Just Gimme That Chicken Soup...

The Blessings of Christmas, Amy Newmark

The 2021 edition (ta-da!) of "Chicken Soup for the Soul" contains all the things it should: more short heartwarming Christmas stories suitable for bedtime or relaxing reading during the holiday season. This edition had quite a few multicultural stories, which I enjoyed, such as a Korean woman bringing up her child to revere both her heritage and fun American Christmas customs, the story of a Jewish woman who married an Italian Catholic man and who finally won over his resolutely sorrowful grandmother, another Jewish/Christian family who have lovingly combined customs, a family who invited Navy midshipmen from other countries to their Christmas dinner and made two homesick young men from Cameroon very happy, and several more. Many of the stories involve children giving up their Christmas goodies, as the March sisters of Little Women did with their Christmas breakfast, to help other kids who had no gifts. There's the story of a homemade Christmas tree that lives up to a wealthy girl's designer one, a one-of-a-kind chair made by Mom that eventually returns home, a request for a can opener that opens an annoyed woman's heart, the gift of a coat to a boy that changes a giver's mind about charity, a flower delivery to a hospice that makes a difference—101 tender and sometimes funny stories (can't kids decorate a gingerbread house without making a mess? and why do a succession of cats keep stealing only one ornament?) to leave you with the warm and fuzzies.

The one thing that sort of doesn't amuse me is the proclamation on the back that "25 cents of every book sale goes to Toys for Tots." Surely the publishers of this book could work it that more of the profit go to the charity? Skinflints!

D.H. Lawrence, Dame Edith Sitwell, and More Share Christmas Memories

A Derbyshire Christmas, compiled by Robert Innes-Smith
I found my first Sutton "Christmas anthologies" (A Worcestershire Christmas, if you care) at a library book sale many years back. When A Surrey Christmas turned up at a subsequent sale I realized this was a series. These contain short excerpts of Christmas/Christmastide passages from various British novels, memoirs, and poetry books, with the action taking place in the shire denoted in the title.

Derbyshire is just south of Sheffield, England (famous for their knives), and this volume is crammed full of mostly reminisces and diary entries from the 1840s through the 1940s, the most famous of the correspondents being Dame Edith Sitwell, the poet, and her younger brother Osbert. There is only one verse in this volume, which is very rare, unfortunately it has to do with fox hunting, but then it's a touching tale of how Lord Harrington's hounds, turned out for their first hunt after he died, went straight to his grave as if called. There are a couple of other hunting memories, and the rest are more salubrious, from how Christmas was celebrated in a great country house, including the festivities "downstairs" among the servants; a couple of accounts of Christmas in the workhouse which are much more cheerful than George R. Sims' pathetic verse tale; diary entries from Edith Sitwell and an account of Christmas by Osbert; only one ghost story, but it's an amusing one; a medieval tale at Haddon Hall; different recountings of old customs like caroling, "Thomasing," guising, mumming, and the St. George and the Dragon play; and even Christmas letters from D.H. Lawrence, who called Derbyshire home.

One of the more interesting volumes in that it includes many personal accounts from the POV of different ages and different eras.

 

The People of Christmas: Clement C. Moore

If you have ever explored New York City extensively, you have possibly visited a neighborhood at the lower portion of Manhattan Island, near Greenwich Village: Chelsea. Chelsea has had a varied history and today has an extensive LGBTQ population and is a popular shopping venue, but it started out life as a sprawling estate that eventually belonged to a professor of Oriental and Greek Literature as well as of divinity, Clement Clarke Moore. Moore was an author, a canny landowner who sold parts of his estate to make a maximum profit, and a husband and father of nine.

 

In 1823, as the story goes, Moore wrote a poem for the amusement of his children called "A Visit From St. Nicholas" in a sequence of rhyming couplets. Moore usually did not write light verse, but it was said a woman visitor to the home at Christmastime enjoyed the poem so much she jotted down the verses from memory. Moore did not share the poem with anyone but his family, but apparently this visitor did share it, with a Troy, NY, newspaper. The poem caught the fancy of many people and was reprinted in different papers for ten years before Moore was identified as the author. He himself did not acknowledge it until 1844, when it was included in a book of more somber poetry. It created several of the now-traditional features of the Santa Claus story: that he is plump and jolly, smokes a pipe, and drives a sleigh driven by eight reindeer named Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Dunder and Blixem. (The last two, whose names mean "thunder" and "lightning" in Dutch, were later changed to the more German "Donder"—or "Donner"—and "Blitzen.") An earlier poem, "Old Sante Claus," had introduced Santa driving one reindeer pulling a flying wagon, but the eight and the sleigh were Moore's creation. His image of Santa, according to Moore, was based on a elderly Dutch servant at Chelsea.

Or was it?

For many years a case has been made that Moore was not the author of the poem. The family of Henry Livingston Jr. have long claimed that he wrote the poem, and several years before Moore. Livingston was apparently fond of writing light verse in rhyming couplets,  and, as with Moore's claim, this poem was written for his children. Supposedly there were other clues: the reindeer named Dunder and Blixem when Moore did not know Dutch, the lighthearted narrative unlikely to be written by a stern professor, etc. It was said that there was physical evidence of this, but, as homes back in the 18th and 19th century were heated and lit by fire, they were always in danger of burning down, and the Livingston evidence was lost in a house fire. Several scholars have looked into this claim and have differing opinions on claims of authorship.

 

Two books are available on this controversy, the simpler Inventing Santa Claus: The Mystery of Who Really Wrote The Most Celebrated Yuletide Poem of All Time by Carlo DeVito, and a longer, more scholarly work Who Wrote "The Night Before Christmas"? Analyzing the Clement Clarke Moore vs. Henry Livingston Question by MacDonald P. Jackson. 

 

There is also Seth Kaller's website on the controversy (he's firmly in the Moore camp).

 

Here's a link to a 1968, 26 minute animated story about the writing of the poem: The Night Before Christmas. In this version Moore writes the poem for his daughter Charity, who requested "a book about Santa Claus" as a gift, but he could not find her one. This animated tale is particularly notable for several things: although done in limited animation and featuring a cute dog for some chuckles, the drawings stick very much to how the Moore family, their home, and the world around them must have looked. Moore and his wife and the children, with the exception of little Clement, wear fairly authentic 1820s styles, Gretchen the cook works over an open fire and with an oven in the fireplace, Mrs. Moore mentions bringing a bedwarmer, etc. Moore did have children named Charity, Clement, and Emily, and apparently Peter is the "Dutch servant" he based the look of St. Nicholas on. (Little Clement is the only false note. Little boys of his social class would have still been in skirts at his age, or perhaps in pantaloons, but certainly not the overalls he was wearing, which were not invented until the 1870s. Also, the Moores would not have decorated a Christmas tree.) In addition, the musical version of the poem used in the story was arranged by Ken Darby, and had a long history on the music charts and on old-time radio. It was originally performed on The Johnson Wax Program with Fibber McGee and Molly in 1947.

The 2021 Edition

Ideals Christmas 2021, from the editors of "Ideals"
"Ideals" was born during World War II, in 1944, and this annual combination of poems, short essays, retellings of the Nativity story, and illustrations and (later) photos at one time was published several times a year, with spring/Easter, summertime/patriotic, winter/Valentine's, and autumn/Thanksgiving also making appearances. Now only the Christmas and (sometimes) Easter editions remain.

I didn't like this magazine until about the 1980s or 1990s, when they started publishing more natural photographs and quit color-tinting artwork and pages. Since then, to me, they have been a joy (and I miss the autumn edition!). The pretty blue cover this year is a change of pace, and there are several wonderful essays in this one, the best being Pamela Kennedy's "A Hand Crafted Christmas" ("The Puppy Who Came for Christmas" is pretty cute, too, and "A Snow Party" is heartwarming). I don't usually pay attention to the recipes, but the cinnamon cookies made from pie dough sound delicious. My favorite poems were "Round and Round" by Dorothy Thompson and "Winter Twilight" by Carol Collier

And I had to smile at the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree picture because we'd just finished the limited series Hawkeye and watched the titular character and his partner Kate Bishop vs. their enemies make a wreck out of 30 Rock, the tree, and the ice skating rink!
 

A British Christmas Perennial

Christmas Crackers: Tom Smith's Magical Invention, Peter Kimpton
In the United States, some people use Christmas crackers, but in the United Kingdom they are a traditional part of the Yuletide celebration. Shaped like wrapped "bonbon" candies with a twist of paper at each end, but six- to twelve-inches long, the cracker wrapper usually enfolds a funny paper hat, a "motto" which is usually like a "Dad joke" or a silly pun, and then some other type of prize or prizes (small animal or people figures, toys, tiny games, etc.). It's called a cracker because when when two people pull one apart, a strip of paper gives the cracker an audible "snap."

Many manufacturers on the British Isles have made crackers over the years, but the most famous of them is "Tom Smith, Inc." (sadly, no longer owned by the Smith family), whose boxes and crackers themselves as well as their catalogs featured brilliantly colored, inventive illustrations. And that's the main draw of this history of the Christmas cracker: the gorgeous color plates of Tom Smith (and other manufacturers') cracker boxes over the years. There are also photos of the original Smith family and the Smith factory with its factory girls, and some interesting ads that would not be allowed today that perpetuate racial stereotypes. One chapter covers the history of crackers during the first World War, and an appendix has a reprint of an article by Charles Dickens Jr about visiting a cracker factory.

If you're one of the people to whom Christmas crackers are an indispensable part of the holiday, or if you're curious about this Christmas tradition, this is a great overview of the history of the holiday treat.

Puppies and Just a Little Bit of Murder

Here Comes Santa Paws, Laurien Berenson

I've always loved Berenson Melanie Travis books, but this entry, a Christmas novella, is a little bit on the fluffy side, and at one point Melanie and her friend Claire do the dumbest thing ever.

Christmas is fast approaching when Melanie gets two intriguing phone calls. The first, from her formidable Aunt Peg, takes her visiting to see Peg's newest acquisitions, three adorable Australian Shepherd puppies someone abandoned in a big decorative stocking on her mailbox. The second, from Claire Travis (she married Melanie's ex-husband and they're all now friends), is a bit more problematic: Claire, a party planner and, for the holiday season, a personal shopper, has just found one of her clients, Lila Moran,  murdered in her gatehouse home while delivering her packages. Frightened and knowing she has solved other murders before, Claire wants Melanie to be with her while she's questioned by the police.

All this I can understand, as well as Claire hoping Melanie can get to the bottom of the mystery. But somewhere in the middle of the book they do something so unbelievably stupid that Claire suggests and Melanie goes along with that it bugged me for the rest of the book. Also, I pretty much pegged the murderer right out. Nice touch basing a character on the unconventional Huguette Clark, and the Travis/Driver Christmas prep and the dog characters are, as always, lovely. But, dang, I hate it when the characters have to do something stupid to add to the plot or move it along.

Christmas in the Factories and the Workhouse

A Lancashire Christmas, compiled by John Hudson
Yet another in Alan Sutton Publishing's Christmas compilations highlighting poetry, essays, art, and photographs from the different shires of England. In this one we venture north into England's industrial area, west of Yorkshire and north of Liverpool. This volume has a bumper crop of personal reminisces from working-class people: an entertainment at a mill strikes terror into a shy boy, a visit to Santa Claus may cause a youngster to doubt, verse tributes to the school Nativity play, a girl's memory of visits to her grandfather known as "Wonnie," Christmas during the Blitz, a free Christmas goose makes a lot of trouble in the kitchen, a final class tries "barring out the schoolmaster" to disastrous results, taking geese to market, the story of the hymn "Christians Awake!" (written by a Lancashire man), and more. There are several reports about Christmas in the workhouse, including a sad account of "suits" debating whether the people in the workhouse deserve a special Christmas meal (it has echoes to today as several of the members of the committee say the workhouse inmates are just layabouts and don't deserve a treat).

The delightful highlight of this volume is the comic poem "Old Sam's Christmas Pudding," about Sam Small, a sad-sack World War I soldier who is punished for his dirty kit by denying him his Christmas pudding, but he redeems himself during a return cannonade with a surprise weapon.

Some of the poetry and stories are in Lancashire dialect, but these shouldn't detract from the narratives.

Murder for the Holidays

Mrs. Claus and the Santaland Slayings, Liz Ireland
This is first in a series taking place at the North Pole and featuring April Claus. April, formerly an innkeeper in Oregon (she still owns the inn), met and fell in love with one of her guests, Nick Kringle, who'd come to her inn to decompress. They marry and it's only then April discovers she has married...Santa Claus! Nick became the official Santa after the death of his father and of his oldest brother Chris, who died in a hunting accident.

It's now April's first Christmas as the official Mrs. Claus (although most people think of Pamela, Nick's mother, as "Mrs. Claus") and December is a harried jumble of activities. But things have gone sour at one of the first Christmas activities: an elf named Giblet Hollyberry, who was already angry at Nick when he lost an ice-sculpting contest and accused him of killing Chris, is murdered by a black widow spider in his stocking. Next a snowman (snowmen in Santaland are alive) is melted to death...and again Nick is the suspect when his custom-made coat button is found in the remains. April doesn't trust Constable Crinkle, the affable police officer, to hunt down the real killer, and even with dark detective Jake (not Jack!) Frost on the case, she knows she'll have to do some sleuthing to get Nick cleared.

Ireland does some fun world-building here, with the Santa family heirarchy (Lucia is actually the eldest, but the Santa title officially goes to the oldest boy) and family squabbles, the "Santaland" geography, the elf community, the idea of reindeer dynasties as well as Santa dynasties, the relationship between the in-laws being the same as in ordinary families, all mixed up with a cozy mystery, a misfit and coddled reindeer named Quasar, and an intelligent protagonist who's a little bit in over her head. Lots of interesting characters, including Jake Frost, although most of them lightly sketched, including Nick, which is frustrating.

Trouble is, I twigged to the murderer early on, and I think most people will, too, plus April is kind of a stock cozy character: perky red-haired inn-owning good-looking young woman. If you buy into the whole fantasy, it's fun. Otherwise, you may find it confusing—there are so many characters—or dull.

A Cathedral Miracle, A Donkey's Tale, and More

A Cheshire Christmas, compiled by Alan Brack

This is another of Alan Sutton publishing's "Christmas Anthologies," which contain short excerpts of Christmas/Christmastide passages from various British novels, memoirs, and poetry books, with the action taking place in the shire or historical era denoted in the title.

This volume has more "real life" excerpts from diaries/books than usual, and doesn't repeat the usual "mummer's play" scripts as some of the other volumes do. The first essay is about owning a turkey farm that supplies free-range birds for the holidays. There are also an encounter with a ghosts at an old estate, a woman's memories of Christmas at the family's country house, an amusing narrative of an 82-year-old man who goes hunting on Boxing Day and ends up having to be extricated from the mud where he was trapped under his horse (the horse came out okay, too!), the story of a supposed "miracle of light" at Chester Cathedral during a sermon and what really happened, a fictional tale of two feuding families and how the sickness of one family's baby brought the feud to an end, several lively Christmas poems (one told from the POV of the donkey who carried Mary to Bethlehem) as well as one very lugubrious one about the mortality of man for New Year's Eve, and even two excerpts by Americans: a diary entry from Nathaniel Hawthorne, who spent an English Christmas in 1854, and passages from Washington Irving's "Old Christmas" section of The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon. Elizabeth Gaskell of Cranford fame is represented, as well as Lewis Carroll, whose "Christmas Greetings," the original inscription for his Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, is reprinted.

All in all a nice selection for bedtime reading before Christmas!

Cards and Tree Lightings

Season's Greetings from the White House, Mary Evans Seeley

This is a coffee table style book I found at the library book sale about the history of the official White House Christmas card and also the lighting of the National Christmas Tree, which date to the same era. The special production of a Christmas card from the White House started during Calvin Coolidge's presidency, as did the erection of a Christmas tree, originally on the lawn of the White House, as a "National Tree." The cards were created by artists who produced watercolors, gouache, and other media types for the White House—except for most of the cards during the Eisenhower administration, which were painted by the President himself—and then specially made by Hallmark or American Greetings. The lighting of the tree and the President's speech is also covered for each year the President was in office, and later articles detail how the White House itself was decorated and the theme each First Lady chose for that year. There are large photos of each card and something about the artist and how he (there were no female artists chosen, not even in the Clinton era) conceived and created the painting. This itself may be the best part of the book, as the narrative is a bit dry, but learning how the artists perceived their commission and how they then carried it out is fascinating. The book covers the administrations of Coolidge through Clinton, and, as an appendix, selected addresses by the President at the National Tree Lighting are reproduced (such as Roosevelt's famous 1941 sharing of the platform with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who was secretly in town for war planning against the Nazis; Churchill's speech is also included) and Reagan's speech after the return of the Iranian hostages after their 444-day ordeal.

Worth finding if you are a White House history devotee or even someone who enjoys knowing how an original artwork is commissioned and then becomes a Christmas card or print.

Christmas Mummers and Ghosts

A Berkshire Christmas, compiled by David Green

This is another in Alan Sutton Publishing's Christmas compilations highlighting poetry, essays, art, and photographs from the different shires of England. This Berkshire volume features excerpts from Jane Austen's Christmas diaries (not very Christmasy to us today; more a commentary on social mores), yet more of the ghost stories that were so popular around the holidays (commemorating the belief that on Christmas the "veil" between the mortal world and the "great beyond" was extremely weak, and ghosts could communicate with the living), "The Christmas Mummers" (a long version of the usual "St. George and the Dragon" play that was a tradition from medieval times), and of course there are nostalgic essays about "Christmas in the olden days" when children were happy to get a gingerbread cookie, an apple, an orange (an exotic and expensive fruit back then!), and nuts in their stocking.

Fictional offerings, too, such as ones from "Miss Read," provide colorful views of village life and the rivalries therein.

In addition, we have an excerpt from Queen Victoria celebrating her still happy early married life at Windsor Castle, a different "Holly and Ivy" song, a Christmas excerpt from The Wind in the Willows and also from Kenneth Grahame's The Golden Age, and much more.

Always a treat!

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Many European countries celebrate St. Nicholas Day as the gift-giving day of December and leave Christmas Day for religious observances. Some countries celebrate on both days.

In the Netherlands St. Nicholas rides a white horse and arrives on a ship from Spain. Other St. Nicholas figures ride a donkey. They usually travel with a companion like Zwarte Pete ("Black Peter"), Krampus, Belsnickel, or Pelznichol, who is the actual figure who disciplines the children. When the children swear they will do better, St. Nicholas forgives them and gives them a gift, holding off the Christmas disciplinarian!

St. Nicholas Day - December 6, 2021 - National Today

How St. Nicholas Day Became a Cincinnati Tradition

German Culture--St. Nicholas Day

Heinz History Center: Awaiting the Arrival of Old St. Nick

Leave Your Shoes Out: It's St. Nicholas Day

St. Nick May Have Inspired Santa, But His Own Story is Very Inspiring

Celebrating Sinterklass in the Netherlands

"Christmas"

Christmas, goodwill and good cheer

Comes, they say, but once a year.

Presents, tinsel, food galore,

All the goods come out of store.

Lots of money needed now,

Parents must find it somehow.

Songs on radio, TV,

All add to the spending spree.

Mincepies, crackers, Christmas cake,

Busy mothers try and bake.

Puddings, holly, mistletoe,

Carols sung where e'er we go.

Turkeys, geese and chicken fine,

Port, gin, sherry and white wine.

Open parcels, eat and drink,

Not much time to really think.

Once more mankind intent on bliss,

The hidden beauty tends to miss.

They keynote of it all is love,

Brought to us by the power above,

Beneath, around and in all life,

To overcome problems and strife

E'er present on this planet Earth.

Remember then the divine birth!

Translate the love in kindness true,

In every little act you do.

In every thought and every day,

Help someone on their weary way.

Although we can't all Christlike be,

At least we can each try and see.

. . . . Percy E. Corbett from his collection The Enternal Stairway

The People of Christmas: Washington Irving

If asked what writer did most to extend the spirit of Christmas, most people would probably respond "Charles Dickens." But many Americans might not know that one famous short story writer contributed more to the revival of Christmas in the United States than anyone else: Washington Irving, who's better known today as the author of the spooky Hallowe'en tale "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and also "Rip Van Winkle." Both these stories appeared in Irving's book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Esquire, but fully five other stories describe a grand Christmas celebration in England. These chapters greatly contributed to the emergence of Christmas as an important holiday in the United States, as the holiday was suppressed in New England almost through the Civil War, and was only a big celebration further south of New York City.

Irving, the youngest child of a Scottish father and English mother, was named after George Washington and met the first President at age six. He was a lackluster student who nevertheless had a mania and a talent for writing. "Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip" were inspired by trips to Tarrytown, NY, and to the Catskill Mountains. His first noted work, Diedrich Knickerbocker's History of New York, a fictionalized "history" of the Dutch founding of the city, created the myth that St. Nicholas was the patron saint of the city, and, long before Clement Moore put his hand to poetry, wrote "...and, lo! the good St. Nicholas came riding over the tops of the trees, in that self-same wagon wherein he brings his yearly presents to children" as well as "...when St. Nicholas had smoked his pipe he twisted it in his hatband, and laying his finger beside his nose, gave the astonished Van Kortlandt a very significant look, then mounting his wagon, he returned over the treetops and disappeared."

Old Christmas (a.k.a. Christmas at Bracebridge Hall)

"How Washington Irving Shaped Christmas in America" 

"How Christmas Became Merry"

The complete The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Esquire

Knickerbocker's History of New York

A Little Boy and a Lion

Once Upon a Wardrobe, Patti Callahan

It's December 1950 in Worcestershire, England. Megs Devonshire is a young woman fascinated by mathematics and facts, with not a lot of room in her world for fancies, who attends Somerville College at Oxford University. The one thing she loves more than numbers and logic is her family, especially her eight-year-old brother George, who was born with a heart condition and spends most of his life in bed. His one consolation is reading, and as the story opens, his soul is on fire from a new book he finished, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. Megs sees it as just another storybook, but George requests that since she attends Oxford, where C.S. Lewis teaches at a different college, she must ask him "Is Narnia real?" And if it isn't, where did it come from?

Megs, reluctant to address Lewis on campus, follows him one day to "The Kilns," the home he shares with his brother, and she is found by "Warnie" Lewis, who introduces her to his brother, who prefers to be known as "Jack." But when she asks him about Narnia, instead he starts telling her the story of his life, and while George loves the stories she brings home about "young Jack," she is continually frustrated: why won't he tell her the one thing George wants to know? But even as she tells George the stories, it awakens his creativity and curiosity, and also, with the help of a redheaded fellow student named Padraig Cavender, opens Megs' mind to the unseen mysteries of the world, the ones that can't be explained by maths and facts. In fact, it is Padraig that eventually makes George's Christmas wish come true.

Callahan works a bewitching magic in this book; her vocabulary is pitch-perfect vintage English, and she describes Oxford, the Kilns, and even the Devonshires' cozy house with such warmth that it's like walking out of the wardrobe and arriving in Narnia. It has the same warm, familiar feeling as a Beatrix Potter drawing or the passages about Mole and Ratty in The Wind in the Willows. Douglas Gresham, C.S. Lewis' stepson, has given this book a big thumbs up, as do I. Enchanting.

First Sunday of Advent

There's a rule here: no Christmas decorations before the First Sunday of Advent.

However, today all the gloves are off!

So I hit the ground running: walked the dog a mile, then put him on a leash on the grass while I took down the Thanksgiving items and put up the wreath on the door, the Santa Claus moon flag, the mailbox cover with the goofy moose on it, and the Christmas greens basket. At this point I let Tucker go inside and then started on the real work: the lights. I managed to get through this practically unscathed.

Decided I wanted to go back to the blue lights this year. Now Saturday at Lowe's I bought six strings of 100 blue lights on discount, but we still had blue lights, so I put those out instead. Thinking I should have put the Lowes lights on instead; some of these are badly faded and the blues don't even match. When I took a photo one string even looked green! Maybe I'll redo. Also put up the Christmas tree with the multicolor lights and the wreath, which has the multicolor seed lights on it. I could probably go out and get a new blue set for the tree, but I prefer the wreath in colors, and don't think I'll find them in blue anyway.

I didn't have a terrible time with the lights, but I do understand why my dad always swore while he did this!

Our neighbor Ashley came out while I was working on this, to take out little Diesel (he's some kind of Lhasa Apso or shih-tzu mix) and Nala, who's some type of Rottweiler cross, and we were chatting for a while. It was just her birthday and she'd been to Colorado as a birthday gift. They had snow and everything. She kept asking me if I needed help. Maybe I was just looking particularly decrepit this morning? I know I didn't feel decrepit; when I put up Christmas decorations I feel about fifteen (except my back didn't hurt this dang bad when I was fifteen).

A year or two ago James bought this set of four LED snowflakes that were on clearance for $7. I put them behind the three log deer as kind of a fun display. Didn't use any of the lighting effects, though; maybe will try them out later. You can twinkle and flash and make them chase, eight different effects in all.

Before dark I had also put all of the candoliers in the windows (blue lights as well; frosted for the upstairs and clear for the library downstairs), the multicolor changing bulb candle in the kitchen window, and the two flickering candles in James' "man cave." These eat up four AA batteries, but they will last through Epiphany, even though the flicker will be minimal by then!

My last step was to turn on the two flickering candles at 5:30 (they have timers and will keep them on for five hours) and put the batteries in the seed lights (this also has a timer that will turn on the same time every night and go off six hours later). And all is lit.

Also did my usual Sunday chores (towels washed, master bath cleaned, meds sorted for the week) and managed to sit and listen to some Christmas music and work on a story. It ended on a sniffle, so I think I achieved my goal. 😀

Cattern Cakes for St. Catherine's Day

St. Catherine of Alexandria was a Christian martyr who was condemned to death on a torture device called "a breaking wheel." "Catherine wheel" fireworks are named after this event, and "cattern cakes" are made in the shape of a swirl or in a spiral shape to commemorate her. The day was once widely observed and the days before and after the holiday were known as Catterntide. In medieval times, Catterntide marked the beginning of Advent.

 

St. Catherine is the patron saint of spinners, weavers, and lacemakers, and the latter used to take their annual holiday on this day.

Here's a British recipe (from "The Simple Things") for Cattern cakes:

275g (9.7oz) self-raising flour

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

25g (.9oz) currants

50g (1.77oz) ground almonds

2 tsp caraway seeds

200g (7oz) caster ("superfine") sugar, plus extra for sprinkling

100g (3.5oz) butter, melted

1 medium egg, beaten

Sift flour and cinnamon into a large mixing bowl, then add currants, almonds, caraway seeds, and sugar.

Add the melted butter and beaten egg to form a soft dough.

Roll out on floured surface to about 2cm (3/4 inch) thick and cut out rounds with a biscuit cutter. Lay the rounds on a baking sheet lined with parchment.

Using a sharp knife, make swirls in each cake, then sprinkle on sugar.

Bake for about 10 minutes in an oven already preheated to 190C (375F) or until they are brown and slightly risen. Cool on a wire rack.

❤ French Culture: What Do the French Do on St. Catherine's Day?

 

❤ The Free Dictionary: St. Catherine's Day 

 

❤ St. Catherine and Milliners 

❤ Fish Eaters: St. Catherine

 

St. Catherine was known to be well-educated and a book lover. You can celebrate her feast by buying a book as well!

"A Thanksgiving Poem"

The sun hath shed its kindly light,
   Our harvesting is gladly o’er
Our fields have felt no killing blight,
   Our bins are filled with goodly store.

From pestilence, fire, flood, and sword
   We have been spared by thy decree,
And now with humble hearts, O Lord,
   We come to pay our thanks to thee.

We feel that had our merits been
   The measure of thy gifts to us,
We erring children, born of sin,
   Might not now be rejoicing thus.

No deed of our hath brought us grace;
   When thou were nigh our sight was dull,
We hid in trembling from thy face,
   But thou, O God, wert merciful.

Thy mighty hand o’er all the land
   Hath still been open to bestow
Those blessings which our wants demand
   From heaven, whence all blessings flow.

Thou hast, with ever watchful eye,
   Looked down on us with holy care,
And from thy storehouse in the sky
   Hast scattered plenty everywhere.

Then lift we up our songs of praise
   To thee, O Father, good and kind;
To thee we consecrate our days;
   Be thine the temple of each mind.

With incense sweet our thanks ascend;
   Before thy works our powers pall;
Though we should strive years without end,
   We could not thank thee for them all.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

"The Thanksgivings" (translated from the Iroquois)

We who are here present thank the Great Spirit that we are here to praise Him.
We thank Him that He has created men and women, and ordered that these beings 
      shall always be living to multiply the earth.
We thank Him for making the earth and giving these beings its products to live on.
We thank Him for the water that comes out of the earth and runs for our lands.
We thank Him for all the animals on the earth.
We thank Him for certain timbers that grow and have fluids coming from them for 
      us all.
We thank Him for the branches of the trees that grow shadows for our shelter.
We thank Him for the beings that come from the west, the thunder and lightning 
      that water the earth.
We thank Him for the light which we call our oldest brother, the sun that works for 
      our good.
We thank Him for all the fruits that grow on the trees and vines.
We thank Him for his goodness in making the forests, and thank all its trees.
We thank Him for the darkness that gives us rest, and for the kind Being of the 
      darkness that gives us light, the moon.
We thank Him for the bright spots in the skies that give us signs, the stars.
We give Him thanks for our supporters, who had charge of our harvests.
We give thanks that the voice of the Great Spirit can still be heard through the 
      words of Ga-ne-o-di-o.
We thank the Great Spirit that we have the privilege of this pleasant occasion.
We give thanks for the persons who can sing the Great Spirit's music, and hope 
      they will be privileged to continue in his faith.
We thank the Great Spirit for all the persons who perform the ceremonies on this 
      occasion.

Harriet Maxwell Converse

"The Harvest Moon"

It is the Harvest Moon! On gilded vanes
  And roofs of villages, on woodland crests
  And their aerial neighborhoods of nests
  Deserted, on the curtained window-panes
Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes
  And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests!
  Gone are the birds that were our summer guests,
  With the last sheaves return the laboring wains!
All things are symbols: the external shows
  Of Nature have their image in the mind,
  As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves;
The song-birds leave us at the summer's close,
  Only the empty nests are left behind,
  And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Thanksgiving"

Let us be thankful—not only because
   Since last our universal thanks were told
We have grown greater in the world’s applause,
   And fortune’s newer smiles surpass the old—

But thankful for all things that come as alms
   From out the open hand of Providence:—
The winter clouds and storms—the summer calms—
   The sleepless dread—the drowse of indolence.

Let us be thankful—thankful for the prayers
   Whose gracious answers were long, long delayed,
That they might fall upon us unawares,
   And bless us, as in greater need we prayed.

Let us be thankful for the loyal hand
   That love held out in welcome to our own,
When love and only love could understand
   The need of touches we had never known.

Let us be thankful for the longing eyes
   That gave their secret to us as they wept,
Yet in return found, with a sweet surprise,
   Love’s touch upon their lids, and, smiling, slept.

And let us, too, be thankful that the tears
   Of sorrow have not all been drained away,
That through them still, for all the coming years,
   We may look on the dead face of To-day.

James Whitcomb Riley

Christmas is Coming...The Earliest Recorded Version of "Silent Night"

Everyone knows the story of "Silent Night": the priest who wrote some verses after heading home from a call on a sick parishioner and seeing the beauty of the night, the organ wasn't working because mice chewed on the bellows; priest asks the sexton to set the verses to music—and voila, in 1818 "Silent Night" is born.

Well, that's the legend, anyway, but more convoluted is how the song got from the small Austrian town of Obendorf to the world: most tales credit it to an internationally-known singing group, the Rainiers, who carried the song out of Europe.

This is the earliest recorded version of "Silent Night," by the Haydn Quartet, I believe recorded by the Edison company. You will notice the lyrics are appreciably different from what we sing today, and I wonder if these are closer to the lyrics are closer to what was written by Gruber. It's also interesting to notice the difference in song performance techniques in that era.

The People of Christmas: St. Martin

St. Martin? Has he something to do with Christmas?

 

Well, peripherally!

 

St. Martin of Tours was originally a soldier, and it is ironic that his feast day falls on November 11, the anniversary of the Armistice that ended the first World War. Martin was a cavalryman, well mounted and well clad, but when he came upon a ragged man shivering for lack of clothing in the snow, he sliced his voluminous cloak in half and gave it to the man. That night he dreamed of Jesus wearing the half cloak and saying to a contingent of angels, "Here is Martin, the Roman soldier who is now baptized; he has clothed me." Martin converted to Christianity and later became a bishop.

 

His association with Christmas is that the preparatory season of Advent used to be forty days, the same as old Christmastide and the same as Lent, and began on his feast day, Martinmas.

 

In European countries, Martinmas marks the end of the harvest season. Livestock that had multiplied during the summer and which could not be fed during the winter was butchered and preserved by salting or smoking, and farmers would provide cakes and ale for the harvesters. Now that farm work was over, the laborers would attend Martinmas hiring fares to find positions for the winter.

 

Waterfowl are also involved in Martinmas celebrations. As at Michaelmas, a goose is usually eaten as part of the feasting. This alludes to the part of Martin's story where he did almost everything to avoid becoming a bishop, prefering to spread the gospel his own way. Martin hid in a pen of geese as a last resort, but the geese raised such a racket that he was given away. Weather forecasting is associated with the holiday, as it is on Candlemas, or, as it's known in the US, Groundhog Day. According to folklore, if Martinmas is cold and icy, the winter that follows will be milder, all through Candlemas. This is alluded to in a poem:

 

"Ice before Martinmas,

Enough to bear a duck,

The rest of winter,

Is sure to be but muck."

 

In other words, if the water is frozen over so that a duck cannot break through the ice on Martinmas, the remainder of the winter will be mild.

 

Snow on St. Martin's day is greeted with the exclamation: "Here comes St. Martin on his white horse!"

 

St. Martin of Tours 

 

Martinstag and St. Martin 

 

Historic UK: Martinmas

 

Slovenia Incognita: Martinmas 

The Tudor Society: The Feast of Martinmas

"Autumn"

Now, upon the brown earth’s breast
Fall the crimson leaves to rest;
Summer’s done—and laughing Spring—
What does gray-clad Autumn bring?
Autumn, like a gipsy bold
In her cap of red and gold!

Autumn, with her magic brush
Paints each wayside tree and bush;
Gilds the pumpkin at our feet
In the fields of yellow wheat;
Bids the wild duck homeward fly
Through the quiet, hazy sky;
Gaily through the orchard goes;
Tints the apple’s cheek with rose;
And with pleasant fruits and grain
Cheers the waiting world again.
There is loveliness sublime
In the earth at Autumn time—
Autumn, like a gipsy bold
In her cap of red and gold!

Edith D. Osborne, "St. Nicholas" magazine, October 1924

The Hollisters at Hallowe'en

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

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

 

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

"Leaves"

by Elsie N. Brady

How silently they tumble down
And come to rest upon the ground
To lay a carpet, rich and rare,
Beneath the trees without a care,
Content to sleep, their work well done,
Colors gleaming in the sun.

At other times, they wildly fly
Until they nearly reach the sky.
Twisting, turning through the air
Till all the trees stand stark and bare.
Exhausted, drop to earth below
To wait, like children, for the snow.

The People of Christmas: St. Francis of Assisi

Today is the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, who is perhaps most commonly known as a lover of animals and nature. It was said that he preached the word of God even to the birds, and was so gentle with them that they came to him when he called, and birds perched on his heads. In the 1970s he was proclaimed the patron saint of ecology. In many churches, a Blessing of the Animals occurs around this date in honor of St. Francis. The current Pope, formerly Jorge Mario Bergoglio, picked his name in honor of the saint of Assisi, Italy.

Francis was originally christened "Giovanni" (John) and was the high-living son of a wealthy silk merchant. Even when he was a rich young man about town, he was known to give alms to the poor. After a sojourn to France, he returned to Italy with a love of all things French, so his family began calling him "Francesco" ("Frenchman").

Francis began to change after enduring an illness so severe it was feared he would die. Slowly, and to the dismay of his wealthy family, he began rejecting money and fine clothes and devoted himself to the poor. He founded the Franciscan order of monks, and also a similar organization of women, the Poor Clares.

Francis' connection to Christmas is simple: he was the first to create what we call "the Christmas crib," "the Nativity scene," or simply "the manger." He feared that people had forgotten that Jesus was born in a stable of humble parents, surrounded by animals, and staged the first living Nativity scene with carved figures representing the Holy Family (because it was thought using real humans might be blasphemous) and living sheep, donkeys, oxen, and other creatures. Later figures of wood, clay, porcelain, and so many other materials re-enacted the classic scene most people see under their Christmas tree, on a special table during the holiday season, in churches and on other properties.

The next time you're arranging your Nativity scene, thank St. Francis for adding this beautiful custom to the Christmas celebration.

Michaelmas

From the Historic UK website:

• Feast of Michael and All Angels.
  
• As it falls near the equinox, the day is associated with the beginning of autumn and the shortening of days.
• In England, it is one of the “quarter days”. There are traditionally four “quarter days” in a year (Lady Day (25th March), Midsummer (24th June), Michaelmas (29th September) and Christmas (25th December)). They are spaced three months apart, on religious festivals, usually close to the solstices or equinoxes. They were the four dates on which servants were hired, rents due or leases begun.
• St Michael is one of the principal angelic warriors, protector against the dark of the night and the Archangel who fought against Satan and his evil angels. As Michaelmas is the time that the darker nights and colder days begin – the edge into winter – the celebration of Michaelmas is associated with encouraging protection during these dark months.
• A well fattened goose, fed on the stubble from the fields after the harvest, is eaten to protect against financial need in the family for the next year; and as the saying goes:

  “Eat a goose on Michaelmas Day,
  Want not for money all the year”. 

   

  More Michaelmas Links
  

  The Merry Foods of Michaelmas
  
  Richmond Waldorf School Michaelmas Page
  
  Michaelmas: Prayers, Food, and Flowers

  Project Britain: Michaelmas

  
  

Autumnal Equinox

"Th[e] word, autumn, goes all the way back through Medieval English and Old French, autumpne and autompne, to the Latin autumnus, which is listed as "of uncertain origin." It simply means the third season of the year, that time between summer and winter, and apparently it always has. But my big dictionary adds, comfortingly, "the season known in America as Fall." Fall, of course, means many things—the fall of the leaves, the fall of temperature, the fall of man perhaps. Follow that word back and you come out at Old Dutch and Old German, vallen and fallen, meaning to go down, to descend, pretty much what we mean today when we use the word as a verb. It must have come to us as a season name through the Anglo-Saxon.

"Whatever you choose to call it, it is a beautiful time of the year, a comfortable and comforting time. It brings some of the most beautiful days, with clear, blue skies and mild winds and comfortable temperatures. It is adorned with color in the woodlands. It is the end of summer, but it also is a thoroughly pleasant interval between summer and winter."

. . . . . . . Hal Borland's Book of Days

Rudolph Day, August 2021

"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.

 

Slashing Through the Snow, Jacqueline Frost

This is the third—and possibly last—book in Frost's "Christmas Tree Farm" mystery series taking place in Mistletoe, Maine, following 'Twas the Knife Before Christmas and The Twelve Slays of Christmas (although there's at least one unresolved plot line when the book ends). It's been a year since the inn at Reindeer Games, the Christmas tree farm run by the White family, opened, run by Holly White, who returned to her home town two years earlier. This year, Holly is trying to show a good time to Karen Moody, a persnickety reviewer for "New England Magazine," but Karen, whose annoying personality proceeds her, is all about complaining about the smallest thing. But it's no joke when Karen is found bludgeoned to death on the front porch of the Inn, her body in a collection bag meant for toys, and the murder weapon is the Christmas gift just given to Holly by her oldest (literally) and dearest friend, Delores "Cookie" Cutter, a metal nutcracker. Cookie's are the only fingerprints found on the nutcracker, and she had been heard by a guest making a bad joke about murdering Karen earlier in the day. So Sheriff Evan Gray must consider her the prime suspect, even if Holly won't stand for it. She determines she doesn't want to put herself in danger as in the previous two Christmases when first her dad and then her best friend were accused of murder, but she must clear Cookie somehow.

 

Due to Karen's personality, there are several suspects to zero in on, but I started looking at one person partway through the book and it turned out I was almost right. My big problem with this book is that other stuff was so predictable. For instance, Evan Gray and Holly are a couple, and when he says he's going to surprise her with something special for Christmas, I knew immediately what it was. Everybody else knows what it is, too, and I can't believe Holly didn't figure it out! Also, in the original synopsis the magazine critic was named Cleo. While that name seems to be overused in mystery fic these days, "Karen Moody" strikes me as such a pat, stereotypical name that it's annoying: "Karen" for the pushy privileged white woman who calls out people of color, and "Moody" describing her choleric personality. If you were going to peg anyone as being a pain in the ass, wouldn't you immediately think "Karen Moody"?

 

Once again with this series, I love the idea of the Christmas town, the great tree farm with its yummy coffee shop, and most of the supporting characters. But I would have preferred fewer stereotypes. And as for that surprise...Holly, dear, you are dense!

* * * * * * * *

Is it Christmas yet? Nope, still 120 days away! But here are some sites to get you in the mood:

* Northpole

* Smithsonian Magazine Christmas Articles

* My Merry Christmas

 

* Old-Fashioned Victorian Christmas

* Why Christmas?

Christmas in July

 

The Atlas of Christmas: The Merriest, Tastiest, Quirkiest Holiday Traditions from Around the World, Alex Palmer

I've been collecting Christmas books for 20-30 years now, so a lot of the customs talked about in this book I already know...but it's still a nifty little volume, because there are so many holiday customs I didn't know about as well. The book is divided into nine parts: Ceremonies and Rituals (Three Kings Day and Santa Lucia, among others), Musical Interludes and Interlopers (bagpipes in Italy rather than Scotland and mumming in Newfoundland), Local Quirks and Curious Practices (the much-vaunted Christmas book flood in Iceland along with Finnish saunas and a "poop log" in Spain), Saints and Gift Bringers (alternate Santa like La Befana, Frau Holle, Tante Arie, and even some male ones), Devils and Troublemakers (here comes Krampus with his long tongue and bag for naughty children and the problem with "Black Peter"), Holiday Trimmings and Trinkets (beautiful lanterns in the Philippines, a Yule goat, and a wheat chandelier), Fierce Competitions and Leisurely Pastimes (Christmas verse with a difference in the Netherlands and Christmas crackers), Savory and Satisfying Holiday Dishes (holiday foods...), and Celebratory Sweets (...and desserts and drinks).

 

This book includes a lot of new traditions from Africa and the Middle East that I'd never heard of, even a Chinese custom of giving apples during the holiday season, despite the government's efforts to suppress Western holidays. If you don't have any other books about Christmas customs in other lands, this would be a great starter volume for reading about world holiday customs. It's illustrated with quaint little cutout paper type illustrations, although photos of some of the food would have been cool. The only problem is that someone appeared to quit proofreading the book about halfway through and there are references to other articles that say "see page TK," but this doesn't spoil the narrative. Also, they seemed to skip the German custom of the peppermint pig.

(Incidentally, the story you hear about the custom of the pickle ornament on German Christmas trees is not here, as Germans say it's not a German custom.)

A Christmas Legacy, Anne Perry

This is this year's Christmas book from Perry, who is most famous for her two Victorian mystery series: the later set Charlotte and Thomas Pitt stories starting with The Cater Street Hangman and the earlier set William Monk/Hester Latterley novels starting with Face of A Stranger. In each of the books she has a usually minor character from one of the two series facing some sort of problem during the Yuletide season.

A Christmas Legacy stars one of Perry's most beloved supporting characters, Gracie Phipps Tellman, once the teenage servant of the Pitts. Now married to Thomas Pitt's old partner on the Metropolitan Police, Samuel Tellman, with three children (Charlotte "Charlie," Thomas, and Victor), Gracie takes pity on Millie Foster, whose mother she and Tellman had helped when Millie was a child. Millie works as a maid for a wealthy family and things like food are disappearing from the kitchen. She's afraid something odd is going on and the servants will be blamed for it, and she's desperate for someone to help. If one of the servants gets dismissed without a character reference, they will likely spend the rest of their lives on the street. So Gracie concocts a story that Millie is ill, produces a character reference from Charlotte Pitt, and with her husband's blessing, takes Millie's place at the Harcourt home. She promises Tellman and little Charlie she will be home for Christmas, but is immediately swept up in the problems Millie has spoken about, and can't figure out for the life of her what's going on...but it has to do with the food, and something upstairs.

I think readers will guess pretty quickly what's going on after Gracie finds out the secret of the food and especially after a conversation between the Harcourts, but it's the humanity of Gracie's reaction once she discovers the problem and the actions of the servants that carry this book. The actual mystery is a bit cliche, but it's all heartwarming, and Charlie is a darling character. I really wish Perry would write some books about Tellman's cases and how Gracie has helped him, as they intimate she has in at least one case with Millie's mother, as I find Gracie and Tellman both more interesting than her newest character, Elena Standish.

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Leon Day!

"Leon" is "Noel" spelled backwards, and it's now six months until Christmas. Lots of fun upcoming soon: autumn leaves, Hallowe'en, cooler temps, Thanksgiving, Advent, pumpkins and cinnamon, peppermint and gingerbread, the dream of wintry breezes.

 

(And—O frabjous day!—finally the Friends of the Library book sale!)

 

All we have to do is make it through the sultry, stultifying, smelly, stinky, sweaty siege that is the remainder of summer.

 

I'd be happy for Independence Day, but the fireworks make the dog crazy...

 

 

"Easter Thoughts"

Dawning awakes and throws across the sky

Bright strands of pink that widen as they spread

And make a pathway for the sleepy sun till he

In rapture paints the waking world in gold.

Below, the pussywillows toss their yellow heads

At early trees, quite golden in the light,

And fresh forsythia vying with the sun;

Even the little dewdrops catch his rays

And sparkle like a million tiny flames

Upon the emerald grass; a voice is hear

Of many twittering birds that welcome with their songs

The dawning—and its symphony in gold.

Perhaps this proves to humans why Christ died;

Perhaps it means that there could be no Death–

Only a temporary night which flees and vanishes

Before a flood of light and golden morning.

Isabel B. Roche, age 11

from the July 1933 St. Nicholas magazine "St. Nicholas League"

Easter Greetings!

What are some of your Easter memories? I remember...

 

There was almost always a new spring dress for Easter, and new strap Sunday shoes, purchased after a deadly dull trip downtown to look at only clothes and shoes. I hated the early skirts of my childhood, which were stiffened with starched tulle slips and itched abominably. New Sunday shoes hurt, too. Had I grown over the year I would also get a new Easter hat, usually along the line of an old-fashioned bonnet or straw boater, with flowers on it (how annoying that awful elastic band that kept it firmly anchored to your head, but irritated the skin in the fold between your head and your neck!), and a new spring coat in a suitably spring color: pale yellow, pink, pale blue, and the most memorable one, a woven fabric of spring green, with saucer-like buttons down the front (see photo below from May 1967, I am eleven).

 

Mom would have baked Easter goodies: perhaps some wine biscuits for me, but more "spring" type baked goods: egg biscuits, finished with a light sugar glaze and sprinkles on top; almond bars for dad. She would also make a rice pie, which was, as you might guess, made with rice, with sugar and eggs. No top crust; it looked like a custard pie.

 

On Good Friday she would shut the TV off from noon to three, the hours Jesus was on the cross, and say her rosary and read the Bible. I was expected to be quiet, too, and occupied myself perhaps with reading my children's Bible, or coloring quietly, later just reading.

 

At the grocery store earlier she would have bought all the goodies for Easter dinner: a very small Virginia brown sugar ham, some potatoes, some type of vegetable, and we had the rice pie or the cookies for dessert. We might have already watched some religious films on TV: Barabbas with Anthony Quinn, or The Robe, and there would be just some generic Catholic films on as well, like Sally and Saint Anne, The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima, Song of Bernadette, Going My Way. Our Easter lily, in a ceramic pot wrapped with pastel colored foil, sat on the front steps, and we still had the vase of pussy willows Uncle Guido brought us every spring sitting on the kitchen table.

 

Sunday began with 10:15 Mass, upstairs, a High Mass, which meant we could sing along with the choir, but it wouldn't do much good as we would have been drowned out. There were usually three priests officiating, Father Bernasconi as the main celebrant, and the scent of incense drowning out anything else, from the big waxy-white Easter lilies with their pale yellow throats on the altar to the lily and carnation corsages our mothers wore. All the responses were sung, so High Mass took a while, and since you'd been fasting since you woke up, so you could receive Communion, everyone would be very hungry once Mass let out at 11:30. You had to file out decorously, shaking hands with Father on the way out—and then bunches of people made tracks to Solitro's Bakery, one block down, to pick up some pastry for the afternoon. The line would snake out the front door and down the street. Everyone else was in the parking lot, waiting in or near their car, for the people in front of them to quit hugging and kissing friends and get in their cars to go home.

 

Easter dinner was at noon or thereafter: the sweet, succulent ham, warmed up in the oven with brown sugar and canned pineapple in juice, the potatoes, the veg. As on all Sundays, we would probably go for "a ride" after dinner: this was usually up to Diamond Hill or down to Oakland Beach, or out to Scituate and drive around the reservoir, but on Easter Sunday we joined the long, long lines going through the big black iron gates at the entrance to Roger Williams Park on Elmwood Avenue to take photos with the new beds of colorful tulips and hyacinths and crocuses, a riot of scarlet and saffron, lilac and orange, lavender and white, or else to the Japanese garden if the weather had been warm enough—alas, there were Easter Sundays, especially in March, where we went to church in winter coats and clothes—and the flowering trees were in bloom, branches snowy in white or looking like cotton candy in pink. Sometimes we would also walk in the zoo and pet the farm animals, still shaggy with winter coats.

 

Then about 4 or later, it was off to Papà's house where Aunty Margaret had fragrant coffee waiting along with her nicely decorated trays of cookies: more egg biscuits, some of them finished with sparkly silver dragées; the inevitable little torrone pieces in their colorful boxes; struffoli basted in honey and sprinkled with tiny multicolor candy periods, and wandi doused in confectioners' sugar (the latter two probably ordered beforehand from a bakery, as they were time-consuming to make); and even Easter-colored wrapper Hershey's kisses. Even with all this bounty, someone had evidently gone earlier to one of the numerous bakeries in the Silver Lake neighborhood like Crugnale's or Scialo's and there were pastries: lemon squares, sfogliatelles, cannoli, New Yorkers... Oh, and pizza strips! I called it "bakery pizza," and every Italian bakery had them: rectangular pans with pizza crust covered in pizza sauce. No cheese, just goodness.

 

When we got home there was this year's Easter basket to look forward to. We did not dye eggs in our house. Nobody ate hard-boiled eggs and they would have had to be thrown out; as teens in the Depression and conserving food during the second World War, my parents refused to waste food. I usually got an Easter basket Mom had put together. I wasn't allowed jelly beans or Peeps (nothing pure sugar, and I disliked them anyway), but there was the nice basket; Easter grass for a colorful bedding (the basket and the grass were stored in the attic and used year after year); a few plastic eggs with faux gold coins in them; usually a new stuffed Easter bunny, each year in a different color: white, pink, pale blue—the bunnies stopped when I was twelve and finally received my favorite one, a brown-and-white rabbit that looked almost like the real thing; I named him Harold J. Rabbit, "Hoppy" for short); small solid-chocolate eggs with colorful foil wrappers that I carefully removed, flattened, and used to make Christmas ornaments from; and of course a big Peter Rabbit, a hollow chocolate Easter bunny. This I would nibble on successive days during the week, from the tail to the ears, until it was all gone.