

Other cool ornaments I noted:

• The first in a series of "Mickey's Christmas Carol" ornaments (this one is Mickey as Bob Cratchit at his desk)

• A gingerbread Santa-and-reindeer set (as well as a gingerbread Noah's ark)

• A nice "full size" and also miniature train set

• A cute miniature Snoopy and Woodstock

• A "talking" Ralphy in the pink pajamas

• A Robby the Robot

• A wonderful Eeyore ornament with him and a Charlie Brown-type tree

• A new Marjolein Bastin ornament (a cardinal on a garden gate)

plus, of course, all sorts of Santas, snowmen, and Snoopys, superheroes and Barbies, angels and of course the Child in the Manger.

Happy Easter!

A Joyful Passover

Our friend Mel mentioned this special prayer in a recent e-mail: Jews Ready Blessing of the Sun for Passover

Holiday.net celebrates Passover

Today did some quiz questions about Passover this morning. I remember reading the story in my children's Bible. Everyone remembers the lamb's blood and the slaying of the firstborn, but do you remember all the ten plagues? They were:

1. Blood
2. Frogs
3. Lice (vermin)
4. Wild Beasts(flies)
5. Blight (Cattle Disease)
6. Boils
7. Hail
8. Locusts
9. Darkness
10. Slaying of the First Born

Pesach : History and Meaning of Freedom in Faith

Rudolph Day, March 2009

The purpose of Rudolph Day is to keep the Christmas spirit all year long. One can prepare Christmas gifts or crafts, watch a Christmas movie, play Christmas music, or read a Christmas book.

For our March edition, Earl Hamner Remembers A Nelson County, Virginia Christmas (this appeared in a slightly different form on the LP "The Waltons Christmas Album").

Did you know artificial Christmas trees are not new? They were originally conceived after the depletion of forests for Christmas trees. Here's the history of feather trees on a feather tree kit site, and also an article about them from the Victoriana online magazine.

This month's featured book is I'll Be Home for Christmas, a collection of personal memories from the magazine Good Old Days. This full color hardcover book is full of vintage illustrations (including some by Norman Rockwell) and reminisces from the turn of the century through the 1950s. The common denominator in all of them is not the fantastic expensive gifts that were received or the home's expensive decorations, but the happiness of family and friends being together again and receiving tokens of love from those they cared for, and giving those same tokens. Christmas was about happiness, not about money. Stories include memories of grandparents, wartime tales, and country fun. Great for a quiet read during Christmastide.

Celebrating St. Joseph's Day in the News

St. Joseph: A Humble Man of God

This is an interesting article about how St. Joseph's Day has become meaningful to African-American groups. (Funny how this refers to St. Joseph's Day as a "Sicilian" holiday; I just think of it as an "Italian" holiday.)

A look at creating a St. Joseph's Day altar in New Orleans.

Preparing a St. Joseph's feast with love in Texas.

Celebrating St. Joseph's Day With Bread, a story from Chicago. (Zeppoles filled with chocolate custard? Now those I could go for!)

A New York bakery shows us how to make zeppole.

In some places it's just easier to find an Italian bakery: a video of zeppoles being prepared at Schialo's Bakery in Providence, RI. (This is up in the Federal Hill neighborhood where my mom grew up; "the Hill" was primarily known as an Italian neighborhood for many decades.)

Rudolph Day, February 2009

The purpose of Rudolph Day is to keep the Christmas spirit all year long. One can prepare Christmas gifts or crafts, watch a Christmas movie, play Christmas music, or read a Christmas book.

For our February edition, play Reindeer Roundup

Read Temple Bailey's "A Candle in the Forest"

Like these newfangled MP3s? Download Christmas albums or individual songs at Amazon.com

Also noted are Ace Collins' two Christmas songs books, Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas and More Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas. These are short pieces about the history of favorite Christmas hymns, carols, and songs. Not everyone's taste is the same, and I have to admit that "The Christmas Shoes," "Blue Christmas," and "Pretty Paper," all covered in these books, are probably my least favorite Christmas songs, but they are best-loved by quite a few folks out there. :-) But I have never heard of "Thank God for Kids," "It Wasn't His Child," "Come and See What's Happening in the Barn," or "Christmas in the Country," nor heard them played anywhere, or seen them on Christmas CDs. Shouldn't "best-loved" songs mean just that, ones everyone knows rather than some obscure country and western songs like these seem to be? Otherwise these are readable, interesting pieces on each of the songs.

How Much Wood...

Bother. With the weather report the way it is, looks like "General Lee" will not see his shadow. Noooooo! Not spring! Not spring!

Groundhog Day 2009 at the Yellow River Game Ranch

The "official" groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil.

The groundhog tradition comes from beliefs centered on the Christian holiday Candlemas (40 days after Christmas, the day when all Christmas greens must be removed or it will bring bad luck; the name comes from the Church practice of blessing the candles that day for use in the remainder of the liturgical year) and the pagan celebration Imbolc. A Scottish poem says of this day:

"As the light grows longer
The cold grows stronger;
If Candlemas be fair and bright,
Winter will have another flight.
If Candlemas be cloud and snow,
Winter will be gone and not come again.
A farmer should on Candlemas day
Have half his corn and half his hay.
On Candlemas day if thorns hang a drop
You can be sure of a good pea crop."

Early American references to Groundhog Day go back as far as 1841 and state this as a German custom. The original German animal, however, was a badger; once in the United States, the behavior was changed to the groundhog (also known as the woodchuck).

Thanksgiving Flashbacks

Check out this New York Daily News site, with vintage Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade photos.

Rudolph Day, January 2009

The purpose of Rudolph Day is to keep the Christmas spirit all year long. One can prepare Christmas gifts or crafts, watch a Christmas movie, play Christmas music, or read a Christmas book.

For our January edition, here is purportedly the first sound version of A Christmas Carol, Sir Seymour Hicks as Scrooge, from 1935.

For your perusal, a site dedicated to the old paper Christmas village pieces you could find in Woolworths, Grants, Newberrys, Kresges, McCrory, and all the other wonderful "dime stores": Papa Ted's Place.

I have one Christmas project that is nearly completed; one more wooden cutout will do it.

Since I found wrapping paper for 39¢ per roll, I bought three, which fills up my wrapping paper container.

I also finished the book Christmas the World Over by Daniel J. Foley, originally published in 1963. This is a thin, readable volume of celebrations around the world, although it is skewed more to European and North American customs. However, Russia is included, despite the Soviet Union's restrictions upon worship at that time, and even China and Japan are touched upon. Australia abruptly ends with the index! However, since this was published in 1963, there are some fascinating details of customs that have disappeared since the book was published, with Christmas becoming more homogenized. Illustrations are in black and white. Worth getting at a reasonable price if you are interested in different ethnic Christmas celebrations.

Snow Good

One of the things I bought at one of the craft stores (Michaels, I think) on sale after Christmas was a tube of something called "Glistening Snow Writer." From the description, it sounded like it was something that put a three-dimensional snow coating, with a bit of glitter, on items to make them look snowy. So this afternoon when I had a minute I applied it to three different items: the Marjean Bastian wheelbarrow Hallmark ornament which I had with my winter display, a little gold box filled with "berries, pine and a pine cone," and a woven twig basket filled with artificial pine (three kinds), two different types of berries, and twigs. I am using them all as winter decorations, but they have never been snowy enough for me.

I loved the way this stuff went on, but sadly, the white has dried as clear as Elmer's glue, leaving only the glitter behind. I suppose it's a good thing I scattered an entire container of white glitter on all three items before the "Snow Writer" liquid dried or it wouldn't have been as white as it is. Wish I'd used the snowflake-like white glitter now!

Still, it does look frosted, at least.

Wintry Mix

Not the weather, more's the pity. It's raining out, but there's a cold front on the back of it.

Well, downstairs is swept, the upstairs and the stairs are vacuumed, and most of the winter decorations are up except for the things that go on the railing of the porch, like the silver wreath. Because of the rain, it's not really a good time to put them out. I did put the snowmen out there, and the snow garland, and the sled and the shovel.

Most of the Christmas gifts we got are still sitting on the hearth. Must find homes for them soon.

The autumn things that go back up after Christmas (the scarecrow on the landing and the things that go on the mantel) are still in boxes downstairs. All in good time, I suppose.

Burnt Out (Me)

With the help of James' brawn, all is now ensconced in the closet.

I won't put the rocker back in its corner until I vacuum, and I'm not doing that tonight. Everything needs to be vacuumed again, and the downstairs hall swept, then I can put things back in their places and can put the winter decorations up.

At this rate it feels like it will be spring before I can accomplish it.

All I want is a good night's sleep...

Burnt Out

It struck me that it might be prudent to save some of the bulbs from the discarded set, even though I found two replacement bulbs in the ornament box. I pulled the string from the trash. These are miniature white lights under colored caps. I unscrewed a cap to find the light burnt out. Upon inspection, most of them are burnt out. And the one or two I found that look sound, I can't figure out how to get them out of their socket. Usually there's an edge of a bulb you can get your fingernail under, but these bulbs are inset into the socket. If one bulb does blow out, I have no idea how you replace it!

I did save some of the caps in case one breaks going up and down the stairs to the closet.

O Christmas Tree

Or, "Undecking the Halls, Part 3."

I really wasn't in the mood for undecorating anything. I woke up with stomach cramps at 3 a.m. and was "unavoidably delayed" for about an hour. It must have been the popcorn. Sigh. But after breakfast at nine, I placed all the Christmas village pieces back into their box, with the cords in the empty places and the trees and the figures on top of the cord or around the houses. I have bubble wrap between the houses but will be a nervous wreck until James gets the container back downstairs into the closet.

Next I tackled the tree. Oh, I remember the days when I could re-use the tinsel! I haven't seen lead-foil tinsel since I was very small; I pretty much grew up on the newer mylar stuff they replaced the lead-foil with when the dangers of lead were exposed, but the old mylar icicles used to be twice as wide and you could place them neatly back on their little holder without much loss. These newest icicles are so thin they almost crackle with electricity; you can barely take them off the holder in small groups to drape the branches. So in the last few years since I have had to buy it, I just rip it off and toss it in the wastebasket. Seems so wasteful.

I just worked at my own pace and got on tolerably well. At first I put on some music: Lou Monte's Christmas album, and then David Lanz's "Christmas Eve." Then I watched a couple of DVDs, Christmas Is and The City That Forgot About Christmas, and I was done about ten or fifteen minutes after the last one ended.

I decided I was getting tired of all the small boxes in the ornament container. I'm not anal about keeping the Hallmark ornaments in their original boxes, but I've been keeping multiple ones in the boxes I've kept. This year I decided to put only the glass ornaments in boxes, and put the rest (mostly plastic, some cloth, a couple of metal ones) in gallon Ziploc bags laid flat. It worked out quite well.

When I finished stripping the tree, I dealt with the dead string of lights. We don't have any replacement bulbs for these two strings of lights and Seasonal Concepts, where we got the strings, is out of business. I don't think it's just a burnt-out bulb, seeing what happened: the lights flickered, got very bright, then went out. I think the string is fried. So I took the string off and put on one of the new GE strings I purchased after Christmas.

Now, putting lights on a Christmas tree is, on my tiny list of Christmas things I hate, is just about one of the worst (even worse than "The Christmas Shoes" and "Pretty Paper" <g>). But I managed it. Doesn't look too bad.

I also wrapped up the nativity set, but instead of putting it back into the old cardboard box it's been in since it came home from my mother's house, I now have it in one of those larger plastic shoeboxes.

By the time I was finished, I was starving, so I had lunch and put The House Without a Christmas Tree on. I had the incidental music going through my head last night.

I know everyone can't like everything, but it upsets me when people abuse this story. I don't even mind—well, not much!—people saying "it's boring," but making fun of it drives me crazy. It's a slice-of-life tale and I know everyone doesn't like those. But I feel a deep kinship to this story. I don't have Addie's chutzpah and was a lot shyer, but otherwise she reminds me a lot of myself at age ten, bespectacled, relishing in vocabulary words and reading, drawing things all the time. Her home is so familiar to me...most of my relatives lived in older homes or triple-deckers with the same homely old wallpaper, the beadboard cupboards, the vintage fridge, the kitchen stove with the warming shelf overhead and the stovepipe going out the wall (my grandfather and my godmother both had similar kitchen ranges into the 1960s), the wooden floors and the old linoleum, attic space under the eaves, the big floor-model radio, even the old wooden high-chair in the kitchen, being saved and used as a table because nothing still sturdy and useful was ever wasted. My godmother's mother was like Grandma; she even wore the same type of housedress and apron. (Most of my aunts did, too, like my Auntie Petrina.) I remember all those little things in the background being in use, like the "flit" gun on the windowsill.

Addie's father even shouted like mine did. One of the reviews of the DVD I read talked about James' "emotional outburst" possibly scaring younger viewers. Gosh, everybody's dad shouted like that when I was a kid. We were Italian; we did everything at the top of our voices. Dad got angry and yelled, and then it was over with. I preferred my dad being mad with me than my mom. He shouted and then it was over. Mom didn't speak with you for hours—that was scary!

I did read a review that said this was "a 1970s view of the 1940s." I'm not sure I agree. Certain 1970s sensibilities did creep in. I really can't see a 1940s teacher sitting on her desk, for example, and Addie and the boy who made fun of Grandma probably would have ended up in the principal's office for fighting, not being reasoned with! (Heck, back in those days some schools still struck kids on the hands with a ruler, or paddled them.) Also, if all the 1940s books I read are any indication, kids still had to stand up to talk when the teacher called on them, unless Miss Thompson, with her desk-perching and explanations, was one of those newfangled progressive teachers. :-) The only real anachronism I noticed was the artificial tree in the drugstore where the girls go to buy Miss Thompson's gift. Artificial trees are nothing new; they've existed since the feather trees of the 1800s. But the string of blinking lights on the tree are miniatures, like we have today. Not sure if blinking lights existed in 1946, but miniature lights were invented in Europe and weren't sold here until the 1960s. (I think my research said they were first sold here in 1960.) The tree should have had the old-style C7 nightlight bulbs.

Otherwise, the home, the old-fashioned classroom with its wooden trim and painting of George Washington, the snow-rutted streets and the neighborhood pharmacy, always looked and felt perfect to me, and my parents, who were adults in the 1940s, noted the authentic look.

Anyway, I've surveyed the house for "leftovers"—I always seem to leave something behind that doesn't get put away and I want to avoid that this year; the closet where everything is stored is getting much too crowded to have loose things hanging about. So all the boxes appear to be packed up, and labeled properly, waiting for James to lug them downstairs and put them in their proper places on the shelf, and all I have to put away are the Christmas things in the bathroom, which are still waiting on the snowman soap dispenser to drain before they can be tucked away in the rear of the cupboard under the sink.

The house was so nice and tidy for the party last week and now it's a wreck again...it will be nice to have everything placed in the closet and stored for another year, just waiting for the magic to return.

In the meantime, I'm going to sign off, since I've just put The Small One on and I know I'm going to be reduced to a sniffling mess by the time it finishes. :-)

Undeck the Halls, Part 2

I don't know why I am so frustrated that all of this is taking so long to take down. It took me three weeks to put it up! :-)

However, I do have the Rudolph tree down, with the little decorations for the bedrooms tucked in with those. The things for the porch are boxed with a little room left there. I may have to count on that box to put up the items on the room divider, and the Rudolph box is very crowded, and the dining room/kitchen box is pretty full (yes, I stripped the kitchen and dining room, too) and the foyer box is full.

I would have probably gotten the village down, too, but I couldn't work during lunch.

I am dreading the tree. Everything already looks so empty and it's so pretty and glittery...but as Mrs. Brown said in National Velvet, it's time to get on to the next thing.

Undeck the Halls

Well, downstairs is "undecked," as are the windows. It takes a shorter time to take things down, even if you are placing things in certain boxes, because when you put up the decorations, you need to arrange and fluff and unwrap. But it still takes a while...whew! I discovered that the airplane tree and ornaments, the Santa and tree in the bathroom, the things in the hall, and the woodland tree (just the tree, with the gingham table cover) would all fit in the library tree box without squishing. The woodland ornaments, Santa, and other decor I put in a big clear shoebox which should fit somewhere in the closet.

Oh, something funny happened early in the afternoon. If you recall, I said that the Dish Holiday Music channel was still on. It played in the background all morning. Then, at 1 p.m., just when I was thinking about lunch anyway, I noticed that the channel had change. I have the DVR set up to change channels when any new episodes of the "Animal Heroes" shows, like Animal Precinct and Animal Cops, come on, but they are usually broadcast at 10 p.m. weeknights—but sure enough, this was a new episode of Animal Cops South Africa.

So I had my lunch and watched it, but after it was finished, just went back to work without changing the channel. In a few minutes I became aware that the next program on Animal Planet featured...ugh...snakes. Well, I'd just put the Holiday Music channel back on!

Except...it was gone! Like that, flat in the middle of the day! How extraordinary! I would have thought they would have waited until the day's end to cut it off.

I am watching a cheap DVD I bought on Amazon, "Christmas at Home." It's a dog's breakfast of different cartoons, pretty badly transferred. Some of them are fairly well-known, like the Fleischer Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, a "Little Audrey" short, and a Sylvester and Tweety cartoon. One is a British cartoon called Santa's Pocket Watch, where Santa has a collection of funny elves named after their physical attributes and one reindeer named Garibaldi (why the reindeer is named after a cookie is beyond me). Apparently this is the original British version (however badly transferred) rather than an American-dubbed version which some viewers found "terrible." Also included on the disk is Santa and the Three Bears, The Little Christmas Burro, and the unrestored version of Rankin-Bass' Jack Frost, which actually isn't a Christmas offering, but is hosted by a groundhog and is a winter story.

Christmas After All

My new calendar says today is Eastern Orthodox Christmas, so I have turned the tree lights on, and plugged in the village. :-) Dish Network's "Holiday Music" channel is still going, so I have lit a Yankee Candle cafè au lait tea light and am availing myself of both as I work. Outside it is finally cold again after several miserable days of temps in the high 60s. How the wind does blow! I can hear the winter banner rattling on its flagpole and turn to look down on the flag bellying out every so often as a gust takes it.

However, I have taken the candles out of the windows upstairs and have the boxes down (thanks, sweetie) and ready for this year's "hibernation." I am also making notes of things that are needed for next year, like proper extension cords outside and most probably a new five-candle candolier as one of them that I inherited from Mom no longer lights one of the bulbs anymore (the bulbs are fine; it's the socket).

Lest you think now that the holidays are over the crafts are as well, I say nay! I bought four inexpensive items from the dollar store last week, mostly to use on the porch. One, a Santa face, is fine, but the freestanding "Noël" with the Santa figure was dented a bit on top, and the three-panel "Tis the Season" is a bit plain. I will fill in the scraped paint of the dent with a similar color then "sprinkle" the already "snow spattered" Santa with white paint so it all matches. On the "Tis the Season" panels I will put some Christmas-y wooden cutouts.

The fourth item is a snowman with a tall hat that says "Let it snow" and "Welcome" with a cardinal and a snowflake on it. It is wintry rather than Christmas-y, except for the red band on his hat trimmed with a holly cutout. I will pry the holly cutout off, paint the band blue, and glue a wooden snowflake cutout (also in blue) on it instead. Voilà! Winter decoration!

Incidentally, I was so frazzled yesterday when I was removing Christmas decorations from my cubicle. I have winter decorations that include winter, snowy calendar pictures, a winter bouquet of evergreens with pine cones and snow glitter, and a bouquet of holly leaves covered in white flocking and snow glitter. Previously I have had a plain green garland with silver shot through it, like a pine tree after an ice storm. To me that is "winter," not "Christmas," but people still come by and say "Why are your Christmas decorations still up?" So this year I bought an extra white snowflake garland and put that up instead. Wouldn't you know someone came by and asked, "Are you still putting up Christmas decorations?"

What? It only snows at Christmas??? ARRRRRRGH! ::sigh::

Making Up for Lost Time

My constant complaint this year has been that time has simply gone by too quickly! After Thanksgiving, someone might have just as well hit an accelerator pedal under the calendar and sent it streaking away. I didn't even watch some of my usual favorites during the holiday season and made up for some of them today: The Waltons "Best Christmas" for one. I love this episode, but there's a scene I've always found curious: this takes place a couple of episodes after Ike and Corabeth have adopted Aimee, and Corabeth and her new daughter have put up a beautiful homemade Christmas display at the back of the store, with a tabletop tree and a Sicilian cart filled with fruit. Elizabeth says to Aimee, "I bet you're getting everything you asked for," and Aimee responds in a very unsure voice, "I guess so." Never understood the tone of her voice or the wistful look in her eyes. I suspect it's because Aimee is still unsure of her new parents' love, but it somehow leaves you up in the air, with the feeling there was something missed.

Also watched the 1968 animated The Night Before Christmas. This isn't the Rankin-Bass story with the mice, but a fictionalized tale of how Clement C. Moore wrote "A Visit from St. Nicholas." The music and songs are by Norman Luboff and the story uses the musical arrangement of "The Night Before Christmas" originally written by Ken Darby for the Fibber McGee and Molly radio series. Radio veteran Olan Soulé is Moore.

If you've never seen this cartoon, here it is on YouTube:

The Night Before Christmas, part 1

The Night Before Christmas, part 2

The Night Before Christmas, part 3

It used to be a syndication classic before Christmas, along with Lutheran Television's Christmas Is and The City That Forgot About Christmas.

As a chaser, Rankin-Bass' The Little Drummer Boy (my old tape since the DVD is not complete) and a videotape I found in Dollar Tree, Animaniacs "Hellooooooo, Holidays!" It was pretty cute, but nothing special.

Epiphany

Christmastide has always been a time for gift-giving. While most think this references the gifts of the Magi to the infant Jesus, gift-giving at New Year's was already an established custom started by the Romans. "Strenae," sweet cakes and small trinkets like thimbles and needles, were the usual gifts.

In some of the northern countries, St. Nicholas was the gift giver and arrived on the eve of his saint's day, December 6. Due to the gifts received by Jesus and connected with his birth, the most common gift day is December 25.

But in many of the warm countries, the gift-giving day is the feast of the Epiphany, when Biblical record tells us the Magi found Jesus, His mother Mary, and His foster father Joseph. The nativity story is actually in two parts. The one which Linus quotes in A Charlie Brown Christmas is from Luke, which tells of the journey to Bethlehem, the angels announcing the birth to the shepherds, and the visit of the shepherds themselves.

The visit of the Magi, or Wise Men (or "kings," although the Bible never says they are royal), occurs in Matthew, and does not happen concurrently with the birth/shepherd story (as has been presented in many stories, including Rankin-Bass' iconic Little Drummer Boy). Matthew, in fact, states that Jesus and his family are not in a stable, but in a house, and that Jesus is a small child, not an infant. The number of Magi is not mentioned either; they are usually numbered at three because of the three gifts mentioned. There could have been more gifts: the gold, frankincense and myrrh were symbolic of Jesus' kingship, priesthood, and death.

The gift givers vary by country. Most Spanish-speaking countries are given gifts by the three "kings." In Syria, the gift-bringer is actually the smallest camel in the kings' caravan.

Both Italy and Russia have a twist on this story. Italy's traditional gift-giver is La Befana, although most modern Italian kids ask for gifts from "Babbo Natale," their version of Santa Claus. "Befana" is a corruption of "Epifania." The Russian version is named "Babouscka." She is usually portrayed as looking a bit like a kindly Hallowe'en witch, with tattered clothing and old shoes because she has been traveling for so long.

So the story goes, elderly Befana, like most traditional Italian women, was cleaning her house. The three kings stopped at her house for directions. After offhandedly pointing the way out to them, Befana is in a hurry to get back to her cleaning. They ask her if she does not want to come with them to see the infant King. No, no, she says, I have to finish my cleaning.

The kings leave (in some versions of the story, she misleads them, but the star shows them the true route) and Befana finishes her cleaning. She now feels guilty, gathers up gifts for the new little King, and hurries after them. But she never catches up with them. Instead she visits every home where there could be a child, and, not knowing if this is the correct one, leaves a gift. (Sounds a bit like the Flying Dutchman...)

The feast of the Epiphany officially ends Christmastide. Some legends say all greens and decorations should be out of the house by this date. However, Candlemas (February 2) is known as the last day for the burning of the Christmas greens.

In Norway, the official ending of the Christmas season is January 13, St. Knut's Day.

"On the Twelfth Day of Christmas..."

...it's time to watch the holidays come to a close. As I drove through downtown Smyrna this morning, all the decorations were down except for the tree, and I knew it would be gone, or mostly gone, by this evening. Sure enough, by five o'clock all traces of the Christmas tree were gone.

They should have a counter-song to Andy Williams' "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year"—maybe "It's the Most Sorrowful Time of the Year," watching the tinsel and the glitter fade away to be replaced by plainness.

Of course if we had the tinsel and the glitter all year long, at Christmas it wouldn't be special, just as in the William Dean Howells' story "Christmas Every Day." Still, maybe this song from Rudolph's Shiny New Year is the most appropriate:

The moving finger writes,
And having writ, moves on.
You can't hold back the clock;
It just ticks on and on.

The moving finger writes
And having writ, moves on,
So treasure memories,
For what is gone, is gone.

And, oh, you may
Sweat and strive—
Don't you know it's great
Just to be alive?

So...make every moment count,
Rejoice with every dawn,
The moving finger writes
And having writ, moves on.

After I arrived home and took Willow for her "airing," I settled down to watch The History of Christmas DVD that I purchased at Borders. This is a compilation of four documentaries, the first being Christmas Unwrapped, originally appearing on the History Channel. This is a brief history of the holiday, featuring writers Stephen Nissenbaum and Penne Restad, authors of two of the definitive Christmas histories, The Battle for Christmas and Christmas in America. Jean Shepherd (A Christmas Story) also appears.

The second piece is the "Santa Claus" biography that was originally shown on A&E's Biography series hosted and narrated by Jack Perkins (before Biography begat its own channel). I saw this when it was originally broadcast, but haven't seen it for years. Lovely to hear Jack Perkins' voice again! I see he is now retired and a nature photographer.

As I watch, I keep glancing over my shoulder at the Christmas tree. It will look very blank there in a few days. We'll also have to find places for the gifts! One will go in the car—we were given a second Entertainment Book! Very cool, since later in the year there is an Abraham Lincoln exhibition at the Atlanta History Center. This also means we have another Mountasia coupon, too! Let's hear it for mini-golf...PUTT!:-)

"On the Eleventh Day of Christmas..."

...we cleaned up from the tenth day of Christmas. :-) We had a late sleep-in first, though.

As we had put all the perishable food away last night, we just needed to clean off the table, vacuum again, wash the serving dishes, and then put everything away and tidy the kitchen. This actually didn't take very long as a whole, but it seemed to take forever since we are in our usual post-Christmas depression. Betty Roberts declares in "Christmas in the Airwaves" that "December without Christmas is like...January."

Well, darnit, it's January.

If it was cold it would help, but it's dark, gloomy and warm. I'm in shorts and a sleeveless shirt. Tuesday it's supposed to be 70! Another 85°F day in my cubicle, I see.

We also went to Kroger to get a few things...which grew into a few more things...and we still forgot to get juice!

When everything was tidy again we settled down to watch What's My Line? and To Tell the Truth. These were back starting from New Year's Eve, and they showed the New Year's Eve 1950 What's My Line?. The show was brand-new then and the only one of the remembered panel on the panel at this time was Arlene Francis. The mystery guest, appropriately, was Guy Lombardo. After finishing all those in the queue, we watched something on National Geographic Channel: Dogs in the Womb. Following was a similar special about cats.

I keep looking wistfully at the Christmas tree. Seems like just yesterday I wrestled with putting it up, and now it's time for it to go in hibernation for another year.

And of course the weather forecast is for rain Tuesday night, so all the outdoor decorations will be wet when it's time to take them down! Typical of life...

"On the Tenth Day of Christmas..." (Evening Edition)

The last guest has just left and I'm about to help James put the things away. We had a big crowd and still had food left over. I told Alice we need to have a game night soon! LOL.

We spent the afternoon getting ready; the first guests arrived about quarter to five—it was Ann and Clay, which is lucky because they have three dachshunds and are used to the Ritual Barking of the Dog—and it soon became busy. One of James' work friends came and also his friend Rusty from the hobby shop with his wife Cindy and son John. John has to use crutches to walk and I was afraid he might have trouble with the stairs, but he navigated them deftly.

Part of the crowd was watching the end of the Falcons game, and the rest sat around the table chatting. After everyone ate, we exchanged gifts. Mel tried to help me solve a computer problem that I have responding with my domain e-mail in Eudora via Earthlink. I think he may have found a solution, but I'll have to try it and see.

Aubrey (13) and her friend Isabel (12) kept the place hopping. They retreated in the spare room to play Jenga and draw. I gave Aubrey a waterproof case with a drawing pad, colored pencils, an eraser and a pencil sharpener as she is always carrying her drawing things with her. Isabel actually found the pickle ornament on the Christmas tree but I gave the prize (a pickle ornament) to Aubrey since Isabel accidentally messed up the little slinky-bracelet I gave to Aubrey.

We all had a great time, but boy, are we bushed!

[Later: we have the food cleaned up and will tackle the dishes and the vacuuming tomorrow. Feet and back hurt. Nice time, though...]

"On the Tenth Day of Christmas..."

...more party prep. We were up until two and ended up sleeping past eleven, so we had to run to Kroger for the bacon bits to top the cheese bake. While there, got things for lunches at work.

James went to the hobby shop for about 90 minutes, while I put things up and then shot part of a "movie" on my camera. It's just of the house all dressed up for Christmas.

We have all the snack/nibbly type things out (Chex mix, M&Ms, cheese cubes, mint candies, crackers, candy cane Jo-Jos, pumpkin cake, etc.) and I have mixed the cheese spreads and they are chilling in the fridge. James is now warming up all the hots: chicken wings, taquitoes, mini egg rolls, cocktail weiners, and Bagel Bites.

Twenty minutes to go. I wonder who will come first, as they will experience the Ritual Barking of the Dog. (After about five guests, she gives up.)

"On the Ninth Day of Christmas..." (Evening Edition)

The floors are washed, the carpet and stairs are vacuumed, the sofa is clear, Willow's had a bath...I think we're ready. (Well, after I clean off the dang coffee table, anyway. it's like a magnet that attracts stuff.) :-)

We went out for supper at Golden Corral, which, surprisingly, was not crowded, and stopped at Staples on the way back to get a mailing tube. They had some pretty wintry (not Christmas) stationery and labels at half price, which I bought, and also two great gift items at half price. More things for the box!

The bad news: the friend we were expecting for the weekend cannot come. :-( She caught a bad cold from her nephew and needs to get it under control by Monday for work. As Podkayne says, "Snellfrocky! Hangnails! Dirty socks!"

The good news: a friend of ours got in a car accident this afternoon, but is okay except for a few bruises. The car, however, is totaled. Whew. Thank God it was only the car.

"On the Ninth Day of Christmas..."

We're getting ready to party.

Well, I'm getting ready to party. James is back at work, where I'll be on Monday. Bit by bit the magic is going away and it will just be the workday world again.

It's gloomy and chilly and damp out, and I was looking forward to getting the floors washed early when I realized I was out of what I needed to wash them with. I thought I had bought more cleaner, but there was none in the closet or downstairs. Well, phooey.

Ran out to Food Depot, but they didn't have what I use. Actually, I couldn't find anything but PineSol! But I did find it next door at Dollar General. Looked through the half-price Christmas things and found a few things I can decorate for the porch for next year. Then I did all the floors and got clothes together for a last load of laundry, and had the rest of the little pizzas from the other night for lunch.

To go with my lunch, I put on The Gathering. This is a 1977 television movie with Edward Asner and Maureen Stapleton, and why it isn't out on an official DVD is anybody's guess. It won all sorts of awards and is a brilliant, touching but not mawkish, Christmas film. Asner's character, Adam Thornton, a hard-nosed businessman in a small New England town, is separated from his wife after an argument (the film implies the fight was over their youngest son going to Canada instead of Vietnam, but the novelization says it was because Adam, with all the children gone, wanted to abandon the family home, and wife Kate refused) and estranged from all of his children except his younger daughter.

Then Thornton discovers from his doctor (and close friend) that he has only a few months to live. With Kate's help, he arranges a family reunion (without telling the children the bad news so it won't be a "pity party") at the house, as much to straighten out things between himself and the kids as to see them once more before he dies.

The supporting cast includes Lawrence Pressman, Veronica Hamel, Gail Strickland, Bruce Davison, Rebecca Balding (who later co-starred for a few episodes with Asner in Lou Grant), Gregory Harrison, Stephanie Zimbalist, Edward Winter, and John Randolph. Truly wonderful film—with a beautiful score by John Barry to boot.

(Bit of trivia: this film was produced by Hanna-Barbera and Yogi Bear makes a brief cameo—it's a puppet that the grandchildren have.)

"On the Eighth Day of Christmas..." (Evening Edition)

It's been a nice quiet day. I've tidied up the guest room and washed the linens, and read some of Mark of the Lion (the first Jade del Cameron mystery) and watched "Merry Gentlemen" once again. We had a nice slice of Smithfield ham for supper, which James had soaked for two days in pineapple juice and honey with pineapple bits and craisins. It was superbly tender. We had it with boiled potatoes and I even ate a couple of spoonfuls of Hoppin' John for the new year, although I usually avoid black-eyed peas. (I probably should have, too. My stomach is sour again. But it's supposed to be good luck to eat Hoppin' John...or at least plain old black-eyed peas...on New Year's Day.

Nothing on television tonight besides bowl games and marathons, so I put on The Last Detective.

Christmas Comfort Reading

I have certain books I go back to every year, as they are as much a part of Christmas as the tree and A Christmas Carol. One I read first at my own home, another from the Stadium School library, and the third is a recent acquisition.

Sleigh Bells for Windy Foot was written in 1948 by Frances Frost. In the 1960s, the "Windy Foot" books about the Clark family and their Vermont farm were standard issue in children's rooms and school libraries. In the first novel, Windy Foot at the County Fair, Toby Clark is given a pony he names Windy Foot for his birthday. He meets Letitia "Tish" Burnham at the fair where he is planning to race Windy in the annual races. In this second offering of the series, Tish and her horse-trainer dad Jerry (her mother is deceased) visit the Clark farm for Christmas. What follows are nostalgic preparations for the holiday: converting a sleigh for Windy to pull, Christmas shopping, carol singing in the town square, popping corn by the fire, awaiting the birth of a calf that will be a gift for Toby's little sister Betsy.

But a marauding bear poses a danger to the livestock and Toby's plan for skiing with Tish, if another hidden danger doesn't strike first.

All the Windy Foot books are great snapshots of small farms in the late 1940s/early 1950s, but this is my favorite: I love going snowshoeing with Toby and Betsy for Christmas greens, singing carols in the town square and shopping in the country store, sleighing under the stars. The Clarks don't live an easy life, but it's a happy one.

Whitman Books published a series of books in the 1960s about the Tucker family: five kids and mom and dad, with the obligatory big shaggy dog and also a cat living in a big old house in the small town of Yorkville where dad works with his father in running a variety store. The books were written by at least two authors and continuity is a mess, but the stories are fun.

The Cottage Holiday, however, breaks from the routine a bit by emphasizing the story of 7-year-old Penny. The youngest girl and the next to youngest child, Penny is plagued by constant colds and bad health, and worries about her place in the world and even within the family group. When she envisions a Christmas celebration at their lake cottage and is allowed to go by her pediatrician, Penny begins to learn more about her hidden strengths. In the meantime, the kids not only play snow games on the beach and prepare for Christmas, but are involved in the mystery of a supposedly abandoned baby and the hunting of a cougar killing livestock at the local farms.

Again, it's one of those books where you want to be there, having fun with the family and their holiday preparations, but the subplot of Penny searching for her place in the order of things is also very appealing and the sort of story that was ordinarily not featured in a series book of this type. The end of the story requires a tissue. :-)

A newer book that has become de rigueur in my reading queue at Christmas is Christmas After All by Kathryn Lasky. This book is part of the "Dear America" series and is based on Lasky's own family. The Swift family, including 12-year-old narrator Minnie, are enduring the privations of the Depression at Christmastime of 1932, closing down room after room to save coal, surviving on endless meals of bits of meat stretched by bread, rice and cheese, and wondering why their father comes home a little earlier each day. Then a telegram requests that they pick up Willie Faye Darling at the train station. Willie is the daughter of Belle's cousins and both her parents have died in the Dust Bowl town of Heart's Bend, Texas.

When Willie Faye arrives, stunted by malnutrition and carrying only two pairs of underwear and the clothes she is wearing (and a kitten she saved from a dust storm), not having ever seen a movie, an indoor bathroom, and the comics, Minnie thinks her cousin will have a lot to learn from them. She doesn't dream what the little girl from Heart's Bend will teach her and her family.

Lasky makes everyone in the story so real—probably because they are based on actual family members—from Minnie's only brother, an electronics prodigy, to her unconventional sister Lady, to her practical older sisters Gwen and Clem, to her warm parents, to Jackie, the family housekeeper, not to mention a snotty classmate, her sisters' boyfriends (including one based on her father), and the victims of the Depression living in a "Hooverville." The story mixes humor, family experience, and even anxiety after Minnie's classmate's father commits suicide.

Lasky writes great books anyway; I have loved her Prank, set in East Boston, and the Cambridge-based Callista Jacobs mysteries, which, sadly, there were only a handful of.

"On the Eighth Day of Christmas..."

...we are resting and watching the Rose Parade. (I said to James yesterday, "You know what I want to do tomorrow? Nothing!") The New Mexico Coyote/Road Runner float has just gone by. So beautiful in HD. Look at the details!!! We're watching on HGTV, and, where their coverage has improved over the years—I remember their first broadcast only had wide-angle cameras and we got no close-ups at all—the hosts are starting to yap too much (like their network counterparts) over announcements and occasionally interviewing hosts of their series instead of concentrating on the parade. At least we don't have to watch commercials and this year's featured celebrities being interviewed to plug their NBC series.)

Cloris Leachman is the Grand Marshal this year. Gosh, she looks great for 80 years old!

Many beautiful floats, including the African veldt theme, and those lovely horses. The western groups have changed over time—I remember when "Monty" Montana and the Sons of the Pioneers were fixtures—but are always beautiful.

I can tell you one major way the Rose Parade has changed in 40 years: when I was a kid, New Year's was still considered part of the Christmas season and you did hear Christmas songs, like "Frosty" and "Winter Wonderland" (usually the wintry things, although I remember "Deck the Halls" since it mentions the New Year), played by the bands. You don't hear them anymore.

{Bother..."Holly" is gone already, too; used to last through New Year's Day. Stupid merger.)

Anyway, we had a lovely time at Bill and Caran's last night: good food to nosh and lots of people to chat with. The crowd seemed to be thinner this year, however, and we were a creaky crowd hanging out in the library except when Aubrey was there. Fiona and Geoffrey's baby daughter Zada (almost 11 months) was the hit of the party.

Sadly, about ten minutes to midnight, I developed stomach cramps. I was able to slip downstairs for a few minutes to join in the end of the countdown and wish everyone a happy New Year, then was stuck in the bathroom for the next 40 minutes. So we had to leave rather abruptly. Came home to wrap in a fleece and wish Rodney, Mike, Jen and Jen's sister Meggan a happy new year online, to the accompaniment of TCM's marathon of That's Entertainment movies. We would have gone to bed earlier, but the segment on Busby Berkeley routines in That's Dancing had us mesmerized.

[2:46 p.m.: Watching the Rose Parade rebroadcast on the Travel Channel. Hosts Stephanie Edwards and Bob Eubanks are a bit ditzy, and we have commercials, but at least they are talking what the floats are made of...and we got to see several floats that HGTV either "forgot," or ignored so they could plug their own programming.]

"On the Seventh Day of Christmas..."

...we went a'roving.

Not far. We'd dreamed about going to Gatlinburg this week, even if overnight, to see the Winterfest lights, but we really couldn't afford it. But James was looking for a calendar with aircraft artwork and hadn't found one in the local bookstores. So we decided to go up to Discover Mills, which has a calendar store.

The cold front had come through last night and the shades were flapping in the breeze when we got up, but the sky was bright blue and it wasn't all that cold. James had to right "Woody" the reindeer and the cross-draft on the freeway was pretty strong, but we made it up to Discover Mills without incident. This mall is built like a big oval track with the food court cutting through the middle and we saw many couples "doing the mall" for exercise. We did an entire circuit, too, finally found the calendar store, but he didn't find any aviation art. He got a black and white calendar of battleships instead.

The mini-calendar findings were meager. All the small calendars are larger (7"x7") than I need (5.5"x5.5"). They had dogs (breeds I wasn't interested in), horses, psalms, and something else that was so forgettable that I forgot it. What I got was a John Deere calendar. While I'm not into tractors, the pictures are seasonal and had the vaguely country flavor that the house does.

We came home by a new gaming shop that James wanted to try. We could barely edge through it since they were having an all day (and night) Pokemon championship tournament. Lots of kids playing and even some adults.

I'd been worried about rush-hour traffic, but we made it to Cobb County without incident—it was getting past Cumberland Mall that was the problem! We had a two-fer coupon for Fresh 2 Order, so we picked up our dinners and came home until it was time to leave for Bill and Caran's party. Ate, watched the news and Jeopardy!, set the DVR to record (all the That's Entertainment films are on TCM tonight).

Finally James baked his contribution to the party and I put on Rudolph's Shiny New Year. This is practically a Paul Frees festival...he does something like every other voice. I wish they'd been able to use the original Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer models. Not anywhere as good as the original, but I do like the "Moving Finger Writes" and Big Ben the whale, voiced by "the Great Gildersleeve" himself, Hal Peary.

Goodness! You can see the texture on everything!

Anyway, it's time to go. Happy New Year to all!

"On the Sixth Day of Christmas..." (Evening Edition)

I figure the best way to keep the kitchen clean between now and the party is not to have to cook much in it. So tonight instead of eating in we used our twofer coupon at Sweet Tomatoes. I didn't think I was in the mood for salad, but it tasted quite good, as did the bowl of soup.

When we finished we went to Borders. James wanted to get the new Eat This, Not That book. I found a Rick Steves' "Back Door" book from this year for only $4.

On the way home we drove through "Lights of Life." We hadn't done it yet this season and I believe it ends New Year's Day. Because they are repaving the back parking lot, they had the little Santa's Workshop display booths somewhere else. They covered the hill, usually the home of the Victorian village, with a forest of Christmas trees, some elves, and my favorite light display, "Santa's Flying School," which has a reindeer jumping off a building and parachuting down.

Across the road from the hill is a small pond, which always has a dragon (sea serpent variety) "in" it. He wears a Santa hat. :-) If you drive up behind the pond and then turn about to return to the road, the reflection of the lights from the hill in the pond, combined with the lights themselves, is quite stunning.

Aside from Santa and reindeer and the "Victorian Village," they also have a giant menorah and a nativity scene, penguins frolicking outside igloos, teddy bears snowballing each other, giant snowflakes, and even a teddy bear dancing with a bunny.

"On the Sixth Day of Christmas..."

...there were parcels and presents!

We went out shopping at noon for needed groceries, but mostly ingredients for the item we're bringing to Bill and Caran's New Year's Eve party (a cheese bake recipe James picked up at Bulloch Hall) and the supplies for our party on Saturday. We came out with honey barbecue chicken wings, mini egg rolls, chicken taquitoes, Bagel Bites, cocktail franks, crackers, cheese squares, and baked Tostitoes to go with the salsa. We also have chocolates, M&Ms, potato chips, Goldfish, chocolate chip cookies, crackers, and cheese spreads, and James is going to make another cheese bake.

Plus we're scheduled to have an overnight guest: Shari's going to drive in from Birmingham! Yay!

We stopped at Borders on the way home because I was looking for a mini calendar. I keep one next to my computer that tells what gets paid on each of our paydays. I found a small calendar, but not a mini. I either have to find one or rearrange the papers next to my desk, because the small one doesn't fall well.

I nearly fainted when we got to the magazine stand: this is the first time all year I've found Yankee before the month it's supposed to be for!

When we got home, we carted all those things upstairs. Willow needed to go out and I wanted to check the mail, so we killed about four birds with one stone. Candy asked for photos of James and I and our bicycles, so here they are, in 65°F weather with Christmas in the background!

LOL. We don't appear to have Willow's attention.



Not here, either!





Oh, and here's Willow and "Woody"!



The mailbox was a veritable cornucopia of goodies. We had a card from James' friend J.P., my book had come from Amazon Marketplace (this is American Road, which is about a transcontinental automobile trip in 1919 which coincided with the building of the Lincoln Highway), and my package was finally here from Amazon.co.uk. I had taken the opportunity to order in Region 2 several Disney movies that Disney USA had not bothered to release widescreen in Region 1: That Darn Cat, Big Red, and The Moon Spinners.

I checked these to see if they were okay, but sat down to watch the fourth DVD, which was James Herriot's Yorkshire, in which Christopher Timothy (James in the television series All Creatures Great and Small) tours the sites made famous by Herriot in his books. The real James, Alf Wight, who was very ill at the time, appears for a few minutes and one can hear him narrating a couple of passages from his books in his Scots burr. The scenery is so lovely; Timothy and the film travel from Thirsk, Herriot's home, to the moors and Askrigg, where the television series was mainly filmed, and finally out to the seashore of Robin Hood's Bay and Scarborough.

Christmas Books Online

Here's a preview of the first 47 pages of The History of the Christmas Figural. Many nice photos of vintage ads and lights!

The full text of all of Charles Dickens' Christmas stories.

Stories from the 1890s: Santa Claus on a Lark, and Other Christmas Stories

"On the Fifth Day of Christmas..."

...we slept late! It was in the 30s last night and wonderful for sleeping. Even James slept in.

We had to mail a package, so went to the post awful. We also wanted to buy a mailing tube, but the line was out the door—worse that before Christmas!—and James decided he'd rather buy one at an office supply store. We used the automatic machine instead.

Had two Bed Bath & Beyond coupons expiring today, so we went there. If nothing else, we could buy some sweets for the party. We ended up getting cashews instead—and some lovely sale items that can be used as gifts. They also had the Entertainment Book at 30 percent off...and there is a two-fer Atlanta History Center coupon in it! Woohoo! I really want to see the temporary exhibitions "Jim Henson's Fantastic World" and "Norman Rockwell's Home for the Holidays" before they leave. The price of the Entertainment Book only exceeds the ticket price by a couple of dollars...so all the rest is gravy.

We also stopped at Barnes & Noble just to browse, and went to Costco. Along with the milk, we bought a "pizza kit." It's a set of twelve 7" pizza crusts (in sets of three) with six packs of sauce. At suppertime James browned some ground turkey, then placed that on the pizzas with shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese. He added onions and mushrooms to the one he was planning to eat and made the third as a half-and-half. It was delicious! (And I still have three slices.)

"On the Fourth Day of Christmas..."

...we took a holiday tour!

It was a bleak, grey, warmish but chillish (if that makes any sense), damp day. We had a leisurely breakfast while I finished washing clothes. In early afternoon we drove out to Roswell and toured Bulloch Hall. This antebellum structure was the home of Martha "Mittie" Bulloch, who became the mother of President Theodore Roosevelt (although she did not survive to see her son become president; she and Roosevelt's first wife died on the same day).

Teddy Roosevelt is my favorite president and I have always wanted to tour Bulloch Hall. Since the Hall was decorated for Christmas, it seemed an opportune time to go.

The house is done in the Georgian style, the typical "pillared" front, in white. The front door opens onto a large hall. To the left side is the parlor, then the dining room, where Theodore Roosevelt Sr and Mittie Bulloch were married on Christmas Eve of 1853, and then the small "warming room." To the right is the library, the master bedroom, and the morning room. Upstairs are four bedrooms and a room without a fireplace (the only room in the house without one) they believe was used as a sewing room. Downstairs in the basement is a brick-floored kitchen and a stair that descends into what was a pantry below the earth where it was cool; also there is another storeroom on the opposite side of the stair that is used for an exhibit for children of what children wore, how they lived, and how they behaved. None of the furniture is original, but it is all from that era. One of the bedrooms is "the museum room," with photos and paintings and narrative on the history of house and family, with exhibits of family china and other original objects from the house. There is also a reproduction of the original "Teddy" bear, a flag that flew over the house when Teddy Roosevelt visited, and a section of rail from the line that Roosevelt's train used.

In 1923, an Atlanta reporter interviewed the last surviving bridesmaid of Mittie's wedding about the event. Her byline was "Peggy Mitchell"—later famous as Margaret Mitchell.

Outside there is a reproduction of one of the two slave cabins, a dog trot cabin, one side set up as people would have lived in it, the other set up with some fragments excavated from the original cabins and the stories of the slaves, including excerpts from WPA interviews from the 1930s of people who were still living who had been born into slavery. (Amazing to think my parents grew up in a time where there were still ex-slaves.) Very sad reading most of it; there seemed to be kind masters, but even more brutal ones, or at least brutal overseers. It is hard to think that for most of history there has been slavery; one people conquered another and made them slaves. I wonder if someday it will be totally eradicated.

Anyway, we enjoyed walking around the house, but thought the Christmas decorations were a bit...unorthodox. It was called "Christmas Across the USA" and each room was decorated as a different city or (in the case of Hawaii) location. In some cases the effect was interesting or unique. For instance, the kitchen was done in Santa Fe style, and the combination of Mexican textiles and decor went well with the brick floor and simple table, benches, and cupboards, and the primitive look of the fireplace and bake oven. The warming room was done in a simple Moravian style with a star in the center, old toys in the cupboard, paper stars on a small tree, cakes and cookies for the traditional "Lovefeast," and a nativity scene, which was quite lovely. The morning room had simple decorations from Charleston, South Carolina. The library was done in Williamsburg style, with garlands and fruits and tea set out and hunting boots and riding regalia for Boxing Day on the morrow. And even if it seemed a bit odd, the dining room done in Nome, Alaska, motif, with arctic decorations and ornaments of Eskimos and huskies, and displays about the serum run in 1925, worked.

On the other hand, the Las Vegas room was pretty tacky. This was in the Wing Room, which was occupied by the last owner of the house before the historical society took it over. Her beautiful furniture and chair collection were overrun and overwhelmed with gambling trimmings and "Rat Pack" and Elvis junk. I think she was probably turning over in her grave. The hall has Florida decorations, and the master bedroom had Hawaiian ones, which looked a bit incongruous. The Santa Claus display in the brother's bedroom and the Memphis/Elvis/jazz/blues theme in Mittie's room was a bit less overpowering (and I did think it clever how they turned Mittie's bed into a steamboat).

James and I agreed later that we would have preferred to have seen the house decorated in a traditional ante- or even post-bellum style. (Or, in some rooms, just something a bit closer to the 19th century theme of the house: Victorian Santa Claus room, Wild West room, Pennsylvania Dutch...anything but Las Vegas!!!)

There's a photo in the Museum Room of Teddy Roosevelt standing at the front of the house with all the servants and other occupants of the house when he visited in 1905. I found it thrilling to have stepped where he did. It's a miracle the house survived at all. It was occupied by Union troops during the Civil War, but they spared Roswell. It is thought they spared Bulloch Hall because of the Masonic symbols once on the home.

James bought a couple of cookbooks and some sauce at the gift shop, then we went home via Trader Joe's to get supper for tonight (the usual salad/turkey we've been having lately) and Publix, both to recycle our plastic bags and to check out the two-fers. Several were useful for our party on Saturday!

We ate supper to What's My Line? and To Tell the Truth (one of the guests on the latter was Pappy Boyington!), and then started watching an assortment of Christmas specials I DVR'd last week. Dazzling Christmas Lights—in glorious HD on HD Theatre—was a collection of features on families or neighborhoods that erect big light displays for Christmas. This was less frantic and silly than the one HGTV puts on every year. There was a neighborhood of row houses in Baltimore, a Texas housing development, a 15-year-old boy who adds to the yard decorations every year, the Bronx Zoo, and more.

The Super-Heroes Guide to New York City didn't really have anything to do with Christmas, but it was kinda fun. It was about how New York City became an actual, real character in the Marvel Comics starting with Spiderman.

The prettiest special was from HD Theatre again and was called Christmas Lights. Like Sunrise Earth and their "flyover" specials, it was just footage shot in different places, no narration, no "gags," just some background music. They started at the skating rink at Rockefeller Center, moved to a writer's cabin in Alaska being decorated with lights and ornaments with a bonfire held outside afterwards, went to Washington DC for the display around the National Christmas tree and showing some other public buildings, then traveled to the coast of Maine where children and adults decorated a tree with lights and goodies like apples, popcorn, corn, seed-covered peanut butter pinecones, and even herring for the local wild animals, and finally ended with the streets and decorations and then the Grand Illumination in Colonial Williamsburg. It was dreamy, lyrical and simply beautiful.

Sunk on Christmas Eve was a Mysteries of the Deep special on National Geographic about the expedition to find a ship that was sunk on Christmas Eve 1944 in the English Channel. Some history of the event was given and then we saw divers trying to reach the wreck.

Next was a special called The Greatest Tree on Earth. This was a really fascinating special from Great Britain about the history and the traditions of the Christmas tree, following a Tokyo family, a Lappish family, and a Brooklyn family with their Christmas preparations, and intercut with historical insights and the workings of a Christmas tree farm. They talked about the 1914 Christmas Truce and the benefit to the environment of Christmas tree farming; all three families visited big Christmas tree shops to buy ornaments made in Germany (the Finns and the Japanese went to Germany itself). The most bizarre segment showed German propaganda films from World War II, made to convince the population that everything was fine. There was a huge tree hung with Hitler ornaments and glass acorns with swastikas on them, topped with a star, under a big swastika. Talk about an unsettling sight!

The final special I watched was Christmas and the Civil War. This was quite enjoyable. Using re-enactments, it showed how Christmas went from a small religious holiday to a national celebration, following the lives of Thomas Nast, Louisa May Alcott, a plantation owner's wife, and a slave who was originally a Christmas gift to his master's wife. The only thing I found amusing was that in the scenes with Thomas Nast, a birdcage was shown in the background of his home. In those days the small bird kept as a pet certainly would have been a canary, as they were extremely popular back then. Instead shown is a small yellow budgie! Budgies were exported to Europe in 1840; not sure when they arrived in the US. It seems anachronistic. But I could be wrong.

Anyway, I plan [cross fingers] to keep these last two specials and the Christmas Lights one. Excellent watching!

Happy 30th Anniversary!

Here's some nostalgia for you.

Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, Part 1

Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, Part 2

Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, Part 3

Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, Part 4

Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, Part 5

Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, Part 6

Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, Part 7

If you love this special, buy a copy on DVD!

"On the Third Day of Christmas..." (Evening Edition)

We've been having a holly jolly holiday evening.

First it was "Muppetty." I put on John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together. Classic stuff! Love Miss Piggy's "ba-dum-dum-dum" and "Christmas is Coming" and the sweet "Peace Carol" and the Muppet Christmas story, told "straight" with specially-made Nativity characters.

Next came A Muppet Family Christmas. I actually haven't watched this in years and had forgotten most of the plot. Fozzie Bear takes all his buddies home to his mom's farm for Christmas, not knowing Mom is preparing to leave for Florida and has rented the house to Doc and his dog Sprocket (from Fraggle Rock). Meanwhile, Miss Piggy is finishing up a few publicity appearances and is heading for the farm—in the middle of a blizzard!

This is a novel Muppet special because it features all the different Muppet...families, I guess you'd call it, at the time it was filmed (1987): The Muppet Show gang, the Sesame Street crowd, the cast of Fraggle Rock, and a brief glimpse of The Muppet Babies. It's also infamous because when they released it to video (both versions), they released it in an edited version that cut out at least five minutes of the original broadcast. It's sweet, cute, and very funny to have the Sesame Street Muppets interacting with the rest and staying in character—the Count constantly counts things and Big Bird is reacts as always when the Swedish Chef tries to cook him for dinner.

The last special was Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree, based on the book by Robert Barry and first aired in 1995. Robert Downey Jr plays Willowby, a kindly wealthy man whose request for the perfect Christmas tree provides one for several others, including a cute family of mice. The story features a daffy romance between Miss Adelaide the governess (Stockard Channing) and Baxter the butler (Leslie Nielsen), and is hosted by Kermit the Frog.

Post Muppettry was Christmas night's What's My Line?/To Tell the Truth pairing. Oddly, TTTT had nothing to do with Christmas, but the WML? episode first aired on Christmas Day 1955. I particularly enjoyed this because I was exactly two weeks old the night this was broadcast! How I would have loved to have shown this to my mom and dad again! The guests were a Salvation Army band, a woman who was a regular on the panel of What's My Line? in Puerto Rico, mystery guests Peter Lind Hayes and his wife/partner Mary Healy, and finally a gentleman named Johnny Marks, whose name they didn't recognize! I guess Marks was not all that well-known in 1955!

Mr. Marks, of course, was the brother-in-law of Robert L. May, who wrote the original Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer story, and who wrote the song version of the story, not to mention several other Christmas and other songs featured in the television special of Rudolph. Cool!

CHRISTMAS BOOK REVIEW: A Book of Christmas

by William Sansom

What can I say about a book I found totally by accident after seeing it mentioned in another book I bought on a total whim? Talk about serendipity!

Written in 1968, this oversized (but not coffee table size) hardcover book is crammed as full as a Christmas turkey with old engravings, woodcuts, and paintings. Sansom's text, covers in twelve chapers, like the twelve days of Christmas, all aspects of the holiday, from origins to modern celebrations, from the happy delights of the season to its sad portion, from country to city, from prose to poetry to song. The English celebration is chiefly focussed upon, but there are also glimpses of American, European, and even Asian customs, and Dickens, food traditions, decorating novelties, Victorian delights, gift givers, the pantomime, and more abound.

In addition, the text is written in an erudite, yet delicious fashion, as quoted in a previous entry, sometimes wry, occasionally frivolous, but altogether a veritable feast of words that even the grandiloquent John Charles Daly (or even Victor Comstock) would love.

Definitely worth finding if you are a Christmas book fan!

"On the Third Day of Christmas..."

...I bought a deer!

There's a gift shop called "Love Street" ('cause the original store, in an old house, is on Love Street) that I patronize, and they sent me a birthday postcard with a $10 gift certificate to each of the three stores (one is gifts, the second—next door, another old house—is shoes and clothing mostly, and the third, another old house up the street, is their home store). Before Christmas I used the original Love Street coupon to get a Webkinz camel for Christmas (I named him "Melchior").

Today we went to both the "clothing" store and the home store. All the Christmas things were half off, so I fulfilled two wishes. At the clothing store I bought one of these log reindeer:



I've always wanted one, but even these little ones cost $30. With the sale and the coupon it was $5 and tax.

At the home store I picked up two gifts for next year and something else I'd always wanted, one of those retro "bottle brush" wreaths, which I put on the library door:



I know it's absurd and it would be $300 for something that really is useless and puts no value on the house, but I would love to put a glass window door on the library. This would look so pretty on a glass door.

Someone asked me about my library tree ornaments that I've been "creating." Here's a couple of details.

In this first photo, you can see in whole the Hallmark Dorothy ornament from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and their "reading together" ornament, and way down in the lower right is the tree from How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Here you can also see, made from Schleich animals and figures from Hobbytown, and similar figures from Richards and Michaels, Misty from Misty of Chincoteague, Lobo from Wild Animals I have Known, and Pongo from The One Hundred and One Dalmatians.

The little book under Pongo is called Kriss Kringle on a Wheel and is a miniature reproduction of a Victorian book. The feet above Misty belong to the Pokey Little Puppy Hallmark ornament and a German Shepherd representing either Leader in the classic James Garfield book Follow My Leader or Flax in Flax: Police Dog.



Below, the Hallmark ornaments are Rhett and Bonnie from Gone With the Wind and, down near the left edge, the Ernest Shepard Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger ornament. There's also Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer.

The rest are Schleich and similar figures: Flicka from My Friend Flicka, Lassie from Lassie Come Home, Bambi as a fawn from Bambi, the West Highland White terrier is McDuff, from the books by the same name, the little bit of a white seal near McDuff is Kotick the white seal from The Jungle Book. The blue robe you see just to the left of Flicka is Merlin the magician from The Sword in the Stone and to the left of Lassie you can just see the footwear and a little of Robin Hood.

Oh, yes, and there's Raggedy Ann as well.

Elsewhere on the tree are Zorro, little Red-Riding Hood, Elsa the lioness, Black Beauty, Curious George, Harry Potter, Cinnabar "the one o'clock fox," Hazel from Watership Down, and others.



This last photo isn't really a "Christmas decoration" as it's up all year 'round. Some years back, my cousin Deanna (who just got married!), made my mother this ceramic St. Nicholas. It was one of the things I brought home with me. How could I put him anywhere else but on the shelf with my bound copies of St. Nicholas magazine?

Presepios, Zampognari and Witches

Christmas in Italy

"On the Second Day of Christmas..."

...I shopped!

I had bows, paper, and next year's cards already, so my idea was to go to Kohl's this morning, but once I'd eaten breakfast I really didn't feel like going. Instead, I headed up to CD Warehouse on Bells Ferry to see if I could find a copy of Get Smart (which I did). On the way I stopped at CVS for more tinsel and found some small Rudolph ornaments that would fit on the back of the Rudolph tree.

From there I went to the Hallmark store nearby. They didn't have the jukebox I was looking for, but I did get two other ornaments at 40 percent off. There was a woman in the store desperately searching for the Madame Alexander doll ornament, as she collects them. The clerk very kindly called the Hallmark store at the mall and, finding they still had one, had them hold it for her. That was nice.

Next I stopped at the Town Center Linens'n'Things. It was their last two days; nothing much left. At JoAnn I bought a 12 inch tall Santa that was half off.

Once I was done there, I drove up US41, intending to go to the Kohls near Books-a-Million. There is a Hallmark store on the way, and I stopped to find they had their ornaments half off. Wow. I've never seen a Hallmark that sold their ornaments after Christmas for more than 40 percent off! I did find the jukebox here. Unfortunately, it plugs into the tree lights to work. I can't keep it next to my bed like I do the old-time radio. (When things get intolerable during the summer, I can twiddle with the dial and hear the humorous commercials and bits of music.) Also did get the View Master and the Star Trek communicator.

When I reach Kohls, the parking lot was packed and I didn't want to brave the crowd. I went to Books-a-Million instead and found a gift for someone, plus found Ace Collins' two books about the history of Christmas songs at half price.

Went into Michaels across the street and got a few copper leaves for a year-round decoration and a small container to put them in. On the way back down 41 I stopped at Walgreens and then again at CVS closer to home, gathering half-price things here and there to put away for next year.

Had lunch and settled in to enjoy myself. Watched "Dear Dad" and "Dear Sis" from M*A*S*H and then my creaky old copy of A Christmas Memory with Geraldine Page. I recorded this from Channel 24 in Macon over 20 years ago. The picture is a bit blurry and terrible, and a disgustingly huge "bug," one-sixth the area of the screen, with the channel logo and the temperature pops up every so often. But I'm glad I taped it, however static-scattered, because apparently the color version (which this is) has "vanished" and all they sell now is a black-and-white version. Wish it wasn't so chopped up for commercials and was "bugless." I know the original version must be longer, since it was made in 1966 and there were fewer commercials then (IMDb states the original is 51 minutes; I have about 44). It's such a beautifully charming story and Geraldine Page is picture-perfect as Sook.

As a chaser: A Very Merry Cricket.

"On the First Day of Christmas..." (Evening Edition)

...we celebrated!

We arrived at the Butlers about 4:30 and soon were in a happy crowd as the others arrived: the Skidmores, the Boroses, including their daughter, her friend and his sister, and the Lucyshyns. Since Colin's girlfriend was also there as well as Lin's mom, we had a full house of nineteen!

The house was full of chatter and laughter. We ate a delicious dinner of ham and roast beef, with sides of carrots and Ron's wonderful mashed potatoes, and two kinds of biscuits, and lots of other goodies. After supper we opened gifts and then spent some minutes searching for funny Christmas videos on YouTube.

We arrived home about ten o'clock, having spent time on the way home driving around looking at Christmas lights and trying to find a newspaper. We went to four places and no one had one. Why in the dickens is it so hard to find a newspaper on Christmas Day? It's just a regular daily paper. This is the fourth or fifth year in a row we haven't been able to find one. I enjoy reading the paper at Christmas; there are always nice stories.

Anyway, we chilled out by watching A Christmas Story and treating Willow to wet dog food.

"On the First Day of Christmas..."

We celebrated by sleeping in! Well, when you're an adult, this is a gift. :-)

Then we proceeded to the gifts! I had House season three, a book on identifying leaves, a Classics Illustrated version of Black Beauty (I'd told James how I loved these in the past), a Great Smoky Mountain calendar by Ken Jenkins, and a print of one of his photographs (the cutest chickadee you've ever seen). I also received a 1940s "Remember When" booklet and a little budgie from Jen, Rodney sent a book and a CD, and my cousin Debbie sent me two Rhode Island tree ornaments, a reproduction of the old Rocky Point amusement park gates and a chef doughboy with his hat labeled "Iggy's" (from Oakland Beach).

I gave James an 8GB SD card, a book about tornado chasers, Rescuing Sprite (this "from" Willow), a book about two of the "band of brothers," and the DVD set When We Left Earth.

We had biscuits with clotted cream for breakfast and I finished a Christmas project. We bought a friend an old book, but it came without a cover. Rodney collects these books and sent us a scan of the cover we needed. It was a bit battered and between James and I we "photoshopped" (actually PaintShopPro'd it...LOL) into better appearance. I tried to color print it on photo paper, but the black didn't adhere well to the glossy paper and chipped. It wouldn't have bent well anyway. So I just printed it in color on regular paper.

Now we are watching Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. This is my favorite version of the story, although several of the movies are good. Despite editing of sequences for time and the Ghost of Christmas Present comes first in the queue, this is remarkably faithful to the novel. Whole passages are repeated verbatim, and the characters sound natural reading the lines. Despite the occasional cartoon "gag," everything is played straight. Even the sequence where the Ghost jokes about Scrooge being too cheap to buy spectacles doesn't apply to nearsighted Magoo, but comes directly from the novel. There are no made-up scenes (in the dramatic sequences, anyway; the musical numbers have more latitude), like Scrooge's father appearing in the George C. Scott version and Marley being Scrooge's fellow apprentice and helping him buy out Fezziwig in the Alistair Sim version.

And I do love the musical sequences. I thought it was cool that they used the framing sequence of Mr. Magoo playing in A Christmas Carol on Broadway...I adore the Broadway song, and "Winter Was Warm" always makes me cry. When I was young and lonesome and felt left out I always sang "All Alone in the World" to myself. The music was written by Broadway veterans Jule Styne and Bob Merrill, who did Funny Girl.

Nope, it isn't all shiny and new, doesn't feature farting and peeing jokes, and isn't in 3D CGI. In fact, it's in UPA's limited animation. But it tells the story, and with joy and fun. That's worth all the computer graphics in creation.

Off to have lunch!

"All is Calm, All is Bright..."

Despite the rain. :-)

We ate at table for a change, with Skye on the table next to me (she didn't like it very much; I should have put a paper towel over the top of the cage to absorb a little of the overheard light) and Willow staring hopefully up from the floor next to James.

Tomorrow she will have wet dog food and be happier. :-)

We had turkey thigh (with enough left over for a sandwich for lunch tomorrow) along with fresh Yukon gold potatoes, and served our drinks in our winter goblets. James had forgotten something at work and we were planning to go look at lights anyway, so we grabbed our wallets—it's much too warm again for coats; it smells like primordial ooze out there again—and me the camera and headed east.

On the way home from the building we drove down Mt. Paran Road to get pictures of the "dueling houses" as well as "Mr. Inflatable's" front lawn. Came back through Vinings, Austell Road, and Ridge Road, but nothing else was all that great except for one house, and by that time it was pouring so hard we couldn't put the window down to get a photo.

We arrived home to have a slice of pumpkin tart for dessert and watch our favorite Christmas Eve movie, Mercy Mission, with Scott Bakula and Robert Loggia, followed by the Hill Street Blues Christmas episode, "Santa Claustrophobia."

Now we are watching Midnight Mass from the Vatican.

CHRISTMAS BOOKS REVIEW

• A Christmas Beginning by Anne Perry

Some years after starting two Victorian mystery series, the original Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series taking place in the later Victorian era, and the William Monk/Hester Latterly series taking place a generation earlier, Anne Perry began writing short Christmas novels involving peripheral characters in both series. The first featured a younger Vespasia Cumming-Gould from the Pitt series, the second Henry Rathbone from the Monk series, then Grandma Ellison and then Dominic Corde from the Pitt series. The newest entry, out this year, is about Emily Radley, also from the Pitt series.

A Christmas Beginning finds Superintendant Runcorn, William Monk's prickly ex-supervisor, on a remote Welsh island, trying to forget the quite unsuitable woman he has fallen in love with (she is of a higher social station and her brother treated Runcorn with contempt when he was working on a previous case). On one of his long walks, he returns to his boarding house through the churchyard and finds the murdered body of a young, vibrant young woman he saw at services earlier. As the investigation proceeds, Runcorn discovers the woman he loves is also staying on the island, and is engaged to the police inspector conducting the investigation—a man who does not have the experience to solve a murder of that kind.

I think if you are a fan of the Monk series you will enjoy this book as it sheds more information on the reclusive Runcorn.

• The Christmases We Used to Know, published by Reminisce Magazine

This is a collection of short stories and brief anecdotes about Christmas celebrations from Reminisce magazine. The stories range from the early part of the 20th century through the 1950s, with the bulk of them from the Depression and World War II eras. With the stories are a wealth of vintage photographs, both from stock and from the authors themselves. Eleven chapters address different Christmas themes like shopping, plays, decorations, all introduced by columns by the late contributing editor Clancy Strook. If you're a fan of Reminisce or Christmas memoirs, you'll love this book.

• Christmas in Pennsylvania by Alfred L. Shoemaker, updated by Don Yoder

It's Christmas Eve and there's a knock on the door. It's open to admit a hideous, furred creature, the Pelznichol or Belsnickel, who quizzes the children of the household if they have been good. He seems to know who has been bad and chastises them with a smart stroke or two with his whip. To the good children he gives candy and nuts. At bedtime the children put out dinner plates to hold their gifts, and during the night the Christkindl visits the home and leaves them a small toy or a book, an orange and an apple, perhaps some more candy—store-bought to boot!

In the 19th century Pennsylvania "Dutch," this was the normal way to celebrate Christmas. Stockings were not the custom and no one had heard of Santa Claus, except perhaps in the big city. Shoemaker's book, first printed in 1959, was the first to detail these "folklife" customs about Christmas, using diaries and newspaper and magazine accounts of celebrations. Along with the Belsnickel custom and using plates as receptacles for gifts, the book covers Christmas mumming, the various churches' objections to the newfangled "Santa Claus" custom, Christmas tree trimming, Christmas cookies and "putz" (nativity) displays under the tree...just for starters.

Great, great reading if you love learning about old Christmas customs.

Incidentally, in the afterward to this new addition, Don Yoder recommends several history of Christmas books. One of them was entitled A Book of Christmas by William Sansom. Not two days after I finished reading Christmas in Pennsylvania, I looked down at a display of Christmas books in a used book store and there on top was A Book of Christmas. It was at a very reasonable price, so of course I picked it up. I haven't finished it, but I already love it...how can you not love a book that starts thus?

     What is the colour of Christmas?
     Red? The red of toyshops on a dark winter's afternoon, of Father Christmas and the robin's breast?
     Or green? Green of holly and spruce and mistletoe in the house, dark shadow of summer in leafless winter?
     One might plainly add a romance of white, fields of frost and snow; thus white, green, red—reducing the event to the level of a Chianti bottle.
     But many will say that the significant colour is gold, gold of fire and treasure, of light in the winter dark; and this gets closer.
     For the true colour of Christmas is black.
     Black of winter, black of night, black of frost and of the east wind, black dangerous shadows beyond the firelight.
     Darkness of the time of year hovers everywhere, there is no brightness of Christ Child, angel, holly, or toy without a dark surround somewhere about. The table yellow with electric light, the fire by which stories are told, the bright spangle of the tree—they all blaze out of shadow and out of a darkness of winter. The only exception is an expectation of Christmas morning, the optimistic image of sunlight on the snow of Christmas Day and a sparkling brisk walk through the white-breath frosty air. But it only lasts a short while, and has its own dark frame, made up of the night before and the early dark of a December afternoon.