Had found a few more expensive Christmas books online at remainder prices and snapped them up; I get most of my Christmas books that way, since half of them are so expensive.
Today's arrival was one of them, a mostly graphic volume by Jock Elliott called Inventing Christmas: How Our Holiday Came to Be. The narration is exuberant and the beautiful 19th century lithographs are worth the price of the book--as long as it's priced a bit lower. :-) Original price on this one was $24.95.
Elliott talks about the development of Christmas as a family holiday rather than an excuse for drinking and sex, Christmas cards, Christmas gifts (with illustrations of the original Christmas gift, the compilation "gift book"), Santa Claus, Christmas trees, Christmas carols and "the genuine article," Dickens' A Christmas Carol. But it's the illustrations of 19th century cards, gifts, and book illos that really make this volume shine.
(And when I put up the book, I get to walk into the library, which is decorated for fall all year...)
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