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!
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