Taking a Break Since My Back is Breaking

Have put up the library tree this morning, and the decorations in the library. For a while it seemed insurmountable because there was so much clutter, which drives me mad. And the poor library tree is getting so limp, but I'm so reluctant to replace it. We've had it since we've had the house, you see, and I'm rather sentimental.

The only rule with the library tree is anything on it must have been in a book first. You can't put a St. Bernard on the tree and say it's Beethoven, because that was a movie first, even if it were novelized later. (You could put a St. Bernard on the tree and say it's the famous Barry, of the Great St. Bernard Hospice, because that was a book. I don't have a St. Bernard, though. I do have My Friend Flicka, Misty of Chincoteague, and My Dog Skip, among others.) Less than half of the ornaments were actually made as book related, and those are Hallmark ornaments: The Cat in the Hat, Where the Wild Things Are, Thomas the tank engine, etc. The rest are figures from Hobbytown or from Richard's Variety Store which represent books. A black horse is Black Beauty, a white baby seal is Kotick the white seal from The Jungle Book, a fawn is Bambi, a West Highland White terrier is McDuff, a one-legged pirate is Long John Silver. I have Merlin the magician and Robin Hood and Zorro and a girl with a horse brush who's supposed to be Dinah in The Horsemasters (or could be February Callendar, I suppose, rubbing down her pony Gorse), a rabbit that is Hazel from Watership Down and a fox which is Cinnabar the One O'Clock Fox, and even Elsa the lioness from Born Free.

Sometimes you have to "go with the flow." My Dorothy from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is the film Dorothy, with ruby slippers. The real Dorothy of the book had silver slippers. I have a sable-and-white collie for Lassie Come-Home, and really, that's how anyone today thinks of Lassie, but the seminal Lassie, the one created by Eric Knight, was a tricolor collie.

I did get the library tidier, put the Christmasy things on shelves, and put up the lighthouse. When we were at the old house, we didn't have room for a Christmas village, so I made a Christmas vignette, with a whole story behind it. I bought one of the LeMax lighthouses and then painted a big rectangular board to look like a lighthouse island with the sea around it. Bought a bag of pebbles to represent rocks at sea and on the jetties, bought some pilings with seagulls on them, and the "sea" has raised whitecaps made with dried glue ridges. The lighthouse is run by old Cap'n Andy, who in his day was a famous ship's captain. Now he keeps the light, with the help of his granddaughter Bess and his grandson Daniel, whose parents died in a typhoid epidemic. They've just come back from the mainland and Daniel is bringing in their little Christmas tree when they see someone in the dusk rowing out to the lighthouse. It is the family's old friend Edward Simpson, who is bringing the family some Christmas gifts in his dory. Cap'n Andy and Bess wait at the headland with a lantern to welcome Ed and invite him for a bite of supper.

Came upstairs to have a few peanut butter crackers. Everything was such a mess downstairs I soothed myself by tucking some Christmas "greens" into the china cabinet and then decorating the ceppo with its manger scene on the top and a woodland scene with St. Nicholas on the bottom. That made me feel good enough to go back downstairs and wrestle physically and psychologically with the containers, which got put back in the closet. Everything needs vacuuming, but it's a lot neater.

Sorted out the porch decorations from the divider decorations; took the latter upstairs on a box lid and installed the former where they belonged, so the porch looks a mite perkier, then had some milk and some chocolate and read a few pages of the November/December "Landlove," a British nature magazine.

[Later: Things didn't go as well this afternoon. Wanted to put up the airplane tree, which is a pre-lit unit. Plugged it in and it's dead. Worked perfectly for several years now, but no juice. Sighing, I went on to do the foyer tree which holds all our miniature ornaments. Guess what—the light string was dead! I don't understand. The string worked for a month, through January sixth, and was working fine when I took everything down. How it "breaks down" without being used flummoxes me. Anyway, I did want to finish decorating the foyer, so I tossed some clothes on. Stopped at Home Depot, but all they had were LEDs. I don't like their color and every string of LEDs we've bought now have at least half the lights off. So I went to Lowes and picked up a string of fifty lights.

I liked the set of thirty-five better, as it was made for single use. Now I've had to hide the plug that enables the string to be added to another light string. Modern Christmas lights are dreadful; it's so hard to fasten them to the tree. The old miniature strings had a ball you slid along the wire to clamp the light to the branch. The poor tree is all wires now. Nevertheless, it "cleaned up" pretty well, although it was a painful task. My hands get so dry from washing in the winter that the skin on the tips of my thumbs crack, and every time I put an ornament on the tree I was prickled with plastic needles or metal hooks. I hate leaving blood on a Christmas tree.

Done with that just in time for supper.]

Farewell, Thanksgiving, Hellooooo, Nurse...Uh, Christmas!

So, I've got two days here to start my Christmas decorating.

Well, it actually started yesterday, when James got the first two boxes down out of the closet for me. I always put up the window candles on the first Sunday of Advent. This means I used the two new five-candle candoliers I ordered from the Vermont Country Store a few weeks ago, carefully picking through my clear blue C7 bulbs to get the least faded ones. The two windows in the dining room get the color-changing candles, the pair of three-light candoliers go in the library windows downstairs with frosted blue bulbs, and I have three battery-operated flickering-light candles for James' "man cave" and the window of the living room that does not have the Christmas tree in it. On this day, too, each of the inside doors gets a "wreath" (most of them are actually candle rings) and there is a garland around the archway to the hall, one around the door to the deck, and one around the door to the library..

Today mostly what I did was tear down. This is more difficult than it sounds because I have to sort the Thanksgiving decorations from the general fall decorations that go up in the fall from the fall decorations that stay up all year long (except at Christmas). I don't know how things "expanded," as I haven't bought any new Thanksgiving decorations except for a tiny Blossom Bucket "Happy Thanksgiving" set of blocks, but I can't fit all the fall decorations back at the top of the Hallowe'en and Thanksgiving storage boxes, which is where they were back in September! Did my scarecrows gain weight? :-) Will have to cogitate on the problem.

But I cleared the dining room and put up the Country Pickin's Christmas shadow box in the kitchen, cleared the mantel and almost all the living room (have to bring the big bouquet of fall flowers and the bucket of autumn branches downstairs to be completely done with that), cleared near the bird cage and in the hall, cleared the divider, cleared the foyer, cleared the tchochkes out of the library—pretty much have a blank canvas now. I might have even started decorating today had I not tried to also work on the packages that need to be mailed out this week. I started with the easy ones first which meant I was doing the two most difficult ones before supper. But they're all done but one now, and that one isn't finished.

Of course I couldn't mail Christmas packages without including Christmas cards, and at least one package couldn't be sent out without a Christmas letter, so I sat about an hour working on that and getting one printed out, before going back to the clearing process.

After supper James got the rest of the high boxes down for me, and we brought the village box upstairs together. I can hardly wait to put my little 1940s Christmas village up!

Old Cities and Old Saints

Christmas in Williamsburg, K.M. Kostyal and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
This is a slim volume with glossy paper and lovely photos of Colonial Williamsburg at Christmas, including a few homemade crafts. It's simple enough to be read by a child, so what text there is is about feasting, how decorating for Christmas has changed in the city, and how they would celebrate, depending on social rank and, sadly, race. If you're a Williamsburg fan like me, you'll love the volume, but really, buy this used. It's really pricey.

Postcards from Santa Claus, Robert C. Hoffmann
This is a wonderful little volume chronicling the history of Santa Claus via postcards sent from the beginning of the Golden age of Postcards, 1880, through the publication of the book in 2002. Even back in 1880, the Victorian Santa was a spokesman for all sorts of products, but back then he was still an elfin figure, or even had some of the attributes of his forebear, St. Nicholas. There are postcards from both the U.S. and from Europe, and cards made and sent during World Wars I and II, so you meet not only Santa, but his "foreign relations," Father Christmas and Peré Noel and St. Nicholas, plus Santas in aircraft and those "newfangled motorcars" and even using an early wireless set. Between the illustrations Hoffmann offers small bits of information about the good Saint.

I found this book by accident, but am glad I did. The old postcards are fascinating and one of the messages will definitely give you a laugh.

Holiday Special Review: The Thanksgiving Treasure

Everyone of a certain age remembers the 1972 "little special that could," the low-key The House Without a Christmas Tree. It remains a fond Christmas memory along with the other Yuletide offerings of the 1970s, especially The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (which ended up being the pilot film for The Waltons), and was even parodied on a Saturday Night Live skit. Fewer people, however, remember that there were three sequels, set at Thanksgiving, Easter, and Valentine's Day, respectively.

The most memorable of these was probably the first sequel, The Thanksgiving Treasure, originally broadcast in 1973. It is now eleven months since the events of House Without a Christmas Tree, and on a excursion with her father, eleven-year-old Addie Mills meets her father's bete noire, a cranky elderly farmer named Walter Rhenquist. Earlier, Addie's father had dug a pond for Rhenquist, although James Mills advised him the pond was not in the right place. When the pond leaked, Rhenquist didn't pay James the remainder of his fee.  The two have been feuding ever since, and they have a lively quarrel at the gas station where Mills has stopped for fuel and Addie for air for her bike tires. Later, on an expedition with her best friend Cora Sue to find plants for a winter bouquet, Addie checks out Rhenquist's farm and discovers the old fellow owns a pinto mare. Addie is horse-crazy—the story opens with her ecstatic upon receiving a picture from Hollywood of Roy Rogers and Trigger—and immediately befriends the horse. But how can she visit it again if Rhenquist hates her family so much?

On the next day of school, the children are studying about Thanksgiving, and Addie takes to heart a lesson her teacher gives about making friends of ones' enemies (and of course, she can visit the horse to boot)! Since she can't get her father to invite his old enemy to dinner, she talks Cora Sue into helping her take leftovers from the Mills' Thanksgiving dinner out to Rhenquist.

This is a delightful and touching special in so many ways. People find it (as they did in the earlier special) disconcerting that the story was filmed on videotape and has that "soap opera" look. On the other hand, the fact that it was filmed in that manner almost makes it look as if you were watching a reality series and peeking into a window at 1947. The period look is so well done: the shabby but homey Mills house, with its faded wallpaper, linoleum floor, painted kitchen table and chairs, quaint parlor furniture; the school with its wooden desks and big wall of windows; the radio play that the children put on, which is so packed with the rote facts children were told then, with the children hamming it up as turkeys at the end; the sere fields of a farm town in Canada standing in for 1947 Nebraska, with Rhenquist's lonely farmhouse and an old-fashioned general store and gas pumps.

I've always loved that Addie herself is not one of those cute little moppets that so frequently appeared on television in that era (and still appear today), with cute faces, freckles, and precocious smart remarks. She is a prickly, imperfect heroine who can be unsympathetic to her best friend—"dodo" is a familiar criticism—but who underneath is a good-hearted, intelligent child whose slightly deceptive reason for befriending Rhenquist (to then befriend his horse) blossoms into a near-granddaughter relationship with the crusty codger, played with curmudgeonly perfection by character actor Barnard Hughes. There are also humorous situations, but they're not deliberately cutesy; instead it flows from the personalities of the characters (in one sequence, for instance, when Addie states to her dad that her teacher Miss Thompson has said they should make friends of their enemies, James snaps back, "Well, tell Miss Thompson to have him for dinner—boiled!" which is such a classic James Mills line), not to mention the devil's bargain Addie has to make with her pesty cousin Henry and its so-right conclusion.

Gentle stories like these don't seem to hold the attention of modern audiences much, except for a few favorites like A Charlie Brown Christmas, and it's a pity this is not a television tradition (as well as its predecessor) alongside perennial favorites like the Grinch and Rudolph. There's a videotape of this story sold under the title The Holiday Treasure, and if you happen upon one, do pick it up. If you like slice-of-life stories that can be sentimental without being sloppy, this little gem is definitely for you.

News for Thanksgiving...and Thanksgivukkah

Not only is the first full day of Hanukkah on Thanksgiving Day for the first time since 1888, but it's the sesquicentennial of Thanksgiving being a national holiday.

Thanksgiving Sesquicentennial

Menorah Lighting Planned for Plymouth Rock

Give Thanks for Old Plymouth Rock (or Plymouth "pebble")

Five Myths About the Pilgrims

Will The Balloons Fly This Year?

10 Thanksgiving Day Facts

 The True Meaning of Thanksgiving Day (and it's not shopping)

A Recipe for Thanksgivukkah

Thanksgivukkah Spawning Menurkeys

May the Light of Peace Be With You

 

Happy Hanukkah to all those who celebrate!

Happy Remembrance Day to all in Canada and the United Kingdom.

"Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few." ... Winston Churchill

Martinmas

St. Martin of Tours is most famous for the story of his cloak: seeing a shivering beggar in the cold, he used his sword to split his riding cloak in half so the poor man might have some relief. Only afterwards did he find out that the man was Jesus in disguise. Later Martin converted to Christianity and became a monk.

The St. Martin Song

There are several symbols of Martinmas besides the cloak: St. Martin's white horse (if it snows during Martinmas it is said that his white horse is riding through), lanterns (paper lanterns are a traditional decoration, or one can make them out of glass jar, and geese, which are a traditional dinner entree on St. Martin's Day.

A Martinmas Circle - Seasons of Joy

Advent, like Lent, was once a 40-day period of fasting and prayer (Sundays were excluded), and it began on Martinmas.

Wikipedia St. Martin's Day Entry

Fish Eaters.com: St. Martin's Day

Photos of St. Martin's Day Lanterns

Celebrating St. Martin's Day in Germany

What's All Saints Day...

...and what does it have to do with Hallowe'en?

All Saints Day - Solemnity of All Saints Day

Vintage Hallowe'en Things

The Vintage Halloween Website

Vintage Halloween Photographs

Vintage Halloween Collector Blog

20 Cute and Creepy Vintage Halloween Cards

19 Deeply Horrifying Vintage Halloween Costumes

Crow & Cauldron: Mostly Vintage Halloween Blog

Vintage Halloween Poetry

"Little Orphant Annie" by James Whitcomb Reilly

Autumn At Last!

Isn't that September 22, you ask?

It's the first day of meterological fall, and I can't take summer one more minute, even if it was relatively cool.

This is New Hampshire. I would trade every single day of summer for one day here:

"There's a Place for Each Small One..."

I was guest blogger today on Christmas TV History's "Animation Celebration" for Christmas in July:

The Small One

Happy Christmas in July!

I still can't believe it was time for the Hallmark ornament premiere already...the days go by so slowly, but the weeks go by so quickly.

We arrived at the store just after they opened; a man and woman were just exiting the store with a big bag, and the guy said to James, "You're late!" No, we were very, very early, as this is probably the first Hallmark ornament premiere ever that James was more eager to get to than me! The airplane this year was a GeeBee, of the color markings that Cliff "The Rocketeer" Secord flies at the beginning of the movie, and they also had an ornament of Santa Claus testing out a rocket launching kit. He also bought the Kelvin from the Star Trek reboot and the little airplane "Dusty" from Disney's upcoming sequel to Cars (called Planes, of course). And Marvin the Martian...just because. But the store was completely out of the cute little "Captain Nello's ray gun," a darling item with fins that made all sorts of retro ray gun sounds. Since we were the second people in the store, we figure the guy and the gal coming out of the store as we came in had copped every one of them.

I only bought four ornaments, but two of them were big: I got the "Steamboat Springs" "ornament" (in quotes because, really, it's too big for the tree) that plays a country version of "Good King Wenceslas" as a little train circles a mountain on one side and a steamboat paddles about in a lake on the other, and the Mickey Mouse "Band Concert." I'm not a Mickey collector, but it was a zoetrope, and I'm crazy about old motion picture machine toys. I also bought the "French hen" ornament and the Rudolph ornament. They also had a big rack of previous years' ornaments marked way down; I got a set of six miniature "International children" (although if I add any more ornaments to the miniature tree, it's probably going to collapse), the Where the Wild Things Are ornament for the library tree, and, since it was buy two half price and get the third off, another ornament as a gift.

(Maybe it was because it was early, but this was really a rather lackluster ornament premiere on the store's part. Usually they have several goodies and big pitchers of drinks or punch. Today was a cookie "cake" and two small containers of tea and lemonade.)

This wasn't getting James a ray gun, though, so after we finished at Trader Joe's, we took the most direct route to the Hallmark store at Town Center. There were lots of ray guns there, and James also decided to get a "KITT" from Knight Rider, especially as it does have William Daniels' voice. I didn't buy any more ornaments, but did get hooks and adapters, so perhaps this year our space ornaments will make sounds again (they don't work with our present string of lights), and found Hanukkah cards on discount.

Matched with an overcast sky and a breeze, it was probably the nicest July ornament premiere in years.

H A P P Y I N D E P E N D E N C E D A Y !

Midsummer's Day

I'm in my usual hibernation for the summer, but still a word about Midsummer's Day.

Despite the name, Midsummer's Day is celebrated a few days after the summer solstice. It's especially popular in northern countries that experience long winters. Shakespeare's play A Midsummer's Night Dream references the celebratory practices of Midsummer Eve and Day.

Midsummer Day in Sweden

Midsummer's Day

Midsummer Day in Lithuania

Midsummer Day and the Summer Solstice

Midsummer Day Images

Midsummer Day takes place on the Feast of John the Baptist.

The history of St. John.

NewAdvent.org history of St. John.

Best of all, tomorrow makes six months until Christmas. I could never understand why they have "Christmas in July" when the end of June is the halfway mark. :-)

Christmas Carol Redux

A couple of weeks ago I went to Barnes & Noble at Town Center, and, as I usually do, slipped into CD Warehouse to see what they had in used DVDs...not that we need anymore. I came upon the Blu-Ray version of Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. Now, I already have a copy of this on DVD, plus I bought the collected version of Christmas specials which also contains this story. But I've been in love with MMCC since its first broadcast (I don't actually remember the first broadcast; what I remember is the repeat the next year—I can clearly remember sitting on the burgundy plush sofa we had then, watching the clock, swinging my legs back and forth, and chanting "It's almost time for Mr. Magoo!" I was eight at the time.) and by the time of that second broadcast I practically had the songs memorized. (BTW, Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, not Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or A Charlie Brown Christmas, as people think, was the very first made-for-television animated special.)

Besides, it was only $10 and came with all the extras: a little commemorative booklet and an "autographed" still.

It's been sitting at the back of the sofa rather taunting me since then, and, although I really should be doing other things today, I couldn't resist putting it on. Last night I volunteered to write something for Joanna Wilson's Christmas in July 2013, and although I offered to do Mr. Magoo, it was already taken (I'm doing The Small One instead), and the combination of the two were irresistible.

The restoration is...wow. There are still a few bits of dirt on the print, but it's 99 percent pristine and the color is brilliant; in fact I had to turn the television from standard picture brightness to cinema because the colors are just so pure and bright. One of the things I've always loved about it is that, except for the framing sequence and the songs, the dialog is pretty much 98 percent directly from Dickens, and I always find myself chanting along with the best lines, including Scrooge's damning "If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population," and Marley's “Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed!" I watched it with the commentary and they talked to several of the animators and the voice artists, including Marie Matthews (who sings Young Scrooge's lovely "Alone in the World"), Jane Kean (Belle's singing voice), and Laura Olsher (Mrs. Cratchit).

(Aside: as a kid I considered "Alone in the World" "my" song. I was an only child and raised by older parents—Mom and Dad were 38 and 41 when I was born—and I never did like things my classmates did: I was more into Perry Como and Bing Crosby and Big Band than I was to contemporary music from the Beatles and Herman's Hermits; 60s fashions were anathema to me since what I really wanted was a skirt that swirled just like Loretta Young's. Miniskirts. Yuck! I felt myself not in synch with my generation a lot and "All Alone in the World" pretty much defined that loneliness.)

Sadly, there are very few extras besides the cool commentary: a couple of storyboard sequences against the final print, and Jule Styne and Bob Merrill singing the demo of "Ringle, Ringle" in accompaniment to the animation sequence, but the last is a peach, "From Pencil to Paint," showing the conception drawings and then the final cell, because it's accompanied by the lost overture music, which is absolutely fabulous. Styne and Merrill were seasoned Broadway composers (they later did Funny Girl) and each song is a gem: the opening night excitement of "Back on Broadway," the aching sadness of "Alone in the World," the menacing humor of "We're Despicable," the bright hope of "The Lord's Bright Blessing," the strong rhythm and rhyme of "Ringle, Ringle," and the plaintive song of lost love, "Winter was Warm." Even the incidentally music, often minor-key versions of the songs, is memorable. The creepy music accompaniment to the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is as chilling in 2013 as it was in 1963.

Serendipity is defined as "the art of happy accident" and this Blu-Ray version has been the best kind of serendipitous find.

It's That Time Again!

Since it's less than nine months until Christmas, could this have been far behind?

2013 Dream Book | Keepsake Ornament Club | Hallmark Cards

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We think of it here as Willow's birthday*, so there isn't much "wearin' o' the green," especially since James is mostly Scottish and I'm Italian. :-) Been watching clips of St. Paddy's Day parades this morning, and reading Facebook posts, including nostalgic photos from the Providence Journal.

I've never been much on St. Patrick's Day as an adult, though, due to the emphasis on drinking to excess, but do remember with much nostalgia the programs at school, where we danced Irish jigs and cut out shamrocks to decorate the classroom, and, in junior high school, bought and wore green carnations. And, of course, you always wore green, even if it was just a pin or an armband. Surprisingly, the Atlanta PBS stations, which were overflowing with Irish specials last year, are devoid of anything similar this year except for an upteenth Celtic Thunder rerun and a series on Catholicism. (Yo! When do we get series two of Call the Midwife?)

Kinda blank in here since Epiphany, but frankly I haven't felt much like celebrating. Been going through an emotionally difficult time at work due to the reorganization, and, tiresomely, caught the flu over Valentine's Day week, so no celebration, no decorations, and no Valentine posts. Sleeping late seems to be the chief amusement desired here.

* We actually don't know when Willow was whelped. We got her on the last week of May, and they told us she was ten weeks old, so I counted back to a date I could remember. :-)  Schuyler has the same deal: she was just a new baby when I bought her on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, so I counted back a month and picked out another date I could remember (April 23, St. George's Day and Shakespeare's birthday).

A Little Christmas Spirit for the Upcoming Sneezy Ordeal of Spring

Everlasting Christmas Movie Montage - Happy Holidays!

As the Lights Dim and Flicker

We are ending up the Christmas season where we started, watching "Merry Gentlemen" and "Silly, But It's Fun..."



Christmas at Historic Houses, Patricia Hart McMillan & Katharine Kaye McMillan
I saw this at the Colonial Williamsburg gift shop, but the price of this, a Schiffer book, with those beautiful sleek, thick pages and glorious color photographs, gave me pause. I waited until I could buy it with credit points.

If  you love historical places and love Christmas, and equally love both together, this is a tremendous, lovely book addressing historic homes and the way the curators go about decorating them at Christmastime. Twenty-seven specific homes are addressed, from the simple greens at Monticello and Colonial Williamsburg to the high-Victorian artistry Blithewold and Biltmore House. The decorations, especially in the Victorian homes, are so complicated that I could really wish for larger photos to see the details, but that would make the book heavy and cumbersome.

I was a little irritated by the text—not that it wasn't informative; far from it. But in a book of this scholarship, the typos were startling: apostrophes included when they weren't needed and not included when they were, plus misspellings.

Still, the stunning photos and the contents of the text will please most. Opening chapters address the styles of decorating based on the era, decorating colors and materials, the changing style of the decorations at Williamsburg, Christmas wreaths, and lighting methods. Every page a gem.

A Surrey Christmas, compiled by John Hudson
Britain's Budding Books did a collection of these volumes for what looks like almost every shire in England, not to mention for historical eras (A Victorian Christmas, An Elizabethan Christmas, A Regency Christmas, etc.). I picked up A Worcestershire Christmas several years back and picked up this one last year at the library book sale. The selections are a bit weaker in this one, as there are a couple of entries that only briefly relate to Christmas, but once again it's a mixed bag of excerpts from diaries, newspapers, and novels, with 1989 next to first World War memoirs and 1960 cozying up to the 1930s, children's memories of Father Christmas cheek by jowl with critiques of the workhouse, accounts of blizzards, reports from the trenches, liberally sprinkled here and there with the traditional Christmas ghost story. There's even a fillip of poetry and a recipe or two from Mrs. Beeton. Plus there's a lovely cover showing "the waits." These books are worth picking up when found for a reasonable price.

* * * * *

I must comment about the other Christmas reading this year: the usual Christmas magazines! I left "Early American Life Christmas" for last, a jolly read, and also "Victorian Home," which wasn't as magical this year, although I can't tell why. One of my nicest finds I only picked up after Christmas: a British magazine called "LandScape," which is a nature/countryside magazine. I had picked up the November/December issue along with a nice December-y companion magazine, "LandLove," but didn't realize there was a Christmas issue until I wandered into Barnes & Noble last week. This was just oozing with holiday nature: robins (in England robins are Christmas symbols rather than the American robin which is a spring symbol), reindeer, mistletoe, holly, mince pies, Christmas markets and tree farms, even recipes for windowpane cookies, how to build a sled and make a brussels sprouts wreath, and stories about a woman who makes driftwood into Christmas trees and a man who knits nativity figures. Lots of lovely photographs. Glad I wandered in B&N that day.


Sigh. And now I think it's time for me to pull the lights. :-(

Epiphany Surprises

First up—sleeping for eight whole hours! Won't get to do this again until next Sunday.

And a final Christmas treat, toast with clotted cream.

Now it was time to get back to the routine, so we were off to Kroger to buy supplies for work lunches and ordinary supplies. On the way out we spotted what was left of the Christmas things: bags of bows and rolls of wrapping paper. I hadn't intended to buy any more of either, but these bows were different: there weren't any golds and silvers, and more other colors than red and green: blues, purples, magentas, plus white. I grabbed three bags at $1.20 each.

There's a type of chocolate milk James is able to drink at Walmart, so we stopped there to get it and came out with all sorts of other things: handheld breakfasts for him, meat ravioli (you don't usually see meat ravioli), an extension cord I needed, etc., and in a big bin of marked-down Blu-Rays we found Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. So that's what I watched this afternoon after getting my bag ready for work and putting up the groceries while James retreated to the "man cave" for a bit. Looks scrumdiddlyumptious in Blu-Ray, and, I found, even slightly appropriate for Epiphany, because Veruca sings about wanting "a bean feast," which, it is believed, derives from the bean that is put into the Twelfth Night cake!

And now I'm watching The House Without A Christmas Tree again, just because (and because the music has been going through my head for ages).

Oh, look, here's an article from 2011 that talks about the film and interviews Lisa Lucas.

Twelfth Night

So I did a little bit of cleaning each day, and in the end that worked out fine. Downstairs was easiest, of course, even though I washed the floors. Finally there was a place for everything, even in the refrigerator, and that led us to Friday night. We had supper at Ken's Grill, then went to Costco for party food: barbecue chicken wings, meatballs, mini egg rolls, and meat-and-cheese spirals. Glad we went Friday night, as I think I spent all day today vacuuming. :-) (And I'd already started the vacuuming earlier in the week.)

At one point James went out to get some sodas. I kept cleaning. But I was done by 2:30, having finally "done the frog" (vacuuming the stairs), and took a shower. Then it was time to put stuff out! We finished just as Anne and Clay arrived.

Had a great night, even if the Costco meatballs were a big disappointment (very highly spiced). Anne and Clay brought a delicious ham and John and Betty brought fruit and there were cupcakes. We had chatter and chow, and the Georgia football game for a while. Charles had not been here before, so he got the nickel tour. Willow finally quit barking and started schmoozing, only to disgrace herself on the carpet and get locked in her crate for a while. Schuyler didn't seem to be happy about having a "flock" tonight, so I took her to the spare room and put on the television, but she started with the calling chirp, which meant she wanted to go back to her place. So I took her back.

We were able to get everything cleared up, vacuumed (again...LOL), and tidied in time to relax and watch some HGTV. (Really, there was nothing else good on. 500 stations and still nothing to watch.)

And so another Twelfth Night party is over.

Other Christmas Books Read This Year

One was a "repeat," A Christmas Secret by Anne Perry, previously borrowed from the library, but I found an inexpensive copy at the library book sale. Domenic Corde and his new wife, Clarice, are assigned to a country parish during the Christmas holidays, to substitute for the vacationing cleric. Of course, a murder occurs. I have reviewed this previously.

Another was one of my annual Christmas reads, the Tuckers series book The Cottage Holiday. The Tuckers were a boisterous quintet of children, sixth grader Tina, fifth graders Terry and Merry (twins), second grader Penny, and kindergartener Tom, who lived in a big house in a town called Yorkville, with a stay-at-home mom and a dad who ran a variety store with his father. The kids play, quarrel, invent projects, and occasionally solve minor mysteries, as other juveniles from 1960s children's series in most of the books, but this one has a different slant: little Penny, the frail one of the family, is basically looking for her place in the scheme of things. She knows she's not as strong as the others, but she doesn't want to be forever sitting still and being careful. She comes up with the idea of the family spending Christmas at their lake cottage, where the kids prepare for the festivities, help some farm friends, and even participate in the adventure of an abandoned baby. But all through the story Penny also searches for her own strengths. It's warm, happy, and familiar, all perfect as a Christmas read.

Others:
• Decked With Folly, Kate Kingsbury
This is part of the Pennyfoot Hotel mysteries featuring hotel owner Cecily Baxter. Mysteries seem to find her, and this one hits particularly close to home: a man is found drowned in their duck pond. Except not only has the man in actuality been murdered, but he's known to the hotel staff as a rogue who married their head housemaid some time before without bothering to tell her he was already married. Gertie the maid thus becomes the police's prime suspect.

This book series seems to be well beloved for its British Edwardian setting and its Christmas and New Year's-themed special editions. Perhaps if I'd read them from the beginning I would have enjoyed the story more, although enough was explained about the characters that I was never mystified by their pasts. But no one ever quite came to life for me and Cecily and her husband seemed to be almost too good to be true as employers. The mystery was fine; I just would have preferred more depth to the characters.

• Four Centuries of Virginia Christmas, Mary Miley Theobald and Libbey Hodges Oliver
This was a book I picked up at the Colonial Williamsburg gift shop, a simple but enjoyable read about the history of Christmas celebrations in Virginia, beginning with the stark holiday at the starving colony in Jamestown to the more festive celebrations as the colony found its footing. Theobald and Oliver chronicle the Christmas customs, food, and decorations over the years as they change or are amended to fit new eras or times of want like the Civil War. (A running theme is how the decorations at Colonial Williamsburg have changed, from greens to the "Della Robbia" period—the authors are quite pointed when they mention that in colonial times no citrus or tropical fruit would have been used as a door decoration; they were too expensive!—to the simpler modern wreaths and garlands featuring apples and greens only.) There are color and black-and-white illustrations, and many diary excerpts used, and the authors do not shy away from addressing "Christmas in the Quarters" (among the enslaved), although IMHO it was a bit glossed over.

• The Dreaded Feast, edited by Michael Clarke and Taylor Plimpton
Another buy from the Colonial Williamsburg gift shop, a collection of writers "on enduring the holidays." Again, some of these essays appear to have been written because people feel they have to conform to holiday "standards": buy the best gifts, set the best table, etc. (George Plimpton's essay was particularly tied to this syndrome, buying useless gifts for rich people who don't need them.) That isn't what Christmas is all about; it's what society has made us think Christmas is all about. Sadly, there are certain people who force others (their children especially) to conform to these standards, and for them Christmas is miserable, overspending, forced to spend time with people they dislike, with selfishness welling all around them. No one should be forced into Christmas. So I didn't mind the wry commentaries about Christmas, like Calvin Trillin talking about fruitcake, or Corey Ford's essay about the office party (do these drunken Bacchanalia still exist with today's DUI laws?), others were just sad and painful, like Augusten Burroughs and Charles Buckowski and Hunter Thompson. One question: what on earth was Mark Twain's "Susie's Letter from Santa Claus" doing in here? Anyway, glad this one was half price.

• A Kosher Christmas: Tis the Season to Be Jewish, Joshua Eli Plaut
Not only was this the most interesting book I read this Christmas, but it was one of my favorite books of the year, a discussion of the Jewish experience with the Christmas season in the United States. I was quite intrigued by the opening chapter about Jewish immigrants' experience with the pervasive holiday in the late 19th and early 20th century. Apparently German Jews celebrated the secular trappings of Christmas (trees, parties, gifts) as it was part of the society they came from; the more persecuted Eastern European Jews wanted nothing to do with the holiday, as any member of their congregation who stepped out on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day in Europe was likely to be beaten up and possibly even killed by revengeful revelers who still blamed them for the death of Christ. Once here, many Jews picked up those secular customs to fit in, while others eschewed them. Another chapter addressed the "Chinese food on Christmas" trope. The most involving chapter is about how the minor festival of Hanukkah was remade to cope with Christmas: I knew that earlier it had been a minor festival only, but I didn't realize how extensively it had been "made over." Apparently the original gift-giving time at Purim was transferred to Hanukkah so that Jewish children would not feel left out when their Christian friends talked about Christmas gifts. The final chapters talk about Jewish people doing mitzvahs (good deeds) by helping out their Christian counterparts during the holiday season, and how "mixed holidays" like "Christmukkah" and secular holidays such as "Festivus" are appealing to modern interfaith and non-Christian families. Well-written with a lot of food for thought.

Left-Over Christmas

I did get some party prep done today by cleaning out the hall bathroom, tidying up more things, and giving Willow a bath. I really need to apply myself to this, but it's a bunch of tiny little bits that need cleaning up rather than just one big thing (well, except for the kitchen, and that's James' job). I was also slightly handicapped by waking up with terrible pain in my middle and ring finger of my right hand. I have no idea why, as when I went to bed the hand was fine; I woke up with it this way. I can barely bend the middle finger past a 90 degree angle. I can type relatively painlessly, but the finger feels odd and swollen. James says I was talking loudly in my sleep last night, but as far as he knew I wasn't thrashing around in a manner in which I would have hit it. I took three ibuprofin and went back to bed for a half hour, and that didn't help.

After breakfast and some tidying, I decided to go out for a little while. I wanted to check out the clearance at the Barnes & Noble at the Avenue at West Cobb. This store usually has the best clearance items, but the pickin's were slim today. I did find the Christmas issue of a British magazine called "LandScape," which I probably won't buy in spring because gardening bores me silly, but I did want this issue because it was all about Christmas plants and animals: reindeer, mistletoe, robins...and it also had articles about sledding and change ringing (as in Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey mystery The Nine Tailors). It will be my last Christmas magazine unless I can find the December issue of "The Oldie," which is a British commentary/nostalgia magazine.

On the way back I stopped at Lowes, looking for an organizer I want to buy for the closet. Unfortunately it was too heavy for me to lift. I did get a new triple-tap for the plug behind James' recliner.

When I got home I should have been cleaning more, and, later, I did scrub the bath and then the dog, and got her bedding and towels washed. But I was scanning the DVR contents and came upon The March Sisters at Christmas, which I had recorded a month ago. This television movie, a modern-day take on Little Women, had garnered some virulent criticism, and I was almost afraid to watch it, but a Louisa May Alcott blog I read said it was not bad, so I turned it on.

Surprisingly, it was pretty good. This was a Lifetime movie, so the male casting was weak: Laurie, here known as Teddy, was a good-natured but sort of nondescript jock instead of the sensitive musician of the book, and John Brooke was a nebbish (but no worse than the Eric Stoltz version in the 1994 film). The actor playing Bhaer (here named Marcus and a book editor rather than a teacher) fared better and John Shea was an entertaining Mr. Lawrence (here Teddy's custodial uncle, not his grandfather).

The sisters were updated in the spirit of the 21st century: Meg, a law student, and John (her college classmate) were not chaste; Jo ghostwrites celebrity twitter feeds rather than penning blood-and-thunder tales; Beth is a superlative pianist who is shy of the goals her family wants her to achieve; and Amy is an updated version of the brat she is in the book, a girl who is familiar with partying and using a fake ID.

The pivot around which the story revolves is that their parents plan to sell the family home (called Orchard House like the real Alcott homestead, which is seen briefly at the beginning of the film) after Mr. March, a war correspondent, is hurt, and they cannot afford to have the decrepit home remodeled. The sisters decide to do the work themselves while their mother is off helping with the father's recovery, and Teddy and John endeavor to help them. Basic Little Women plot points are touched on: Amy does something stupid in revenge for Jo's criticism and she and Jo quarrel, Jo tells Teddy they are best friends and nothing more, Marcus tells Jo her real writing (she accidentally e-mails him her generational novel instead of a prospectus to ghostwrite a young singer's "autobiography") is better than the crap that is earning her money, etc. The only thing that doesn't happen is that Beth does not meet the same fate as in the book. So the prospect of Laurie being a hunk or Meg and John having sex might horrify you, but it is pretty well translated to 2012. I enjoyed it.


An Old-Fashioned Christmas, Rochelle and Nicholas Pennington
This is the "nostalgic book" I bought at Bronner's last year, a picture and text remembrance of Christmases past, from 1930 through 1960. Black-and-while photographs and color and black-and-white ads and other illustrations (including the inevitable Norman Rockwell) illustrate the warm memories of home-cooked meals, home-baked cookies, hard times softened by love, gatherings, and Christmas celebrations, going to church, assemblies at school, playing in the snow, listening to radio programs. A whole bunch of cozy wrapped up in hardcover. Comes with a CD of the "Billie the Brownie" radio program from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

And A Phone-y New Year...

"Fast away the old year passes....hail the new year lads and lasses..."

James did it all Sunday night: prepared his lunch for work, made his tea, got his clothes out. (I whiled away the end of the night watching the beginning of Jurassic Park: The Lost World, which was just as stupid as I remember. Yes, take the bleeding baby T-Rex back to base camp, so the parents can track you down and destroy everything. Then continue wearing a shirt with the baby T-Rex's blood spattered on it so the parents can continue to track you. And these are supposedly the smart people!)

The one thing he forgot was to turn the alarm clock back on.

So he woke with a start at 7:15 a.m. (his day starts at 7:30, but he needs fifteen minutes just to log on the computer), gave an almighty shout, and grabbed his phone to call in to tell his supervisor he'd be late. Well, they've been sending people home early because there's barely any work at Christmas, so his boss said he could come in, or he was free to take the day off.

So we went back to sleep.

Serendipity anyway, since we had some errands to run: he had prescriptions waiting at both Kaiser and Kroger.

And finally we were fed up enough to take our new phones back to Verizon and tell them they had to do something. James' phone was still rebooting pretty much every time he plugged it into the charger and has been rebooting in the middle of phone calls and when he tries to answer the phone or hang up. Mine locked up most of the time when plugged into the car charger (like when I was using the GPS, but once I had it plugged in, just charging, and it kept rebooting). Plus my nap timer had quit "alarming" and I couldn't use the stock clock alarm because it would ring all right, but the pop up to dismiss/snooze wouldn't come up, so you'd have to reboot the phone to get it to shut up. A lot of times the phones would get so messed up we would have to pull the battery.

Well, Verizon was sympathetic, but did mention that if they sent us replacements they might be used. We suspected our phones had come from a batch with connector problems; what if we got "new" ones with the same problem? The salesman told us we might have better luck if we called Customer Care directly. So we came home and chatted online with one rep, and then called another. The second rep said that since we bought the phones on Black Friday, we had a different guarantee; through January 15 we could return them for new units, and she would annotate our file to state so.

So back we went to Verizon and they tried again to get us a complete return. They finally had to do something complicated with refunds to get it to go through. However, we finally got home with replacement new phones just in time to fix a little something for a small dinner. We didn't want to eat a lot because we knew we'd be grazing at the party. I should have just left the phone in its present state—that it actually made phone calls—but I messed with it so long that I barely had time to take a few Ibuprofin to combat the headache that the oncoming storm was pushing my way and lie down if only for few minutes.

So we packed up our goodies about 8:30 and headed off to the party. We had a great time! Had conversations about meeting celebrities, this year's crop of movies, etc. Finally met the youngest member of the Baskin clan, little John, who was clad in knit trousers with a TARDIS on one leg and a Dalek on his backside. Sampled a little of each of the dishes, which included shrimp potstickers, sandwich fixings, baked ziti, sweet potatoes, and lots of different desserts. Peeked into the media room, where they were showing "The Snowmen" (moved on because we haven't seen it yet). At about 11:50 I snagged two cups of cranapple juice and met James in a doorway and we kissed in the new year together.

Stayed for over another hour and finally wended our way home. The streets were dark and quiet save for a few bars still celebrating the new year. Lots of Christmas lights still up and still on, so we could enjoy those. Wasn't tired when we left Bill and Caran's house, but was getting heavy-eyed by the time we walked back into the house. Nevertheless, started talking with Schuyler and messing with the phone, with the result that we didn't go to bed until about 3:30. Neither of us can take this sort of thing anymore. We woke up this morning at ten feeling hung over—and neither of us had anything alcoholic! So we made our apologies to Juanita and David—we'd been invited over to watch the Georgia game—and went back to bed for an hour or more. Thankfully, I had programmed the Tournament of Roses Parade into the DVR and the light rain had not smothered the satellite signal. James and I both got up feeling headachy and shellshocked.

Lots of gimmicks in the parade this year, most of them sweet. A couple got married on a float. Some teenybopper named Coco finished off the parade with a song. The HGTV float not only had a model of the new "Dream House" on it, but contained two penguins.

The capper was the Pedigree-sponsored float, which had a model of the monument that is to be built in Washington, DC, dedicated to war dogs. A soldier on the float was supposedly still in Afghanistan, and his wife and four-year-old son had been told they won a contest to come to the parade. They didn't know he was on the float, so when the wife and son came forward to get the "award," they were really surprised! The little boy charged forward and was tossed up in Dad's arms. ::sniffle::

Oh, and Jane Goodall was the Grand Marshal!

Afterwards put on Rudolph's Shiny New Year, and then the first episode of the 1975 Ellery Queen series, which takes place on New Year's Eve 1946. This was a great show, with Jim Hutton as an adorable, tousel-haired, absent-minded but sharp Ellery, and David Wayne as an acerbic and often grumpy Inspector Queen, with a super period setting. And, yeah, messed around more with the phone. It seems to be working better than the previous one. We'll see. I'm loading podcasts back on it. Again.

[Later: James went down to the "man cave" for a bit and I rewatched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. For supper we had some of our homemade turkey soup with whole-wheat gnocchi. And then it was time for our yearly New Year's Day viewing of Galaxy Quest. We have pretty much watched it every year since we saw it at the movies on New Year's Day 2000.]

Best Wishes for 2013!

A Weekend of Christmas and Toast

Despite the grey sky and the cold wind yesterday, it was a warm day: we drove down to Warner Robins to spend Christmas with the family. We grabbed breakfast from Chick-Fil-A—yay, oatmeal and fruit!—and had a uneventful ride. Traffic was brisk, but not backed-up; lots of Floridians heading home from Christmas festivities.

Had a great time at Mom's house. We sat and chatted, then went out to lunch at Cheddar's. We had a good time, but the server was rather sulky and I have to admit I didn't like the food. The "beef" I ate looked more like pork and was greasy; so were the tortilla chips. I was feeling queasy when we finished.

After lunch we exchanged gifts and then sat about having a nice chat until the sun started to lower in the sky. We literally did "ride off into the sunset." I tried to drive the whole way home, but had to give up by the time we got to the Tanger Outlets. Just after James took over, we ran into traffic. Gah. It was a "mystery jam," and cleared up completely just before the freeway split off into two parts.

We were home around nine o'clock, relieved at being off the freeway, as there was just as much traffic going north as south. Jen logged on to chat for a little while, but she had just gotten back to Norfolk and had duty the next day. Later Emma came on.

Despite wanting to be up early, we were both slugabeds this morning, I more than James. I was having low-level stomach cramps all morning and was pretty grumpy most of the day. We didn't go out until after noon. We were heading to Discover Mills to check out their annual calendar store.

Surprise! When we got there, we found out two things: the mall has been renamed Sugarloaf Mills (it's off Sugarloaf Parkway) and the Johnny Rockets we usually eat as is gone. (Has the chain gone out of business? All the others in the area are closed, too.) So we had to eat at one of the mall-quality restaurants. Eh.

The place has actually gotten dull. Just like the mall, lots more clothing and shoe places, fewer unique shops like the furniture places that used to be there. The Christian store is gone, too. We did go into Bass Pro Shops and get a few things, checked out the Lego store, bought a couple of things at the Disney Store, did find the calendar store only to find out they were out of the calendar James wanted (but I did cop the last small Susan Branch calendar) and finally ended up in Books-a-Million to check out the volumes and have a hot chocolate.

On the way home we stopped at Aldi for a few groceries, and Publix for a few more. We were planning to nosh for supper, but we found some chicken legs in Aldi and cooked them up, a nice easy meal. While the chicken was cooking, we made toast.

I have to explain: ever since I read A Discovery of Witches last year, I've been jonesing on toast. I swear the book bewitched me. Aldi had wheat bread really cheap. I bought a loaf and we had toast before our chicken legs. :-)

The Christmas episode of Call the Midwife aired on GPB tonight as part of another endless fundraising segment; however, they didn't  interrupt it. It was a sweet story about two women who had lost children, as well as Chummy's efforts to direct a Nativity pageant.

Christmas After All

We had a very nice and quiet Christmas morning and early afternoon.

Since we'd been up late last night, we had a nice sleep-in, and then we had presents. I had given James some DVDs, a Jane and Michael Stern book, another book by Travis Taylor, and a cover for his Galaxy Tab. I had the CD "Colonial Christmas," three books (Farmer Boy Goes West, Hit by a Farm, and The Making of Call the Midwife), and the set of new Rick Steves episodes. Then James made biscuits and bacon for breakfast. I had mine with clotted cream, which is a British treat: like butter on steroids. We didn't have to be anywhere until after three, so we sat and relaxed, gave Schuyler some orange and Willow a giant dog biscuit, read a bit, and watched my other favorite Christmas movie The House Without a Christmas Tree, the story of young Addie Mills' effort to get her embittered father to buy her a tree. I love spunky Addie, who is the child of my heart: smart and proud, if a little bossy and opinionated. We also watched Rankin-Bass' classic The Little Drummer Boy, and the Cary Grant/Loretta Young/David Niven vehicle The Bishop's Wife, a neglected classic. I understand Grant hated the role, but he was perfect as an uncanny angel who teaches several people, including the titular bishop, about the important things in life.

It was clammy and raining all day, with damp that crept into your bones; while James made the final prep of the corn casserole and the green beans we were taking to the Christmas gathering at the Butlers, I retreated into the spare room to beat off a headache.

Then we went to dinner. Maybe it was sopping wet outside, but it was warm within, and full of light and laughter. We exchanged gifts, had a dandy dinner, and talked about divers things.

It was a good thing we had such a nice morning because when we got home it was raining so hard it knocked out the satellite signal. It hasn't done that in ages. This means we completely missed the Doctor Who Christmas special. Phooey.


Sleigh Bells for Windy Foot, Frances Frost
Series books about resourceful kids were a staple of libraries in the 1940s through the 1970s. This book was part of a limited series of four novels about Toby Clark, a 12-year-old boy growing up on a dairy farm in Vermont, and his dapple-grey pony Windy Foot. The books were written in the late 1940s and 1950s, and children and adults today might be startled at the independence and energy of rural children then: Toby shovels snow, helps with farm chores, rebuilds a sleigh, snowshoes and skis, gathers greens for Christmas with his little sister, and still has time—and energy!—left for artwork, supplying wood, sleighing with a special friend, Christmas shopping, and popping corn and cracking nuts, with little assistance from "helicopter parents." Indeed, it is Toby's courage that saves the farm animals from a threat on Christmas Eve.

While the pony is an integral part of the story, he's no wonder equine, just a beloved pet involved in the farm family's homely preparations for Christmas: decorating the house with greens and a hand-cut tree, baking treats, caroling and buying gifts in town. The farm chores continue even during the celebration and an unexpected birth provides a surprise. Yet Frost makes the workaday experiences and the small celebrations so joyful you will wish your work was as fulfilling and you could join the Clarks and friends at their annual Christmas night party.

"His Coursers They Flew..."

How Santa got his reindeer - CNN.com

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL
FROM
LINDA
JAMES
WILLOW
AND
SCHUYLER!

Then One Gloomy Christmas Eve...

James left for work at an ungodly hour, leaving me to snuggle back under the blankets. It was refreshing. I didn't get up until 8:30, which is a habit I could get into oh-so happily. :-)

I arose to a pewter grey sky and rain, with wet birds still making a rush at the feeder. I was toying with the idea of eating breakfast and going out to Michaels and World Market (I had coupons). But it was wet and damp and I've done so much shopping it's just become a bore.

I did decide to wash the towels, and cleaned out the bathroom a bit, later vacuumed some, but most of the day I was watching Christmas specials. James arrived home sometime after eleven—he said they were even less busy than they were on Friday—and pretty much disappeared into "the man cave" soon after, for a sortie with his airplanes. This suited me fine, since he doesn't like the first two specials I watched anyway: Christmas Is and The City That Forgot About Christmas. These were both produced by the Lutheran Church, featuring pre-teen Benji and his sheepdog Waldo. In the first story Benji chafes at his role of "second shepherd" until he goes back in time to an inn at Bethlehem. In the second, his grandfather tells him and a buddy the story of an unfeeling town that learns about the spirit of giving. Apparently the title song in the first special was so popular that it was featured on the radio.

Next I switched to some VHS tapes because DVDs just don't exist of this stuff. The Night Before Christmas is an animated cartoon from the early 1970s featuring the voice of Olan Soule, once a radio staple, as Professor Clement Clarke Moore. Before going to a conference, he promises his older daughter Charity "a book about Santa Claus" as a gift, but isn't able to find one. He arrives home to find her seriously ill and pleading for the story in her fever. So he sits down and writes it for her. The animation is limited, but it's notable for making a good attempt to portray the Moores' 1822 world: Gretchen the cook prepares food over a fireplace, Moore rides to the conference in a stagecoach and the characters all wear period clothing except for little Clement, who is shown in overalls, when a boy his age in 1822 would still be in skirts like a little girl. The songs are nice, and "A Visit from St. Nicholas" is the same Ken Darby arrangement used for years on the Fibber McGee and Molly radio show.

A change of pace was the animated special Simple Gifts, which aired on PBS in the 1970s. There is an introductory segment, plus six stories, each done in a different animated style. Some are funny, others are touching: a reminisce from Moss Hart, a comedic story of the "Toonerville Trolley," a short memory from 11-year-old Theodore Roosevelt, a retelling of the Christmas Truce of 1914, and finally R.O. Blechman's "No Room at the Inn," a satirical retelling of the first Christmas. The most remembered segment is a daintily animated version of a segment of Virginia Woolf's Orlando, where a young Englishman participating in a Frost Fair on the iced-over Thames River falls in love with a Russian girl.

My final VHS was Christmas Around the World, a compilation of Perry Como Christmas specials: Williamsburg, French Canada, Paris, Mexico, Vienna, and the Holy Land.

For supper we had the baked rigatoni dish we bought at the Farmer's Market, with a cucumber salad.

After the news we watched Mercy Mission, based on the true story of a small plane lost over the Pacific just before Christmas and the airline pilot who helped find him, and The Homecoming: A Christmas Story.

 
Christmas After All, Kathryn Lasky
This is my favorite of all the "Dear America" books I have read, because the characters seem so real to me, possibly because Lasky based them on her mother and aunts and uncle, and on the real house her grandparents lived in.

The Swift family is facing a grim Christmas. The Depression deepens weekly and Sam Swift is in danger of losing his job. The book's narrator, eleven-year-old Minnie, who idolizes Amelia Earhart, thinks that instead being of the time of plenty Christmas always is, the Christmas of 1933 will be a season of dwindling, with the family continually needing to close down rooms of their home to save on the coal bill and eating an endless succession of au gratin main courses and aspics to cover the fact that they can barely afford meat for the table.

The book opens with the arrival of a telegram that will change their lives: their orphan cousin Willie Faye Darling is being sent to them via train from a little town in Texas. Even though she is another mouth to feed and body to clothe, Sam and Belle Swift welcome Willie Faye into the family. Minnie finds her extraordinary: she's never seen a movie, doesn't know who Buck Rogers is, and owns only two pairs of underwear and a cat, which she explains to the astounded Swift family, that she had to suck the dust out if its nostrils three times a day to keep it from smothering in the Dust Bowl conditions of her home town. Willie Faye knows so little, Minnie thinks, that she will have a lot to learn from the Swifts. She doesn't realize that the family will learn some precious truths from this undersized refugee as the two girls cope with making Christmas gifts when they have no money, dealing with a tragedy that happens to a classmate, and finally facing a startling event in their own home.

I think this is a magical book. It reminds me of some of the stories my mom told about the Depression, and I love some of the offbeat characters, like Minnie's older sister Lady, a creative rebel who can work magic with fashions, and her genius brother Ozzie, who builds radio sets and helps his older sisters with their science homework. The only thing that mars the book is a bit of a fairy-tale epilogue. A worthy tale to add to any Christmas library.

A Christmas Story Sunday

We did get up this morning and go to BJs. We didn't get there exactly when they opened, but there were still parking spaces up front—good enough! They still aren't carrying Brawny paper towels, but we did find the other items, and a nice container of Romano cheese, which we also needed, and James got Tom Clancy's newest book with a coupon. The Christmas air of the store is now greatly diminished and January magazines are already on the stands.

We packed all the things in the truck and then headed west, intending to go to the Books-a-Million in Acworth, as we had a 20 percent off total purchase coupon. I thought we might pick up a few future gifts. Instead of taking the freeway, we just continued on Highway 92; the businesses dwindled and soon we were in the country. Before we got to Lake Allatoona, we detoured and went through downtown Acworth, to emerge just south of the shopping center with Books-a-Million.

Sadly, I found only one item for someone else, and three books for me! (One was a bio of Judi Dench, plus there was Kenneth Davis' A Nation Rising, and also The Lexicon.) James also bought some gifts and only bought magazines for himself. By this time it was after noon, so we went across the parking lot and had lunch at Panera Bread.

Finally came home through a relatively-deserted Mars Hill Road, stopped at Kroger for milk and a newspaper, then went on home. Wow, a whole Sunday afternoon to relax—we don't know what to do with it.

Well, I had done something I'd been thinking about for a while, even though it cost me a few extra dollars. My Christmas DVD collection is getting a bit crowded, and I had noticed that someone has put almost all the Rankin-Bass Christmas specials (except for Little Drummer Boy, Book II, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, and The Story of the First Christmas Snow) on two DVD collections along with a few other Christmas specials. If I bought these two collections, it would take up less space and I would get some additional specials. They were pretty cheap at BJs (one was on a coupon), so I took the plunge.

I hadn't yet watched Santa Claus is Coming to Town this season, so I watched that off the first disk of "The Original Christmas Classics." This has a lively soundtrack, and I have always loved the closing words S.D. Kruger gives about Santa Claus: "…but what would happen if we all tried to be like Santa and learn to give as only he can give, of ourselves, our talents, our love, and our hearts? Maybe if we could all learn Santa’s beautiful lesson...maybe there would finally be peace on earth and goodwill toward man."

Sadly, I know the version of Little Drummer Boy that goes on this disk—it is missing parts of the soundtrack—so I didn't play it. (The videotape is complete, so I'll play that instead.) And we had watched Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol the other night. So I went to the second disk and skipped Rudolph, which we'd already watched as well, and put Frosty the Snowman on. I haven't watched this in years. It's really not one of my favorites, although Jackie Vernon is cute as the snowman who says "Happy birthday!" every time he comes alive. The disk also has Frosty Returns and The Cricket on the Hearth.

The other collection is"Classic Christmas Favorites."  This has the remastered version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which I'd been wanting, since we have the version where the Grinch is yellow for half the show. This also included three Rankin-Bass specials I hadn't seen in years: The Leprechauns' Christmas Gold, Pinocchio's Christmas, and The Stingiest Man in Town. The leprechaun special is rather pedestrian, with a passel of stereotypical Irish types on an island full of leprechauns and a banshee. I can only surmise that Rankin-Bass were running out of ideas for Christmas specials by then. :-)

Pinocchio's Christmas is interesting because, in a Christmas wrapping, it tries to use situations from the original Collodi novel that Disney excised: Gepetto's wig, the origin of the log that became the puppet, Pinocchio selling his schoolbooks and burying the money at the Fox and the Cat's connivance, Master FireEater being the one who has the puppet show. It even shows Pinocchio being rude to the Cricket (who, of course, is not named Jiminy!) and throwing a book at him, although of course he is not killed as in the book. It appears to be a "midquel," as when the Blue Fairy shows up (in the carriage drawn by mice, just as in the book), she hints at Pinocchio's future being turned into a donkey and being swallowed by the whale.

The Stingiest Man in Town has an interesting history. It was a musical Christmas Carol originally written in the 1950s for an Alcoa Hour broadcast which was about 90 minutes long, and Basil Rathbone played Scrooge. This has been one of television's "Holy Grail" performances for years and this year a copy of the original special was resurrected for DVD. But in 1978, Rankin-Bass did a 52-minute version with Walter Matthau as Scrooge. It kept most of the celebrated songs, if it did add a stupid bug ("B.A.H. Humbug," voiced by Tom Bosley) as the narrator. The music is quite good, if the special itself is rushed to cram so much material in a smaller time slot, and Matthau is surprisingly effective as Scrooge.

(The other disks have: The Year Without a Santa Claus, Rudolph's Shiny New Year [which I will watch next Monday], and Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey; Frosty's Winter Wonderland and 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, the latter which I watched after Scrooge was redeemed yet again; and Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July [which is a dead bore and I would have preferred Life and Adventures of Santa Claus myself! but one can't have everything.])

Finally I put on A Christmas Story while we had supper: boneless pork ribs in a ginger sauce with rice. Ralphie and his family never fail to put a smile on my face.

 
A Very Magical Christmas!
Not really a book, but a magazine that I was delighted to find on the newsstand! It has "Norman Rockwell" emblazoned all over the cover, but is really a collection of many different artists' memorable "Saturday Evening Post" covers with commentary about each of them. Magical!

Surprise on Friday

Seventeen whole days of "weekend editions" start today. But first...some sleep!

My original idea was to bake cookies, but I also wanted to go to Richard's. Richard's Variety Store at Peachtree Battle shopping center is the closest place left to a five-and-ten left in the Atlanta area. The store goes back to the 1950s, and probably was a real five-and-ten way back when. It still has the old brown checked linoleum floor, and even has a 25 cent horse ride. You can't get clothes there any longer, but they have greeting cards (some rather naughty), books, toys, lots of stuffed animals. novelties, and even housewares where you can get bakeware and notions from mouse traps to light bulbs. They also have one whole aisle of seasonal stuff which, at this time of year, is Christmas.

I figured perhaps I could go when they opened and then get home in time to bake, but was disabused of that notion by a late breakfast and the traffic on West Paces Ferry Road (LOL...not to mention what happened on Saturday, but that's another story). I really shouldn't have gone down West Paces Ferry, as it is a main road into Buckhead and the shopping thereof, but I wanted to see the fine homes all dressed for Christmas: window wreaths and door wreaths in red and green or in gold and silver. Traffic was slow enough that I could see all the details!

Since I was late getting into town anyway, I stopped at the Buckhead Barnes & Noble, and this was a fortuitous thing: I had planned to get a certain book as a Christmas gift for Aubrey's friend Isabel, who wants to go into law enforcement and become a forensic pathologist, but I found an even better book about forensics there! Plus on the way out I found a cute kids' game. I bought both and then marched next door to Publix to put the game into the Toys for Tots collection box.

James called me just as I was about to get in line: they had let him out early. I told him I was on my way to Richard's and why not meet me there, and then we could go to lunch together (he had a discount coupon for Olive Garden that's been burning a hole in his pocket)? Well, the traffic was so bad he never made it to Richard's; he just went directly home, while I spent a nice half-hour wandering around the little store. They put in some extra "novelty" type gift books in this year, some of them quite rude! Plus lots of little gadgets like flashers for when you walk in the dark, USB lights, etc. The Christmas aisle had a bin of hand-blown glass, boxes of ornaments, garland, tinsel, and even boxes of large and small Christmas crackers, and of course lots of multicolor wrapping and bows.

Then I headed home, and together James and I went to lunch at Olive Garden. Truth to tell, we were a little disappointed. We haven't been to Olive Garden in a while, at least a year, maybe even two, preferring to eat at Giovanni's. We first noted the lunch menu was rather limited as compared to the past, and the lunch prices were more like we remembered at dinner! We had the gnocchi soup with the beef short ribs and mushrooms. The soup was only lukewarm, and each of us only had three gnocchi in the bowl. The beef came with tortelloni and it was all good, but there was remarkably little beef. For dessert we had one of the chocolate mousse dolcini dishes, small and chocolatey and just the right size. Everything was good, but not really outstanding—except our waitress. We had a good waitress and tipped accordingly.

On the way home we stopped at Publix to check out the twofers. They have Hallmark items two for one so we also wanted to stock up on some cards.

Came home to check the mail and feed and walk Willow, and then around five o'clock turned around, with the back seat of my car stuffed with gifts, and went to the "Apocalypse Game Night" and gift exchange at the Lawsons. It's about time all this idiot furor about the Mayan calendar predicting the end of the world came to an end!

It was a great night: we sent out for pizza and did gifts—Isabel did like hers!—and there was the greatest reaction out of Aubrey when she saw the two drawing pads and colored pencils that was our gift: "Look at this wondrous blank page! Do you not see the marvelous things that could be drawn here!" I was catapulted back to the days when I wandered the stationery aisles at Newberry's and at Thall's Drugs and at Douglas Drug looking at the composition books and imagining all the stories I could write in them! Later we did play some games: a game of Big Bang Theory Uno, a Big Bang trivia game, and a couple of games of Cranium, which ended up with Terry (a male friend of the girls) acting out all the charade cards. By the time we finished we were exhausted from laughing.

We were home very late and after giving Willow a last walk and a pat and kissing Schuyler, went off to bed to dream our Christmas dreams.

A Kringly Weekend

Christmas is a comin'—which means extra mornings for sleeping late!

Hey! When you're my age, that's a gift.

I'd actually expected the lawn guys yesterday morning or this morning. Hmn. Whatever. The lawn hasn't grown an inch anyway. However, I did have to wait for UPS to pick up James' Amazon return; he ordered what was supposed to be a "complete" anime set, but what he got was only the first disk. While I was waiting, I started to dub off the Advent and Christmas episodes of Feasts and Seasons of the Church (and cleaning the bathrooms). This is a show hosted by Joanna Bogle, who is a conservative Catholic from England. This particular series has an episode from before Advent starts, all four Sundays of Advent, and then celebrating after Christmas through Epiphany. She talks about the various saints' days in the interim, practicing faith, and throws in a recipe each show. (There are also six shows for Lent and six shows for summer through Michaelmas in September.)

I had gotten through three of them when UPS arrived. I'd wanted to go up to JoAnn today, so I passed the package on, finished up with that episode, and then grabbed my coupons and went. The Michaels and JoAnn at Town Center are now only separated by a parking lot, so I hit Michaels first and bought some sale ribbon, then went to JoAnn. Had to make two circuits because three things I was going to use coupons on were already on sale. Luckily, I made that second circuit, because I found a perfect gift for two different people. I bought one for each of them. And at half price!

From there I was just headed for home, and it took me ten minutes just to find a way out. When I'd gotten to Town Center, traffic was just like any other Friday. An hour and a half later when I emerged, the crazy Christmas shoppers had come out of the woodwork. No matter which way I went I ran into a long line of cars heading either for another part of the shopping centers complex or turning left toward the mall. Finally, a dedicated right turn opened up where it had not been a few minutes earlier when an inconsiderate idiot getting into the left lane blocked the right lane with his car. I got out of there like a shot, had a nice drive home through the park, and, once there, finished dubbing off Feasts and Seasons.

Ate at home tonight and then headed out to the movies. Since it was opening weekend for The Hobbit, we figured we would have better luck trying to see Lincoln tonight and seeing The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey on the earliest show the theatre offered. Well, here we arrived at the movies, on a Friday night, and there were three people in line. We were flabbergasted. The Hobbit started in ten minutes, and we just walked in and found a seat; I don't think there were twenty other people in the theatre.

Anyway, we enjoyed the movie very much, although I thought they could have left out the Three Stooges trolls. Martin Freeman was adorable as always and I finally sorted through the dwarves, but my favorite part was Sylvester McCoy playing Radagast. No matter what role he plays, he never quite gets rid of that lovely Scots burr.

James had to work Saturday, so he left home about seven and I slept in until eight, then had breakfast. I was toying with going to Books-a-Million, but we have coupons there until the end of the year. So instead I went to the Avenue at West Cobb to see if I could find something to use one of two Barnes & Noble coupons on. Couldn't find anything I was looking for. I did drop in to the Yankee Candle for a minute and picked up a packet of their Balsam and Cedar scented icicles for the Christmas tree. Then I stopped by Hair Day for a few hours, just to see everyone. Brought Mel and Phyllis' Hanukkah gifts—Phyllis got a kick out of hers; a plaque that said "I'm still hot! It just comes in flashes"—and talked with Alex a while about finding a Charlie Brown tree and with Mel about Android apps.

I'd toyed with the idea of baking cookies this afternoon, but by the time I left Hair Day it was too late, especially since we had to leave the house posthaste when James got in. So I came home to finish a gift (sadly, it didn't turn out as nice as I wanted) and dub off Castle episodes. I got four of them done, which takes a little of the burden off the DVR. By then James was home, and Willow was walked, and we headed out for my belated birthday dinner, at the Colonnade, of course. It was a nice chilly night for a ride into town, and of course the restaurant was packed when we got there, but because there were only two of us, we had a seat in not too long. We had an excellent waitress and gave her a good tip!

Of course I had the turkey, and so did James! I had applesauce and cucumber salad to go with mine; their applesauce is outstanding and not overly sweetened. Unfortunately the vinegar in the salad dressing made me sick for the rest of the night.

From the Colonnade we went to the performance of An Atlanta Christmas at the Academy Theatre. This year ARTC was presenting all the humorous skits, including two new ones. I still think the pirate skit is dopey, but then I'm not a pirate fan. The Academy Theatre folks did two short plays, the funny A Cthulu Christmas and the touching Rosie the Retired Rockette about an elderly woman living in a rest home being visited by her daughter and two granddaughters at Christmas. I quite loved the latter.

Instead of going home through the freeway, we cut back through town and drove home as we used to so many years ago when the Phoenix Science Fiction Society met at the old Virginia-Highlands branch of the library on Saturday nights, up North Highland Road, and then turning down Morningside and going through "little" Lenox Road (as opposed to the larger end of Lenox Road with the mall and all the condos) back to Cheshire Bridge Road, to see all the pretty light displays in the old houses: mock Tudors and stone-fronted cottages and the occasional small apartment building. The guy on Morningside Drive still has his seven-foot spotlighted Grinch flat! (Sadly, the house next door wasn't lighted up to make it funnier.)

Home finally to the fids' relief.

Today was a bit quieter. It was a mucky day, dissolving into rain and chill, but we had Christmas carols on "Holiday Traditions" to keep us warm. We ran out to Kroger and got home just in time to make a run for the movie theatre one more time to catch Lincoln. There were, even on a rainy, bleak, clammy gray Sunday, even fewer people at the movies. This time there might have been half a dozen people in the theatre when we sat down.

This is a fabulous movie. It was costume drama done right, with homely scenes like Lincoln sitting in his bedroom with his stocking feet propped up talking to "Molly." Daniel Day-Lewis was an uncanny Lincoln and Sally Field captured the emotionally fragile Mary Todd to perfection. The film covers the last four months of Lincoln's life, mainly of his fight to pass the 13th Amendment to the Constitution and the wheeling-dealing that went on behind that. Tommy Lee Jones was quite notable as Thaddeus Stevens as well. I didn't believe that was Joseph Gordon Levitt playing Robert Lincoln; he's come a long way from Third Rock from the Sun! I loved such touches as the rooms being dark to simulate gaslight; only rooms with large windows on sunny days were really bright.

If this movie doesn't get some major Oscar note, I will be very disappointed.

When the movie was finished we headed up to Barnes & Noble to spend the coupons. I hadn't been able to find A Kosher Christmas (Jewish commentary on Christmas) at West Cobb, but I knew the Akers Mill store had it. We weren't here long, since James couldn't find anything, and bought the book and drove up to the Town Center store, where I had seen a book mentioned on "The Splendid Table," Consider the Fork. James ended up getting that one, as well as a new Eat This, Not That and a potluck book, while I bought Paris to the Past, a book of essays about visiting historical sites in France via train from Paris. I wish someone would do a book like this about England!

On the way to the Akers Mill store, we stopped at the RaceTrac gas station to buy a newspaper. There was a big sign outside that said "Free coffee, any size, from December 16 through December 22." This a Christmas customer appreciation promotion. Pity we don't drink coffee! However, they also had hot chocolate, so we treated ourselves—and they treated us, even though it wasn't coffee! That was quite nice.

We had an easy supper: Hormel Beef Tips and gravy over spaetzle, with a cucumber salad and no-sugar-added ice cream bars for dessert, watching Christmas videos on America's Funniest Home Videos, and then recorded versions of Rocket City Rednecks.


Spirits of Christmas, edited by Kathryn Cramer and David Hartwell
This is one of six volumes edited by Hartwell that compiles otherworldly Christmas stories. Some volumes are chiefly science-fiction or fantasy, but this one is definitely a "spirited" volume in which all the stories involve a ghost or hauntings of some kind. Some are by new writers and others are vintage, the lynchpin being Charles Dickens' "The Haunted Man," the last of his Christmas stories. Another vintage story is by Frank Stockton, another sentimental tale of an old couple regretting not having children is by Hildegarde Hawthorne, and yet a third tale involves several college boys, a haunted family estate, and a prank gone wrong. One of my favorites of the newer stories was "Snow Ghosts," about a 90-year-old man whose sojourn to a busy pub turns into a date from the past, and another is "O Come Little Children," in which a boy recognizes a disreputable-looking Santa Claus for who he really is. I found the final two stories rather anticlimactic, but, really, there isn't a bad story in the bunch, and a variety of themes for everyone. Worth checking out!

(Note: if otherworldly Christmases are "your bag," you might try checking out Christmas Stars, which not only contains the story "The Greatest Gift," which is the genesis for the film It's a Wonderful Life, but includes Arthur C. Clarke's famous short story about the origin of the Christmas star.)

Working to Carols

And that's what I did today, did my work to Christmas carols. And ended up traveling in time.

A lot of my Christmas music is still on cassette, having been collected one by one, most of them not in print anymore and not on CD, from places that no longer exist: MediaPlay and Oxford Books. James has had, for many years, a dual tape deck which we have used to play cassettes in the living room. Several years ago the uptake spoke on the left-hand side quit working so since then I have been playing Christmas tapes on the right-hand deck. This morning the uptake spoke on the right deck quit working as well.

I could have played the tapes on the deck in my craft room, but instead I pulled out the Panasonic tape recorder I bought back in 1980 to copy off the episodes of Star Blazers that I was audio recording off WSBK TV-38 every morning (yeah, I really do like the series that much). I haven't played poor "Calvin"—it has lots of red buttons on the front; I thought immediately of Calvin O'Keefe in A Wrinkle in Time—in ages. I have to wiggle the volume button to get the sound to play properly, but it still runs pretty well. Just a bit of old-fashioned hiss in the background. Very nostalgic indeed.