I’d suggest an Amazon or Barnes and Noble gift card. Yes, if you click on the Amazon graphic and then proceed to buy something, I get a miniscule associate’s fee. No, I don’t get anything from B&N. Either gift card would be a perfectly delightful Christmas gift as far as I’m concerned. I love bookstores!
Archive | December 2009
Christmas Poem by G.K. Chesterton
There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.
For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.
A child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost—how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky’s dome.
This world is wild as an old wife’s tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.
To an open house in the evening
Home shall all men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.
The $10 Challenge
I read about the $10 Challenge and then linked to it here. Then, I thought my family should do this: take $10 and find someone in need to whom to give the money. Then, I had an expensive thought. What if I gave ten dollars to each of my eight children, ages 24 down to 8, and asked them to give away their ten dollar bill before Christmas to someone who could use a Christmas blessing? Ummm, 8 x 10 is more than ten dollars. Everything ends up costing a lot more than it seems it will at first when you multiply by eight—or even ten (including Engineer Husband and me, too). Oh, well, it would be a good Christmas experiment.
I kept waiting and waiting until I could get everyone together at the same time. This feat is difficult when you have three twenty-somethings, two teens, and a twelve year old, all with active social and work lives. I ended up having six out of the eight here when I told them about the $10 Challenge. The other two would just have to hear about it later. I gave out the tens, and everyone’s eyes lit up. Then, I told them that the deal was that they had to give it away. First, some of them tried trading ten dollar bills: “You give me yours, and I’ll give you mine.” I told them that there were no rules, but that trading money was against the rules. I also suggested that they pray and ask God to show them the person or group to whom they should give their money.
So, now each of my children (except the two missing links) has a ten dollar bill to give away. We’ll see what they do with it.
I told them they had to report back on Christmas morning.
The Book of Nonsense by David Michael Slater
Mr. Slater’s book was one of the Cybils nominees last year, and I started reading it. But I couldn’t really get too interested, for some reason. And I never got far enough along in the book to pick up on the “Biblical themes” that this article in Publisher’s Weekly references.
It seems that in the sequel to The Book of Nonsense, The Book of Knowledge, published this year, the twin protagonists “follow clues to the original Garden of Eden and discover that the record of primordial events recorded in Genesis may not tell the whole story.” And this re-writing of Genesis has stirred up a sort of tempest in teapot, with some bloggers and journalists drawing attention to the (bad) theology presented in the books, at least according to Publisher’s Weekly, although no links are provided to any blog furor.
Sounds like a bunch of nonsense to me.
Presenting Lenore: “The Book of Nonsense pulsates with action, intrigue and magic, but also offers quieter scenes that give insight into the twins’ characters and motivations.”
Word for Teens: “The name of this book is The Book of Nonsense, and that’s exactly what it is: nonsense! There were so many point of view changes that I got whiplash trying to keep up! In addition, the first half of the book made about no sense until the last three chapters of the book. Towards the end, the book does start to get interesting, but this is definitely not one of my favorites.”
A Bookworm’s World: “This tale has all the necessary elements to capture and hold a child’s attention. A battle between good and evil, danger, mysteries and lots of questions to keep them guessing until the end. The only thing I took exception to was the reference to God in regards to a mysterious book detailing a language called the First Tongue.”
There you have it. Varying opinions, but the controversy aspect highlighted in the Publisher’s Weekly article seems overblown and may even be an attempt to stir up up some kind of brouhaha in order to increase sales.
Christmas at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, 1903
Western Union telegram, December 17, 1903, sent to Bishop Milton Wright in Ohio:
Success four flights thursday morning
all against twenty one mile wind started from Level with engine power alone
average speed through air thirty one miles
longest 57 seconds
inform Press
home Christmas.
Orevelle Wright
“This historic telegram was sent from the Kitty Hawk weather station to the weather station at Norfolk, Virginia, then relayed by telephone to the local Western Union office. During transmission, two errors were made: 59 seconds became 57 seconds, and Orville’s name was misspelled.”
~From The Wright Brothers: How They Invented the Airplane by Russell Freedman.
Christmas in Nebraska, 1893
“Up in the Negro church one Christmas the congregation were singing the “Peace on Earth.” When the plaintive music stopped an old gray-haired Negro in a frock coat and wearing two pairs of glasses arose and began reading the old, old story of the men who were watching their flocks by night and of the babe who was born in the city of David. He became very excited as he read, and his voice trembled and he unconsciously put the words to measure and chanted them slowly. When he finished he looked up at the ceiling with eager misty eyes as though he could see the light of the heavenly messenger shining in upon him. It is a beautiful story, this of the holiest and purest childhood on earth, beautiful even to those who cannot understand it, as dreams are sweet to men without hope. After all, if we cannot hear the carol and see the heavenly messenger, it is because our ears are deaf and our eyes are blind, not that we turn willfully away from love or beauty. No one is antagonistic by preference. Almost any of us who doubt would give the little we know or hope to know to go down upon our knees among the lowly and experience a great faith or a great conviction.”
~WIlla Cather in The Nebraska State Journal, December 17, 1893.
Jane Austen on Christmas
Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775.
Mr. Elton: “This is quite the season indeed for friendly meetings. At Christmas everybody invites their friends about them, and people think little of even the worst weather. I was snowed up at a friend’s house once for a week. Nothing could be pleasanter. I went for only one night, and could not get away till that very day se’nnight.”
Emma, volume 1, chapter 13
Caroline Bingley: “When my brother left us yesterday, he imagined that the business which took him to London might be concluded in three or four days; but as we are certain it cannot be so, and at the same time convinced that when Charles gets to town he will be in no hurry to leave it again, we have determined on following him thither, that he may not be obliged to spend his vacant hours in a comfortless hotel. Many of my acquaintances are already there for the winter; I wish that I could hear that you, my dearest friend, had any intention of making one of the crowd– but of that I despair. I sincerely hope your Christmas in Hertfordshire may abound in the gaieties which that season generally brings, and that your beaux will be so numerous as to prevent your feeling the loss of the three of whom we shall deprive you.”
Pride and Prejudice, chapter 21
“I thank you for your long letter, which I will endeavour to deserve by writing the rest of this as closely as possible. I am full of joy at much of your information; that you should have been to a ball, and have danced at it, and supped with the Prince, and that you should meditate the purchase of a new muslin gown, are delightful circumstances. I am determined to buy a handsome one whenever I can, and I am so tired and ashamed of half my present stock, that I even blush at the sight of the wardrobe which contains them. But I will not be much longer libelled by the possession of my coarse spot; I shall turn it into a petticoat very soon. I wish you a merry Christmas, but no compliments of the season.”
Letter to Cassandra from Jane Austen, December 25, 1798.
I am sorry my mother has been suffering, and am afraid this exquisite weather is too good to agree with her. I enjoy it all over me, from top to toe, from right to left, longitudinally, perpendicularly, diagonally; and I cannot but selfishly hope we are to have it last till Christmas — nice, unwholesome, unseasonable, relaxing, close, muggy weather.
Letter to Cassandra from Jane Austen, December 2, 1815.
And here are links to a few book reviews if you’re in an Austen-ish mood:
In the Steps of Jane Austen by Anne-Marie Edwards. Reviewed by Fleur-Fisher, a Cornish bookworm.
Jane Austen: A Biography by Carol Shields. Reviewed at Rebecca Reads.
Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler. Reviewed by Jayne at Dear Author.
Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera RIgler. Reviewed at Booking Mama.
Jane Austen Ruined My Life by Beth Patillo. Reviewed by Lisa at 5 Minutes for Books.
Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin. Reviewed by JenClair at A Garden Carried in My Pocket.
Christmas and Seasonal Links
Who wrote The Night Before Christmas? I knew there was some dispute over the authorship of this traditional Christmas poem, but I didn’t know The Rest of the Story, as Paul Harvey would have said.
Dear Congress, Please go home for Christmas. Now. Please. Sincerely, The Anchoress (and me and lots of us).
Christmas Change and the $10 Challenge: won’t you consider tucking $10 into your pocket or billfold or purse just for the express purpose of blessing somebody else this Christmas?
Or here’s another idea for blessing others at Christmas: For the Man Who Hated Christmas
Christmas in Washington, D.C., 1864
Tad Lincoln:
“And Sherman’s men marched from Atlanta to Savannah–all the way to the sea—burning houses and barns, and tearing up railroads, and freeing slaves in droves.
In December of that year, Sherman sent another telegram to Pa, saying:
Pa answered him right back:
“Cause Pa and everybody else knew, after Savannah, that the South couldn’t last much longer.”
~Me and Willie and Pa by F.N. Monjo.
I’ll bet that was some Christmas, for Sherman and his occupying troops, for the Georgia families who saw what little they had left go up in smoke, for the slaves who were freed but with no place to go, for Lincoln and the rest of Washington who saw the beginning of the end of that long and cruel war.
A Christmas to remember.
Bah! Humbug!
I’m feeling kind of Grouchy today. I don’t want to take it out on my family and ruin their holiday spirit, but the internet is a safe place to vent, isn’t it? I’ll probably be more positive tomorrow, but in the meantime, Oscar and I are simpatico.