Rudolph Day, April 2012

"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.

Ever watch HGTV and their over-the-top Christmas decorating shows? Here are more reasonable ideas:
Readers Digest Tips

Budget Decorating for Your Home

Homemade Christmas Decorations

Cheap Christmas Decorations (I love the snowflake curtain idea! You can keep it up for winter.)



Paper Bag Christmas, Kevin Alan Milne
I am at a loss at what to say about this book. At the conclusion, it will definitely make you tear up.On the other hand, it is deliberately manipulative. You may think that yes, many Christmas books (and movies for that matter) are, but this one seems excessively so.

The story is a simple one: Molar Alan and his brother Aaran are taken to see an unusual Santa Claus, who is saddened by their chock-full Christmas lists. In an effort to teach them there is something more to Christmas than gifts, their Santa, really an amputee oncologist at a children's cancer unit, has them help out with the sick children during the Christmas season, especially with two difficult patients, an Indian boy who does not understand Christmas and a reclusive little girl who wears a paper bag on her head. As the story progresses, Aaron and, especially, Mo learn that Christmas is more than material gifts.

I suppose what I question is why Aaron and Mo needed to learn this lesson. All the other children in line submit Christmas lists, which "Santa" accepts graciously. Yes, both Aaron and Mo completely fill up the paper they are given to write down what they want for Christmas, but I took it from the narrative that Mo, at least, ended up filling up the paper simply because they waited two hours in line and he felt he had to. At no point are we told these kids are selfish or greedy. So why, of all the children, were they the ones chosen? I would have understood more had the story opened with them in a house full of toys, quarreling with each other and treating their parents badly, and grabbing at the empty Christmas list paper to hurriedly write down line after line of toys. These kids simply aren't that selfish. Madhu, the boy from India, is a sweet character, but he also embodies the oft-used trope of "outsider who understands what the people who should know better do not." I also rolled my eyes at the stereotypical "Bible Belt" Southern nurse who is merely a caricature and the pat epilogue. And I know children have a variety of names, some very unusual. But how am I to take seriously a boy named "Molar" because his dad was taking his dental exams? Even "Egbert" or "Llewellyn" would have been better than "Molar."

This is a pity because parts of this book are quite affecting, especially the situations involving Katrina, the little girl whom Mo is supposed to help. The description of cancer's effects on the child are quite heartrending, as it resembled what happened to my mother. But I spent too much of this book saying, "Aw, come on!" despite the fact that I love sentimental Christmas stories.

Your mileage may vary—and in a way, I hope it does, because I feel guilty not liking this book for Katrina's sake. She is the most well-developed character in the story, and her raw emotions and sorrows are the linchpin that holds the story together.

11 Days Before Christmas

We had a Christmas luncheon at work today. In the past, we have gone out to eat "somewhere nice," but this year we decided to have folks bring food and people could donate what they would have spent on lunch and it would be given to a charity. I liked that idea very much—I'd rather give to someone who needs it than stuff myself. The main course was ham, and there was also jerk chicken and oxtail, rice, potatoes, beans, a macaroni salad done with bowtie pasta, and other goodies, plus desserts (including the gingerbread I baked last night). (And I got three orders done today, too, and distributed another two. Yay.)

Spent the evening watching specials about people who go all out with Christmas lights. I love these displays, but would not do it for the world. I can't imagine being out there night after night testing and positioning lights, going up on the roof, adding circuits to my house, and paying $500 electric bills!

Speaking of Christmas lights, I'm sure most people know that before there were electric lights on Christmas trees, there were candles, but did you know there were also fairy lights? These looked a bit like votive containers, but with hangers, and they were considered to be safer than candles. They were also used to illuminate outdoors—the 1980s television special Christmas Past notes that many British people used them to light the path to the privy!—in a similar way to our putting out light strings today.

Here in the United States they were more often known as Victorian Christmas Lights.

In the past I have talked about George Nelson's great Antique Christmas Lights website here. Well, apparently it has disappeared (although there is a placeholder saying an "Antique Christmas Lights Museum" will appear in early 2011) and fans of the page have attempted to reconstruct it.

Here's the site link for George's brother Bill Nelson's Antique Christmas Lights and the reconstruction of George's site Old Christmas Tree Lights. George's site also contains some vintage holiday recordings from Edison cylinders, Christmas memories, and more.

When You Click Upon a Star

A surprise every day until Christmas!

Chez Martine - Advent Calendar 2009

LOL. If you click on a star before it's time, an angel trumpets "No peeking!"

(What you get, BTW, are add-your-name-and-save Christmas themed signature tags for use on e-mails.)

Rudolph Day, March 2009

The purpose of Rudolph Day is to keep the Christmas spirit all year long. One can prepare Christmas gifts or crafts, watch a Christmas movie, play Christmas music, or read a Christmas book.

For our March edition, Earl Hamner Remembers A Nelson County, Virginia Christmas (this appeared in a slightly different form on the LP "The Waltons Christmas Album").

Did you know artificial Christmas trees are not new? They were originally conceived after the depletion of forests for Christmas trees. Here's the history of feather trees on a feather tree kit site, and also an article about them from the Victoriana online magazine.

This month's featured book is I'll Be Home for Christmas, a collection of personal memories from the magazine Good Old Days. This full color hardcover book is full of vintage illustrations (including some by Norman Rockwell) and reminisces from the turn of the century through the 1950s. The common denominator in all of them is not the fantastic expensive gifts that were received or the home's expensive decorations, but the happiness of family and friends being together again and receiving tokens of love from those they cared for, and giving those same tokens. Christmas was about happiness, not about money. Stories include memories of grandparents, wartime tales, and country fun. Great for a quiet read during Christmastide.

Rudolph Day, January 2009

The purpose of Rudolph Day is to keep the Christmas spirit all year long. One can prepare Christmas gifts or crafts, watch a Christmas movie, play Christmas music, or read a Christmas book.

For our January edition, here is purportedly the first sound version of A Christmas Carol, Sir Seymour Hicks as Scrooge, from 1935.

For your perusal, a site dedicated to the old paper Christmas village pieces you could find in Woolworths, Grants, Newberrys, Kresges, McCrory, and all the other wonderful "dime stores": Papa Ted's Place.

I have one Christmas project that is nearly completed; one more wooden cutout will do it.

Since I found wrapping paper for 39¢ per roll, I bought three, which fills up my wrapping paper container.

I also finished the book Christmas the World Over by Daniel J. Foley, originally published in 1963. This is a thin, readable volume of celebrations around the world, although it is skewed more to European and North American customs. However, Russia is included, despite the Soviet Union's restrictions upon worship at that time, and even China and Japan are touched upon. Australia abruptly ends with the index! However, since this was published in 1963, there are some fascinating details of customs that have disappeared since the book was published, with Christmas becoming more homogenized. Illustrations are in black and white. Worth getting at a reasonable price if you are interested in different ethnic Christmas celebrations.

Christmas Day Celebrations

Merry Christmas 2008 - Christmas Celebrations - Christmas Day

Christmas is Coming!

Christmas is Coming

On the Ninth Day of Christmas

Busy, busy, busy.

Since the Big Boss was nice enough to give us the day off, I played catchup on all the things I didn't accomplish last week, including the exciting deep cleaning of the master bathroom shower. :-) I decorated two winter sweatshirts, made two signs for the porch (including the one that says "No Solicitors at any time," which I hope will hold off the guy with the loud muffler who keeps bothering me about having our gutters cleaned), painted another sign, fixed up two snowmen as winter decorations (the sled and sign used to say "Merry Christmas"), put up the "library shelf" wall border in the library (this is cool: we found it at School Box; it's 16 feet of "shelves" with books on it—usually the books are fake on these things, but these are real titles, including ones of Hemingway and Richard Wright, Little Women, even Alistair Cooke's America), did another thrilling job of organizing our iron-on patches, sorted laundry, and other exciting housework things! :-)

While I was crafting watched the service for President Ford, then later put the Dish Network holiday music channel on to enjoy it while it lasts.

Also did the tedious job of updating all my website copyright dates; I'm trying to fix up some mistakes made in previous years that happened because I just did simple search-and-replace, so this is taking a bit longer and I still need to finish.

Meanwhile the long, long vacation is over and I'm off to work tomorrow. Need to get my desk set up so I can start the telework process. Tomorrow I'll probably spend several hours just deleting spam e-mails.

Oh, and I uploaded my newest web page, one dedicated to Margaret Sidney's Five Little Peppers series.