Rudolph Day - January 2016

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

Check out some free Christmas cross stitch patterns.

Some poetry for the day!

[little tree]
By E. E. Cummings

little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower

who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see          i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly

i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don't be afraid

look          the spangles
that sleep all the year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,

put up your little arms
and i'll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring
and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy

then when you're quite dressed
you'll stand in the window for everyone to see
and how they'll stare!
oh but you'll be very proud

and my little sister and i will take hands
and looking up at our beautiful tree
we'll dance and sing
"Noel Noel"

Scrooge the Detective

The Humbug Murders, L.J. Oliver
Ebenezer Scrooge solves the mystery of who killed his old master, Fezziwig.

Sounds intriguing. I thought so. Bought the book.

Fezziwig comes to Scrooge as a ghost, pleading with him to help his young assistant Tom Guilfoyle, just as a young woman, Adelaide Owen, comes to the counting house to apply, to Scrooge's astonishment, for the clerking job he's advertised. When Scrooge and Adelaide go to Fezziwig's home to see if he is indeed dead, it's revealed that Tom is well known to Adelaide, and that the local constable believes Scrooge himself murdered Fezziwig. Next thing you know, Scrooge is endeavoring to clear himself, with the help of Adelaide and a young reporter named Charles Dickens, in the terrible underbelly of London's slums.

Let's say this is no cozy about Scrooge helping to find a murderer. Before chapter four is over Scrooge has been beaten up by some underworld types and been exposed to a brothel catering to wealthy men. Mixed up in Fezziwig's death is a Chinese merchant, a nobleman, an obese businessman, a well-known actress, aforesaid thugs, and a prostitute named Annie Piper. Along the way we meet a whole contingent of Dickens' characters, including Bill Sykes, the Artful Dodger, Nancy, Fagin, a gang of boy thieves, Miss Favisham, John Jasper, Mr. Crisparkle, and Mr. Pickwick, not to mention Dickens himself, and are involved in murder, mutilation, torture, sexual slavery, depravity, drug addiction...this is not a pretty book!

We all know London at the time of Dickens was like this, so the whole thing wouldn't be so bad, wading through the gore and abuse, if the book wasn't full of historical inaccuracies and Scrooge here doesn't jibe with later Scrooge—in fact, this book describes him here, in 1833, as "young Ebenezer" when ten years later in A Christmas Carol, he's suddenly "old Scrooge"—and the modernisms that creep into the text are alarming and often hilarious. The police didn't operate the way the author states, Marley is Scrooge's competitor, not partner, and four years after the first photograph was taken suddenly photos look so good that pornographic ones are being sold to toffs for £40 each. As for the modernisms: Scrooge tells a constable "Cut to the chase," which dates back only to silent movies. A page later he tells the same man, "You have a mind like a steel trap. Anything entering gets crushed and mangled"; "mind like a steel trap" goes back to 1836 but this is a direct quote from later on. On page 51 Scrooge believes he will get "hypothermia" from falling in the Thames and lose "core motor skills." Would a 19th century man have used those terms? On page 75 Dickens refers to the Chinese man as "the Asian." Really? Back then they were "Orientals" or, jocularly, "Celestials," when more crude referrals were not used.

The book is very good describing the sordid London underworld of the 1830s. There are some truly terrifying situations and passages. But as a prequel to the character of Scrooge and A Christmas Carol? I'll say it...humbug!

One More for Epiphany

Reminisce Christmas
A 2010 publication by "Reminisce" magazine, this is a follow-on to their previous compendium of memories, The Christmases We Used to Know. These aren't fictional experiences, but stories about Christmas by the people who lived them, from the 1930s to the 1960s (with a smattering of photos from the 1920s). Vintage toys, World War II military-themed Christmas cards, special pajamas or cowboy suits, family photos, faith-based stories, and vintage advertisements are pictured, paired with memories nostalgic, funny, and a few times just plain sad, some of them full stories, some just vignettes. There are even lined, blank spots every 30 pages or so where you can write down your own memories of Christmas past.

Brought up as I was with Italian Christmas customs, it was fun to see what other nationalities had "on the menu," so to speak: roast goose, lutefisk, Cajun gumbo, etc., but every turn of the page is a delight for Christmas lovers. There are tales from servicemen and -women in faraway places on Christmas Eve, stories of poor children who received special gifts in a needy time, people who received that special toy (and in the case of one child, a special gift that turned out to be a baby brother), Christmas pets, visits to Santa (and learning the truth about him), those "skinny Charlie Brown trees" from the past, and other Yuletide keepsakes.

If you like "Reminisce," nostalgia, or Christmas, this is the book for you!

Star of Wonder

On the first Christmas, Joseph and Mary and the Baby Jesus were visited not only by shepherds, but by three kings, who brought the baby gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Well, not quite. The visitors who brought these gifts are not present in Luke's gospel, which features the shepherds. The story of the visitors is from Matthew's gospel, and says, in fact, that the Holy Family were living in a house and most translations say Jesus was a child, not an infant. So it is probable that the visit took place later than the birth in the stable.

The visitors are never identified as kings, but as astrologers, men who study the stars for portends, also known as "magi," magicians. Nor are strictly three identified. No mention is made of how many magi visited, or whatever other gifts are given; only mentioned are the gold, frankincense, and myrrh (which, scholars tell us, are symbolic gifts: gold for godhood, frankincense for priesthood, myrrh, which was used on bodies of the dead, predicting His crucifixion), so tradition makes it three.

✯ Epiphany 2016

✯ Readings for Epiphany

✯ Reflections for Epiphany

✯ Epiphany at Cute Calendar

✯ Reflections on Epiphany 2016

✯ Three Kings Day

✯ King Cake

Poetry, Songs, and Annual Favorites

The Carols of Christmas, Andrew Gant
I have several books on the history of Christmas carols, so I was very pleased to see a new one in the stacks of Christmas publications. Gant's is pretty much devoted to the story of English carols, although "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and "Jingle Bells" make appearances, so if your favorite carol isn't here, that may be why.

This book's greatest novelty is also what might turn people off about it: it's written for people who have a knowledge of music and musical terms. If you're confused by the use of terms like "demi-quaver" and "semi-quaver" and "plainsong" or don't wish to pick your way through Latin and French verses, you might want to pick up Ace Collins' simpler Stories Behind the Most Beloved Songs of Christmas. For those who stick with Gant, you'll enjoy his puckish sense of humor as he traces some of the well-known hymns back to old folksongs sung in regional variations by the poor, some of them even rather bawdy. Then there's "Good King Wenceslas," with its words set to a French song about the spring! From Advent through Epiphany, you'll learn what "wassail" is, which carols have different melodies depending which side of the Atlantic they're on, and a theory about how the partridge, a ground bird, got up that pear tree. Great reading, especially for music lovers.

The Oxford Book of Christmas Poems, edited by Michael Harrison and Christopher Stuart-Clark
This is a companion book to The Oxford Book of Christmas Stories, both ostensibly for children, but as I commented in my review of the latter, definitely for older children, since you won't find cloying sweetness about puppies and Santa here. In fact, some of the poetry is definitely aimed at adults, from T.S. Eliot's "Journey of the Magi" to W.H. Auden's "Well, That is That." The poetry ranges from winter odes through Christmastide and through Epiphany and the dead of winter, some playful, some thoughtful, a few even tragic, like the grim Victorian "Christmas in the Workhouse," with a few terrifying pen-and-ink illustrations. A charming "Haiku Advent Calendar" enlivens the endpapers and a magical poem about a boy's discovery of the Nativity is told in "Journey Back to Christmas." Worth finding if you are a poetry aficionado or just wish to read some different and descriptive verse for the holiday season.

Re-read: The House Without a Christmas Tree, Gail Rock
This "novelization" of the classic Christmas special about Addie Mills has no dependence of the special itself, and indeed Rock gives the characters more background than they were able to provide in the filmed story, expanding Addie's exploration of her world and especially giving more depth to Grandma and her eccentricities. Seeing that this story is based on Rock's life, we may have gotten more insight into what the grandmother who cared for her was like. We also see more of Carla Mae's home life, and the end of the story is structured differently from the television production. The wonderful illustrations by Charles Gehm are also a plus. A must-have for an Addie Mills fan.

Re-read: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Barbara Robinson
This is the just plain funny, but ultimately touching, story of six undisciplined kids who terrify their classmates and drive their neighbors crazy. The Herdmans—Ralph, Imogene, Leroy, Claude, Ollie and Gladys—are pretty much on their own all the time; their father has vanished, their mother works two shifts to support them. They steal, blackmail their classmates, harbor a dangerous cat, and are generally a nuisance. The only place safe from them is church, until a kid named Charlie tells one of them that the minister gives out free treats.

Told in a fast and funny narration by our unnamed narrator (Charlie's sister), we follow the Herdmans as they get involved with the church Christmas pageant—first having to learn the story of the Nativity from scratch. As the chaos grows, the pageant is threatened with cancellation, but a surprise is in store for everyone.

Peppered with such delightful descriptions like "My friend Alice Wendleken was so nasty clean she had detergent hands by the time she was four years old," this is one of my annual reads which brings a smile to my face every time.

Square Dances, Turquoise, and Fireworks

Christmas in the American Southwest, from World Book
The impression you get of Christmas in Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas is light: candlelight, farolitos, luminaria, and electric lights in profusion around gardens, river walks, adobe buildings, and streets. Fireworks are lit off at public celebrations and in the past, Christmas was celebrated with firecrackers and sparklers.

In this volume in World Book's "Christmas in..." series, the gamut of celebrations is chronicled, from Las Posadas to cowboy dances, from Victorian buildings decorated with pinon and tumbleweeds to warm cabins at the very bottom of the Grand Canyon covered in snow, accessible only by mules. The contributions of Germans/Poles/Czechs join Spanish- and Native-heritage celebrations, and of course the annual ranch celebrations are featured. The brilliant color photographs highlight foods, public places, and, yes, lights, lights, lights.

A bright and happy edition to add to anyone's "Christmas in..." collection.

Grandfather Frost And New Year's Day

Ded Moroz – Grandfather Frost

Ded Moroz, the Russian Santa

Russian Life: Grandfather Frost

Why Ded Moroz is Infinitely More Badass Than Santa Claus

St. Sylvester's Day

From the Fish Eaters site: "Lucky foods" are eaten, all of which vary from place to place. In Spain, one must eat 12 grapes at midnight to fend off evil in the following year. Pea Soup is a German "lucky food," and in France it is oysters. In the United States, black-eyed peas are consumed, along with collard greens and hog jowls (typically on January 1).

"Silvestering" was an old custom of begging for food on St. Sylvester's night, but now fireworks are usually the case.

St. Sylvester I | Saint of the Day

Catholic Online - St. Sylvester

Fish Eaters: St. Sylvester

A History of New Years

Do You Know What Sylvester Is?
 

A Death in Christmas Town

Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen, Vicki Delany
This is the anticipated first book in a series taking place in Rudolph, a New York town near Lake Ontario, which has fashioned itself as an all-year-round "Christmastown" after its connection to the War of 1812 ended a bit ignominiously (that's a pretty amusing story, too). Our protagonist, Merry Wilkinson (her dad is named Noel since he was born on Christmas Day) runs the high-end gift shop Mrs. Claus' Treasures, and as the story opens, her float in the town's annual Christmas parade almost doesn't make it in the queue due to its transport not working, just the first in a series of mysterious mishaps. Then, later, after a non-alcoholic post parade party, a reporter from an international travel magazine, in town to do a story on Rudolph, is found dead in the park. Initial verdict: he was poisoned by a gingerbread cookie made by Merry's best friend Vicky, owner of the town bakery.

This is a middle-of-the-road cozy which I didn't love, but didn't hate. I do like the idea of a Christmas town, the main character is appealing (although I think her dog contributes nothing to the plot and it seems she's always leaving him home alone to work or do other things), and there are enough red herrings: a woman determined to oust the local mayor, a jealous boyfriend, and the citizens of Muddle Harbor, one town over, which is economically depressed and no competition for Rudolph—unless its food can't be trusted. Plus I really enjoyed some of the supporting characters, especially Merry's dad (who should be working in her shop, as he always magically seems to know what customers want) and her retired opera-singer mother (who reminded me a lot of Hilary Booth from Remember WENN). Tiresomely, however, Merry's got two gorgeous guys fighting over her, which tends to trip the story into romance fantasyland occasionally, and there seems to be the usual stock characters (nosy landlady, aggressive opponent, etc.) tossed in the mix.

However, I love Christmas, and just the idea of a Christmas town and the characters I do like will overcome what I don't like. Put me down for the next one, too.

Christine Kringle Saves the Day

Re-read: Christine Kringle, Lynn Brittney
This is a funny, funny novel with a (pun intended) novel take on Santa Claus.

How does Santa deliver all those gifts in one night? Because he isn't one gift giver, he's many! The American Santa Claus, or as he's known in this novel, Kris Kringle, is part of the Yule Dynasty, a huge family of gift givers, from Father Christmas in England to OzNick in Australia, to Babbo Natale (and La Befana) in Italy, to St. Nicholas in Holland, to the Three Wise Men in various countries, to Santa Kurohsu in Japan. Each year they have a big conference to discuss Christmas and other family concerns. This year the meeting is in Finland, where Kriss Kringle wishes to propose something never broached before: that a male gift-giver can hand his gift-giving tasks over to a female child. Although there are female gift-givers, St. Lucia, La Befana, Babushha, etc. among them, usually a female child marries and that husband becomes the new gift-giver. Kriss Kringle, however, wants his bright daughter Christine to inherit the job.

But barely can the subject be broached when an emergency occurs: a small town called Plinkbury in England is raising eyebrows and making the news by declaring Christmas illegal. And it's up to Christine and her friends Nick Christmas (son of the English Santa and allergic to gingerbread) and Little K (son of the Japanese Santa and creator of the wonderful new "Living Lights") to find out how this happened and try to stop it—with the help of Nick's ditzy but understanding and inspirational mother Zazu, and his uncle Egan, who are both "tall elves."

Brittney skewers several sacred cows on the way through the plot—the male dominated gift-givers of Christmas, Christmas collectors, stuffy parents who stifle their children's imaginations—and produces a very funny story in the process. There is a reliance on a few stereotypes on the way: Babbo Natale drives a Ferrari (a magic one, of course) and his compatriots have Mafia overtones, the son of France's Pere Noel is a fat kid who is constantly stuffing his face, the Japanese kid is the inventive genius, but these shortcomings pale against the hilarious story, which will keep you chuckling throughout. One of my favorite parts involves the Sisterhood, the female gift-givers who gang up upon their male counterparts in order for the kids to make their getaway (in the Ferrari, of course; reindeer and a sleigh would be too noticeable) to Plinkbury.

Recommended for all ages!

A Con Man in Old New York

The Santa Claus Man, Alex Palmer
John Duval Gluck was just another businessman, toiling as the head of a importing business like his father before him, rather bored with the process. He wanted to do Something Big, and he eventually did: he made children's dreams come true for a short time in the 1920s.

Before Gluck, New York City children's letters to Santa Claus ended up in the "dead letter" office at the central post office. Gluck, bypassing the usual fundraising methods, forms "the Santa Claus Association," which takes the children's letters and matches them up with wealthy or just financially well-off contributors who will buy gifts requested in those letters after Gluck's association checks out if the children are really in need.

It sounded like a wonderful idea and indeed some children did receive "a Christmas" because of it. But as always happens when human beings are involved, human corruption reared its proverbial evil head. Was the "selfless" Gluck really as portrayed, or is he profiting from the "poor kiddies"?

The best part about this book is the portrait of New York City between 1913 and the early 1930s, and the weaving in of the role New Yorkers like Washington Irving, Clement Moore, Thomas Nast, and Francis Church had in how Christmas is celebrated today, not just in NYC, but all over the United States. The most fascinating part is the lost history of a rival group to the Boy Scouts of America, the "U S Boy Scout," an organization I had never heard about, a more militaristic group which John Duval Gluck got himself involved with, and which the BSA despised. Along the way we meet Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, end up in a classic hotel and the Woolworth Building, and make the acquaintance of the man who was Gluck's downfall, Bird Coler.

I can't say I was absolutely bowled over by Gluck's story, but I loved the historical background and all the great photographs!

An Annual Treat

Ideals Christmas, Worthy Media
May I say first how much I miss the other "Ideals" seasonal volumes? The Christmas one is the only one left. The autumn/Thanksgiving one was always breathtakingly beautiful in modern times (as opposed to the old "Ideals" up until about the 1990s, which often had terrible drawings in them which were then made worse by "colorizing" it in one color) with gorgeous photographs of autumn landscapes. The Christmas ones have snowy landscapes and cozy still life photos.

I really enjoyed the collection of essays this year; I usually like them better than the poems, which are pleasant but derivative. "The Stillness of Christmas" by John Peterson was lovely, something you don't usually see Ideals essays about. Michael Drury's "Christmas Has a Secret" was also good, and reminded me a little of Taylor Caldwell's oft anthologized "My Christmas Miracle." Dona Maxey's "A Gift of Love" about a mother's devotion was sweet as well.

I could wish for more snow photos, but...it was a good edition nevertheless.

A Christmas for Finding Oneself

The Tuckers: The Cottage Holiday, Jo Mendel
The Tuckers series began in 1961 with the publication of the Whitman book The Wonderful House, in which they move into the big old house on Valley View Avenue. They were a typical 1960s literary family: working father, stay-at-home mother, five rambunctious kids under twelve, loving grandparents, and an assortment of friends. The kids got into usual foibles: rivalries, mistaken impressions, summer vacation adventures, arguments, but family love always wins through.

The Cottage Holiday revolves around Penny, the shy seven-year-old of the children, who catches cold easily and is always being pampered. But she doesn't revel in the attention; she inwardly resents it. She wants to play with her brothers and sisters and be part of family activities, and she wants to know what her part is in the scheme of family dynamics: Tina's domestic, Terry's clever, Merry's musical, Tom's sensible, but what is she? Then she makes an idle wish: she would like to spend Christmas at the family's lake cottage, where they could all participate on an equal footing. Surprisingly, her doctor says she's well enough to do so as long as she takes precautions, and suddenly the family is off for a winter adventure that includes a marauding cougar, a missing calf, an abandoned baby, and the sheer fun of finding a Christmas tree, making treats for one another, and playing in the snow with their lake neighbors Mel and Butch Smith.

This is of a similar domestic theme to Sleigh Bells for Windy Foot, but the story is more simply told with a more limited vocabulary that often makes the dialog stilted. Yet Penny's wish to participate more fully in her family's activities shines through the story like a beacon, and the final pages will make you misty eyed. It's more introspective than the other books in the series and that serves to make the story more timeless. A yearly treat for me.

A Christmas of Dwindling

Christmas After All, Kathryn Lasky
Most of my annual Christmas reads go back to my childhood, but I picked this up because I loved Lasky's Prank and her adult mysteries involving Callista Jacobs. It is one of my favorite Christmas books, even if the ending is a bit idealized.

The Swift family lives in Indianapolis, Indiana, at the height of the Depression in 1932; Minnie, the youngest girl, is both happy and puzzled when an orphan cousin her age comes to live with them. Willie Faye, who grew up in Dust Bowl Texas, arrives in town with nothing but an almost empty suitcase, a cherished newspaper article about better times, and a kitten named Tumbleweed. She's never seen an indoor bathroom, a movie, or peaches. But this wise-beyond-her-years child with life experiences the Swifts could not have imagined is instrumental in helping the entire family see beyond the leanness of the Depression, and helps them keep faith when the unthinkable happens.

I just love the characters in this story: Minnie, who has a gift for words; the practical Willie Faye whose artistic dreams lends them ideas for gifts and stories of faith; Ozzie, the science-crazy little brother; Lady, the unconventional sister who can take old clothes and scraps of fabric and turn them into fashionable dress; Minnie's stolid father and glamorous mother and her two more conventional sisters; and Jackie, the family's maid, who is portrayed as authentically as possible for the 1930s setting without being overtly patronizing. The realities of the Depression hits home in so many ways: the closing of the bank that supports Mr. Swift's employer, closing off rooms in the house since they can no longer afford to heat them, eating endless meals of "au gratins" and aspic to stretch what little meat they have, not using the car so they can afford a movie now and then, taking food down to a Hooverville where people are living in tar-paper shacks or even piles of tires with tin on top, the fate of a classmate's father. During all their trials little Willie Faye sustains them.

My only problem with this book is the standard "Dear America" epilogue which tells you what happened to the family. Depending on the author, these epilogues can be matter-of-fact, filled with interesting details, or even, in the case of Barry Denenberg, really depressing. <wry grin> Lasky chose the interesting details approach, but made the results rather fairy-tale-ish. It strikes me as being very sugary after a tart and rather dark narrative.

Nevertheless, Minnie and Willie Faye will keep me coming back each year.

Christmas in Vermont Revisited

Sleigh Bells for Windy Foot, Frances Frost
The Clarks are a small farm family in late 1940s Vermont in this classic four-book children's series by Frost, a Vermont native. In the opening book, 12-year-old protagonist Toby Clark received the dapple-grey pony Windy Foot as a birthday gift and raced him in the annual county fair pony competition, where he met 12-year-old Tish Burnham, a horse breeder's daughter. At Christmas, the whole family: dad, mom, Toby, 9-year-old Betsy, 5-year-old Johnny, and farmhand Cliff (who's pretty much family) are preparing to welcome Tish and her father Jerry for a visit as well as planning a true farm Christmas with homemade decorations, gifts ordered from the mail order catalog, caroling under the town Christmas tree and shopping at the general store, and Toby taking Tish out riding in the new sleigh he refit for Windy Foot.

Fifty years after I read it for the first time, I still get as much enjoyment out of this story as I did the first time, even if Johnny's little impromptu poems still make me roll my eyes and the girls' brief talk about dolls bore me. It's an annual read, and a portrait of a vanished era: cows milked by hand and barns lit by lanterns, kids going on their own showshoeing to gather Christmas greens or going skiing without adults keeping tabs on their every move, boys renovating things on their own, the family gathered by the fire instead of each around an electronic device. There's even a marauding bear, a skiing accident, and a stolen sleigh to add a little excitement. It's very easy to be taken into the warm home-circle and feel comfortable with these characters.

I have always found it notable that in a book written in 1948, Tish's ambition is to be a surgeon or at the least a medical doctor. Toby finds that this idea of "a girl being a doctor" fills him with "awe," but also thinks that she'd make a good one. There is no attempt by Toby or any other adult to try to dissuade Tish from this goal, a surprising attitude in an era when even "career girls" were eventually expected to quit their jobs in favor of marriage and a family. Also, Betsy is given an unusual Christmas gift and no one says that a girl should not be receiving such a gift.

Frost also has a talent with picturesque descriptions that remind me of Gladys Taber.  This is a nostalgic book well worth seeking out for its approachable characters, family interactions, Christmas-cozy factor, and pacing.

Shivers for Christmas

Ghosts for Christmas, edited by Richard Dalby
There are times of the year when the veil between the known world and the unknown world is very thin, and spirits from beyond can creep into the mortal world. In our world it engendered a whole tradition of ghost stories, which is why the narrator of "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" mentions them, and A Christmas Carol is one. Before television, movies and the internet, after Christmas dinner was digested and wine consumed, it was common to gather around the fire and tell tales of the supernatural.

This collection, I must admit, is a corker. While I'd read a couple of the stories, including Dickens' precursor to Scrooge in The Goblins Who Stole a Sexton, Stevenson's Markheim, "The Prescription" written during a most unusual housecall, and The Real and the Counterfeit (in which I think the protagonist paid too dearly for his error!), most of them were new to me, and well enough done that being alone reading the stories on a rainy, gloomy day gave me a real chill! Particular favorites were "Wolverden Tower," about a modern young woman invited to a house party who  makes two new friends who seem to change her perception of a reconstructed tower; "Thurlow's Christmas Story," about a man trying to write a Christmas ghost story but who cannot come up with an idea even though his job lays on the line; "The Kit-Bag," concerning an attorney who gets a guilty client off and lives to regret it; "The Snow," about a marital argument that goes all too wrong; "The Demon King," in which a substitute actor enlivens a dull pantomime; "Lucky's Grove," where cutting down a Christmas tree from the wrong place sets off a chain of frightening events; and "Gebal and Ammon and Amalek," in which an older man's dissatisfaction with his church's changing views has disastrous complications.

Plus these are all set at classic ghostly locations: English churches, country houses, deserted estates, rambling vicarages, and more! A very satisfactory and spooky Christmas collection!

The Longest Night

Everything You Need to Know About the Winter Solstice

Five Strange Facts about the Winter Solstice

Something for Everyone: A Solstice, Tonight!

Winter Solstice Arrives, and Here’s What It Means

The Shortest Day
"And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
to keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.”
                                            -- Susan Cooper
 

A Souling, a Souling...

Roman Catholics now celebrate St. Thomas the Apostle in July.

"Thomasing," soliciting alms and foods on St. Thomas' Day, was thought to be the precursor of trick or treating on Hallowe'en.

St. Thomas' Day Recipes and the History of St. Thomas Day

German Celebrations for St. Thomas' Day

St. Thomas' Day