Christmas Bookshelf ~ 12/00 ~ Fiction Export

Welcome to the library - books and more books - Books are so important to me anytime during the year but in our family we celebrated the feast of St. Nickolas on December 6 - This ment we wrote our notes the night before and put them on the hearth or in a shoe at the back door.

On the sixth there would be a small gift for each, usually a pencil or a pair of sox or a new toothbush, the box of decorations for the house, and the collection of books with the annual new Christmas book on top.

Every night before Christmas we read from those books. My memories are of children small in nighties and as teen agers sprawled on sofa, chairs and floor. Of course over the years they each had their favorites and about five years ago I broke up the collection and gave them each a third of the pile including their favorites.

My daughter was nuts over Eloise and the Tasha Tudar books - there were books about Santa being a Texan and the story of The Angel of the Alamo that especially appealed to my youngest and now his three boys continue the tradition as does my daughter with her two boys. My oldest liked the traditional Authors and loved the Ogdan Nash stuff. He doen't have a family but reads what ever strikes his fancy regardless if its season appropriate.

So many Christmases and so many books - my very favorite that I just could not bare to give up is The Christmas Mouse by Miss Read.

Well we have quite a library to choose from above making life easier to download a book - there are a few new to me so I can't wait to get started and after I've had my read I'll report back my impressions

Hope y'all enjoy the site and add y'alls christmas activities that were or are centered around reading the holiday stories.

If anyone comes across a site especially the Jewish holidays please post the links - I could not find any literature or poetry on the net using Hanukkah as a theme.

I always read Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol but not out loud as many do and not to children because it's too long, but it's sooo satisfying.

I used to love The Baer's Christmas when I was younger, but I have not seen it in years, I guess by today's standards it would be sappy!

Wonderful heading here, Barb, beautiful work!

ginny

Of course after we recently read Coleridge's ...Ancient Mariner I had to read his poem and see if there are any similarities. And yes, the meter seems the same as ...The Ancient...

I was struck by the message - an eight stanza poem that compares the Baby Jesus, the birth of the Prince of Peace as the hope against war.

My first thoughts were to ask what war would have Coleridge known that would bring this discription and than just as quickly I thought wow this could easily be an analogy to a war within. These lines hit me as especially telling,

Thou Mother of the Prince of Peace,
Poor, simple, and of low estate!
That strife should vanish, battle cease,
...
And is not War a youthful king,
A stately Hero clad in mail?
...
War is a ruffian, ...
...
A murderous fiend, by fiends adored,
He kills the sire and starves the son;
...
Plunders God's world of beauty; rends away
All safety from the night, all comfort from the day .
...
Then wisely is my soul elate,
That strife should vanish, battle cease:

In the same link is the Poem G.K. Chesterton wrote some 200 or more years later, also called A CHRISTMAS CAROL. The work is short four stanzas, with these words repeated; "weary, weary is the world,"

This brings me a new understanding of the many wishes for a PEACEFUL SEASON that I receive on Christmas cards.

I am rereading the Christmas Carol. It is just as enchanting. In some way, it changes your life everytime it's read.

Thank you for this site. It invigorates my Christmas spirit, and it is so cheerful and helpful.

HATS

Hats I think I'll join you on that read tonight - great idea - we all have so many Christmas's past to reflect and look at what we have chosen for today hmmmm.

Glad you like the site - it does load slowly with so many outside links but thanks, we are all grateful for the nice words.

Such a beautiful Christmas Bookshelf site you have created. Thank-you so much!

Now, if I could just click on one of the links and the book would just appear in my lap...!

What a pretty banner!

I am going to take the time to read some of these stories this year! A few I recognize, many I do not.

Lovely site!

I will have to visit the old discussion at TA. We had a great list compiled. One book that I can't remember the author but its title (I think) is The Cat Who Came For Chirstmas I will look for it and others.

GinnyAnn - wasn't that Cleveland Amory's story of a real cat in his life? If so, loved it!

HATS - I reread A Christmas Carol last year and you have inspired me to do the same again!

SarahT. Cleveland Amory's book. Wish I could find where I put my Christmas books and CD's. Amory's book is with them.

Found this turn of the twentieth century ditty and vaguely remember hearing my father quote it when I was a child. It helps to know my father's name was Wilhelm and known by most as Big Bill:

Father calls me William, sister calls me Will,
Mother calls me Willie, but the fellers call me Bill!
Mighty glad I ain't a girl---ruther be a boy,
Without them sashes, curls, an' things that's worn by Fauntleroy!
Love to chawnk green apples an' go swimmin' in the lake---
Hate to take the castor-ile they give for bellyache!
'Most all the time, the whole year round, there ain't no flies on me,
But jest 'fore Christmas I'm as good as I kin be!
Got a yeller dog named Sport, sick him on the cat;
First thing she knows she doesn't know where she is at!
Got a clipper sled, an' when us kids goes out to slide,
'Long comes the grocery cart, an' we all hook a ride!
But sometimes when the grocery man is worrited an' cross,
He reaches at us with his whip, an' larrups up his hoss,
An' then I laff an' holler, "Oh, ye never teched me!"
But jest 'fore Christmas I'm as good as I kin be!
Gran'ma says she hopes that when I git to be a man,
I'll be a missionarer like her oldest brother, Dan,
As was et up by the cannibuls that lives in Ceylon's Isle,
Where every prospeck pleases, an' only man is vile!
But gran'ma she has never been to see a Wild West show,
Nor read the Life of Daniel Boone, or else I guess she'd know That
Buff'lo Bill an' cowboys is good enough for me!
Excep' jest 'fore Christmas, when I'm good as I kin be!
And then old Sport he hangs around, so solemnlike an' still,
His eyes they seem a-sayin': "What's the matter, little Bill?" The
old cat sneaks down off her perch an' wonders what's become
Of them two enemies of hern that used to make things hum!
But I am so perlite an' tend so earnestly to biz,
That mother says to father: "How improved our Willie is!"
But father, havin' been a boy hisself, suspicions me
When, jest 'fore Christmas, I'm as good as I kin be!
For Christmas, with its lots an' lots of candies, cakes, an' toys,
Was made, they say, for proper kids an' not for naughty boys;
So wash yer face an' bresh yer hair, an' mind yer p's and q's,
An' don't bust out yer pantaloons, and don't wear out yer shoes;
Say "Yessum" to the ladies, and "Yessur" to the men,
An' when they's company, don't pass yer plate for pie again;
But, thinkin' of the things yer'd like to see upon that tree,
Jest 'fore Christmas be as good as yer kin be!

Thanks, Barbara, for posting that poem. Parts of it are familiar to me--I didn`t realize it was that long.

BTW--very nice site!

I just wanted to say how much I am enjoying this site!

FrancyLou

OK! Get this one! I can't wait to read it. I ordered Louisa May Alcotts Lost Christmas Treasure. It's a newly discoverd literary treasure written by ms. Alcott as a special Christmas gift to the Luken girls. It is about a loely orphan girl who finds a family to love her. After its publication the story stayed in an old magazine until many yrs. later, a reader chanced upon it. It's an Honors book publication released for the 1st time a a "stand-alone" volume. Has anyone ever heard of this before??

Vagualy I remember reading something like that but here is a wonderful link to one of the many sites about her and her work Louisa May Alcott that includes many links to her work that is now on electronic books as well as, a list of much of her work. She even wrote a mystery!!

Rudolph

On a December night in Chicago several years ago, a little girl climbed onto her father's lap and asked a question. It was a simple question, asked in children's curiosity, yet it had a heart-rending effect on Robert May.

"Daddy," four-year old Barbara asked, "why isn't my mommy just like everybody else's mommy?"

Bob May stole a glance across his shabby two room apartment. On a couch lay his young wife, Evelyn, racked with cancer. For two years she had been bedridden; for two years, all Bob's income and smaller savings had gone to pay for treatments and medicines.

The terrible ordeal already had shattered two adult lives. Now Bob suddenly realized the happiness of his growing daughter was also in jeopardy. As he ran his fingers through Barbara's hair, he prayed for some satisfactory answer to her question.

Bob May knew only too well what it meant to be "different." As a child he had been weak and delicate. With the innocent cruelty of children, his playmates had continually goaded the stunted, skinny lad to tears. Later at Dartmouth,from which he was graduated in 1926, Bob May was so small that he was always being mistaken for someone's little brother.

Nor was his adult life much happier. Unlike many of his classmates who floated from college into plush jobs, Bob became a lowly copy writer for Montgomery Ward, the big Chicago mail order house. Now at 33 Bob was deep in debt, depressed and sad.

Although Bob did not know it at the time, the answer he gave the tousled haired child on his lap was to bring him to fame and fortune. It was also to bring joy to countless thousands of children like his own Barbara. On that December night in the shabby Chicago apartment, Bob cradled his little girl's head against his shoulder and began to tell a story...

"Once upon a time there was a reindeer named Rudolph, the only reindeer in the world that had a big red nose. Naturally people called him Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer." As Bob went on to tell about Rudolph, he tried desperately to communicate to Barbara the knowledge that, even though some creatures of God are strange and different, they often enjoy the miraculous power to make others happy.

"Rudolph," Bob explained, "was terribly embarrassed by his unique nose. Other reindeer laughed at him; his mother and father and sister were mortified too. Even Rudolph wallowed in self pity.

Well," continued Bob, "one Christmas Eve, Santa Claus got his team of husky reindeer - Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, and Vixen ready for their yearly trip around the world. The entire reindeer community assembled to cheer these great heroes on their way. But a terrible fog engulfed the earth that evening, and Santa knew that the mist was so thick he wouldn't be able to find any chimneys.

Suddenly Rudolph appeared, his red nose glowing brighter than ever. Santa sensed at once that here was the answer to his perplexing problem. He led Rudolph to the front of the sleigh, fastened the harness and climbed in. They were off! Rudolph guided Santa safely to every chimney that night. Rain and fog, snow and sleet; nothing bothered Rudolph, for his bright nose penetrated the mist like a beacon.

And so it was that Rudolph became the most famous and beloved of all the reindeer. The huge red nose he once hid in shame was now the envy of every buck and doe in the reindeer world. Santa Claus told everyone that Rudolph had saved the day and from that Christmas, Rudolph has been living serenely and happy."

Little Barbara laughed with glee when her father finished. Every night she begged him to repeat the tale until finally Bob could rattle it off in his sleep. Then, at Christmas time he decided to make the story into a poem like "The Night Before Christmas" and prepare it in bookish form illustrated with pictures, for Barbara's personal gift. Night after night, Bob worked on the verses after Barbara had gone to bed for he was determined his daughter should have a worthwhile gift, even though he could not afford to buy one.

Then as Bob was about to put the finishing touches on Rudolph, tragedy struck. Evelyn May died. Bob, his hopes crushed, turned to Barbara as chief comfort. Yet, despite his grief, he sat at his desk in the quiet, now lonely apartment, and worked on "Rudolph" with tears in his eyes.

Shortly after Barbara had cried with joy over his handmade gift on Christmas morning, Bob was asked to an employee's holiday party at Montgomery Wards. He didn't want to go, but his office associates insisted. When Bob finally agreed, he took with him the poem and read it to the crowd. First the noisy throng listened in laughter and gaiety. Then they became silent, and at the end, broke into spontaneous applause. That was in 1938.

By Christmas of 1947, some 6,000,000 copies of the booklet had been given away or sold, making Rudolph one of the most widely distributed books in the world. The demand for Rudolph sponsored products, increased so much in variety and number that educators and historians predicted Rudolph would come to occupy a permanent place in the Christmas legend.

Through the years of unhappiness, the tragedy of his wife's death and his ultimate success with Rudolph, Bob May has captured a sense of serenity.

And as each Christmas rolls around he recalls with thankfulness the night when his daughter, Barbara's questions inspired him to write the story.

~ Author Unknown ~

Wow - had no idea until now how the song came into being - Oh my the story gives new meaning to what was to me just a silly traditional song. Thanks so much for sharing the story FrancyLou

Barbara: that was lovely.

I read the Louisa May Alcott book last night. There are 3 lovely short stories included in it with the general scheme being that of Christmas; love , hope and charity for others. I am wrapping it for my daughter and her 2 daughters.

Here is an email that I received from a fellow senior netter this AM.

'Twas the night before Christmas and all round my hips Were Fannie May candies that sneaked past my lips. Fudge brownies were stored in the freezer with care In hopes that my thighs would forget they were there.

While Mama in her girdle and I in chin straps Had just settled down to sugar-borne naps. When out in the pantry there arose such a clatter I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the kitchen I flew like a flash, Tore open the icebox then threw up the sash. The marshmallow look of the new-fallen snow Sent thoughts of a binge to my body below.

When what to my wandering eyes should appear: A marzipan Santa with eight chocolate reindeer! That huge chunk of candy so luscious and slick I knew in a second that I'd wind up sick.

The sweet-coated Santa, those sugared reindeer I closed my eyes tightly but still I could hear; On Pritzker, on Stillman, on weak one, on TOPS A Weight Watcher dropout from sugar detox.

From the top of the scales to the top of the hall Now dash away pounds now dash away all. Dressed up in Lane Bryant from my head to nightdress My clothes were all bulging from too much excess.

My droll little mouth and my round little belly, They shook when I laughed like a bowl full of jelly. I spoke not a word but went straight to my work Ate all of the candy then turned with a jerk.

And laying a finger beside my heartburn Gave a quick nod toward the bedroom I turned. I eased into bed, to the heavens I cry-- If temptation's removed I'll get thin by and by.

And I mumbled again as I turned for the night In the morning I'll starve... 'til I take that first bite!