December 10th

Now that you've had a chance to read my old favorite Christmas stories, I thought I'd share my other favorite books for Christmas. I don't think I really have any order to these, I just really enjoy the stories.

Sleigh Bells for Windy Foot

by

Frances Frost
(This is a delightful story about the Clark family and some special friends. If you've ever read any of the other Windy Foot books you'll enjoy this one.)

The Candle in the Window

by

Margaret Hill McCarter
(This is an old reprint published by Lamplighter. I liked this simple story.)

The Lion in the Box

by

Marguerite De Angeli
(Oh the charm of this story! I'll show you in another post how to make stars like they did.)

Christmas Stories from Grandma's Attic

by

Arleta Richardson
(If you like the Grandma's Attic books, then you are sure to like this one. It's all the Christmas stories and some you won't find in the other books, all combined to make one book of fun Christmas stories.)

The Christmas Stove (a story of Switzerland)

The Christmas Donkey (a story of France)

Arne and the Christmas Star (a story of Norway)

The Top o' Christmas Morning (a story of Ireland)

Erik's Christmas Camera (a story of Sweden)

and

Kaatje and the Christmas Compass (a story of Holland)

by

Alta Halverson Seymour
(If you enjoy reading about Christmas time in other countries, than you should read these lovely books by Alta Seymour. They are told so well and quite enjoyable!)

I hope you get a chance this December to curl up with a good Christmas story and be transported to another time and place for a few hours, back to when life was simpler. Happy reading!

December 9th

Pull out your scissors and let's have a little fun cutting. I was looking for something online and came across this free pattern for a Scherenschnitte (Sharon-sh-nett) tree and loved it. I decided that I didn't want to put hearts on my tree, so after I cut out the pattern, I traced it and put candles instead of hearts. I really like how it turned out and I hope you do to. 

And if you don't want to cut two of them and sew them together, just cut one and put it on a Christmas card. Have fun!

December 8th

I love this old English Christmas Carol. Many people I've found don't know this song, but it is worth knowing. 

In the Bleak Midwinter

by

Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894)

 

1. In the bleak mid-winter
  Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
  Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
  Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
  Long ago.

2. Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
  Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
  When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
  A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
  Jesus Christ.

3. Angels and archangels
  May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
  Thronged the air,
But only His mother
 In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the Beloved
  With a kiss.

4. What can I give Him,
  Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
  I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
  I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give Him,
  Give my heart.

Dec. 7th - Christmas Eve - Part 2

The sun is shining this morning making the snow glitter and sparkle. I don't think it'll do much to melt it today though. :) We are heading off to get a Christmas tree in the cold and snow right after lunch. Today is also Dad's birthday, so my brother and his family will be eating supper with us after we decorate the tree.

I think I'll let you read Part 2 of yesterday's story. Hope you enjoy it!

Christmas Eve at the Backdoor

Part 2

Last time . . .
    Smiling, Mrs. Kabrick closed the door and went to call her children. It was good to be able to stay home today.
    While the family were eating breakfast, a second knock sounded at the door.
    “Mornin’ Mrs. Kabrick, children,” Officer Caldwell greeted everyone. “Merry Christmas. I was just ready to leave the house this morning, when the missus asked me to dispose of something. But it was such a mite of a thing, I didn’t have the heart to. Perhaps you’ll accept it as a Christmas gift.” With that he pulled from his pocket a small grey kitten and placed it in Cindy’s eager hands.
    “Oh!” she exclaimed in delighted excitement, “Can we really keep him?”
    “Can we, Mama?” echoed Ceddy while the other two added their entreaties.
    Throwing up her hands, Mrs. Kabrick laughed. “Yes, yes, you can keep him.” Then aside to Officer Caldwell, she added, “Thank you for saving one for them.”
    With a grin and a wink, the officer departed, closing the backdoor softly behind him.

    It was difficult for the children to take care of their chores that morning, for no one wanted to leave the kitten, whom they named Jingle Bell. At last, having made a cozy bed for the kitten near the stove with an old towel in an apple crate, they reluctantly scattered.
    Mrs. Kabrick was in the middle of washing up the breakfast dishes when another knock came on the backdoor. Drying her hands on her apron, she hurried across the room to find Edward Conway, the older son of the village grocer standing out in the cold.
    “Well, Edward, what brings you out on a cold Christmas Eve morning?” the surprised woman asked. “Come inside and get warm.”
    Pulling off his cap, Edward smiled. “Thanks, Mrs. Kabrick, but I’ve got to get back to the store. Dad has a few more deliveries he wants me to make before lunch.” He had lifted a good sized box from the steps which Mrs. Kabrick hadn’t noticed before, and stepped in to set in on the table. “There you are. Merry Christmas!”
    Surprised, Mrs. Kabrick stared first at the box and then at her visitor who had turned to the door. “Wait a minute, Edward,” she called.
    The young man turned. “Yes ma’am?”
    “There must be some mistake. I didn’t order anything. The few supplies I needed Roger brought home with him yesterday. You must have gotten the addresses mixed up.”
    With a shake of his blond head, Edward replied, “No mistake with the address since there wasn’t one.”
    “But–”
    “The paper sitting on the box reads Mrs. Kabrick as plain as day. You are the only Mrs. Kabrick in town unless Roger or Ceddy have gone and gotten themselves married,” and the grocer’s son grinned at his own words.
    “But I didn’t order anything,” Mrs. Kabrick protested again.
    Edward shrugged. “Maybe not, but someone must have.”
    “Who?”
    “I wouldn’t know, but I do know that if I don’t get back to the store, Dad is likely to make me work this afternoon. Merry Christmas, Mrs. Kabrick!” he called, hurrying from the warm kitchen into the cold winter morning.
    For several minutes Mrs. Kabrick stood and looked at the box on her table. Where had it come from, who had sent it and what was inside? Before she had a chance to do more than stare, the children raced into the room, stopping short as they caught sight of the box on the table.
    “What’s that?”
    “Where’d it come from?”
    “Who brought it?”
    “What’s inside?”
    With a laugh, Mrs. Kabrick shook her head. “I don’t know many answers. Edward Conway just delivered it, but he couldn’t tell me who had sent it. Let’s open it and find out what it is, shall we?”
    There was a clamorous assent and Roger quickly brought a hammer to open the crate. Inside they found a turkey, cranberries, potatoes, flour, salt, sugar, apples, cinnamon and, in short, everything needed to make a Christmas Day dinner fit for the mayor of Clydesdale. For several minutes the Kabrick kitchen was in a tumult. Mrs. Kabrick had sunk down onto a chair with her face buried in her apron, while the children jumped and skipped around the room singing and shouting with excitement.
    At last, Mrs. Kabrick dried her eyes and said, “Calm down, children or the neighbors will think we have gone crazy. I don’t know, maybe we have. Whoever heard of giving a whole Christmas feast away?”
    “Oh Mama,” Ceddy exclaimed, pressing close to his mother’s knee. “Are we really going to have a feast tomorrow?”
    Putting her arm around her youngest son, Mrs. Kabrick smiled through happy tears. “Yes, Ceddy, I do believe we are.”
    Shortly afterwards, when the unexpected feast had been put away for tomorrow, the family gathered about the living room to enjoy the tree and make paper chains to hang around the room. The air was filled with laughter, snatches of Christmas carols and merry talk. Into the hubbub, came the sound of a heavy pounding on the backdoor.
    “Now who could that be?” Mrs. Kabrick wondered, rising and setting aside her knitting to answer the summons. “Mr. Gardner,” she smiled at the mailman stood on the steps. “Have you been knocking long?”
    “A few minutes, Mrs. Kabrick,” he answered. “I kind of figured you all must be busy, but I have a package I need you to sign for.” He held out his paper.
    Mrs. Kabrick signed it and said, returning it, “I don’t know who could be sending me something that needed signed for.”
    Mr. Gardner shrugged. “I wouldn’t know, but here it is and here’s your mail. Merry Christmas, Mrs. Kabrick. Merry Christmas kids!” The friendly mailman waved to the children crowding around the door.
    “Merry Christmas!” they called back and the backdoor was shut.
    “Brr,” Mrs. Kabrick shivered, “it’s gotten colder I do believe.” She looked down at the small package in her hand.
    “Think we’ll get snow, Mom?” Roger asked eagerly.
    Looking up, Mrs. Kabrick shook her head. “I don’t know, Roger. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.

What do you think happens next?

Dec. 6th - Christmas Eve at the Backdoor - Pt. 1

Hello Friday Fiction Fans!
Guess what! It's snowing! For those of you readers who live where snow in winter is a common sight, where it takes many inches of snow to cancel schools and where weather in the 20s or below is usual, then you'll have to excuse my southern excitement for the first snowfall of the season. :) It started snowing yesterday. Just lazy, scattered flurries when we first saw it after lunch. It grew a little harder and since it had been in the 20s all day, soon the sidewalks, the bare places in the yard, the porch and swing set soon had a dusting on them. It was really pretty. It was snowing a little more when we went to bed and now it's still snowing! Of course it hasn't even covered all the leaves in the yard yet, but the schools were canceled for today because of the weather (windchill in the single digits or below).  There's not enough snow to go sledding even if the city hadn't ruined our sledding hill by planting trees all over it. But it does look pretty. I love watching the flakes swirling, falling, chasing each other and covering the drab ground and bare branches!

But enough about snow. It's been another busy week and I don't feel like I got a whole lot done. I did get a little writing done, but the house still isn't decorated completely. Tomorrow we're supposed to get our tree and then maybe my sis-in-law will help us finish the decorating. I have gotten more done, so there isn't a whole lot left.

Yesterday S and I babysat the kiddos and we made the 3D snowflakes that I posted instructions for on Monday. They loved them and they look so cute hanging on the arch between the living room and dining room.

I started this story last December but didn't get very far. Perhaps that was because it ended up being a 6 part story and it was nearly the end of the month when I started it. But, be that as it may, I did get it finished for this Christmas and I hope you enjoy it. :)

Christmas Eve at the Backdoor

Part 1

    No one used the front door in Clydesdale. Well, no one that is except for a visiting minister, a traveling salesman or perhaps a stranger. Mrs. Patton even moved her sofa in front of her front door because it was so seldom used. Each house had a well worn path leading around to the back door and most people in town forgot there even was such a thing as a “front door.” The kids ran in and out of the back doors in the summer letting the screens slam; neighbors came to the backdoor to borrow or return things in all seasons; friends seldom knocked, for, during the warmer months, the storm doors were kept wide open and someone was nearly always in the kitchen. If news of any sort needed passed along, the housewives of Clydesdale didn’t bother with the telephone, for most families couldn’t afford one anyway, instead they hurried across yards to their neighbor’s backdoor.
    “Yoo hoo, have you heard?” was the usual greeting at such times, often called before the visitor had even opened the backdoor.
    Yes, the most important part of Clydesdale were the backdoors. Every person went through them a dozen times a day. To hang up the wash one must go through the backdoor; to go to school the children left by the backdoor; chores meant tramping through the backdoor; a trip to town for shopping or church began and ended with the backdoor; to pay a social call one had to leave by a backdoor and enter a friend’s backdoor; even a trip to the woodshed, whether for wood for the fireplace or to teach a lesson to a willful child, started at the backdoor. They were slammed when angry, shut quietly when sad, flung back against the house with a crash during moments of great excitement, swung on, pushed, jerked about; their hinges creaked and were oiled now and then; they were left standing open or pulled firmly shut but seldom, very seldom were they locked. Some were kept well painted, others had peeling paint and torn screens, some looked tired, while others swung on well oiled hinges. If there had been a museum in town featuring old, well worn things, no doubt an entire room would have been devoted to those sturdy, dependable, reliable backdoors.

    Mrs. Kabrick turned from the stove and called into the front room, “Jody, Roger, Cindy and Cedric, stop squabbling over that tree or I’ll come and do it all myself.”
    The noise in the other room stopped and Mrs. Kabrick turned back to her stove shaking her head. It was evening before Christmas Eve, and Mr. Ditty had brought a tree for them that morning. Since school was out until after Christmas, the children had begged to be allowed to decorate it all themselves. Wondering what the tree would look like after her four children were finished with it, Mrs. Kabrick gave a sigh and stirred the soup. She was tired. It was good to be home after a long day of work.
    “Mama,” Cindy’s voice interrupted the quiet of the kitchen. “The tree is ready. Come and see it.”
    And Ceddy’s voice chimed in, “Yes, Mama, come see!”
    “All right.” Mrs. Kabrick turned off the heat under the bubbling soup and allowed herself to be dragged away by the eager children.
    The tree really was quite lovely considering the diversity of personalities which had contributed to it. There were a few bare places and some where the lights hadn’t been spread out enough, but if the children liked it, what did it matter?
    “Isn’t it perfect, Mama?” Cindy hopped up and down. “Just perfect?”
    Mrs. Kabrick nodded with a smile. “Just perfect,” she echoed. “But,” she added, “if you want to eat tonight, you all need to go wash up.”
    A rush of flying feet faded down the hall. The soup had been filling the house with enticing smells for the last hour and everyone was hungry.
    It was a pleasant meal, the children chattering about Christmas and hoping for more snow. Thankful she didn’t have to work tomorrow, Mrs. Kabrick was looking forward to a day at home with her children. Giving a small sigh, she pushed back a lock of her still brown hair and looked about the table. It had been eight years since her husband had died when the twins were just over a year old. How long ago, yet how short, it seemed. The oldest child, Jody, now thirteen, was a very dependable helper most of the time, even if she was inclined to be rather bossy with the younger ones. She was the only one of the children who looked like their daddy, with black hair and dark eyes.
    Being eleven, Roger considered himself nearly a man and had delivered papers faithfully every morning since he was ten. After school hours he often ran errands for Mr. Conway down at the grocery store or helped out with the chores on his uncle’s farm.
    As for the twins, they were much alike, from their short, straight brown hair, though Cindy’s was longer than Ceddy’s, and brown eyes, to their bubbling personality. They were almost inseparable and often into some predicament or other. Their mother wondered at times if she was too strict and at others if she was not strict enough.
    The meal over, dishes were washed and after singing a few Christmas carols around the tree, the Kabrick family retired to their beds.

    There was no new snow on the ground when Mrs. Kabrick came down to the kitchen to begin breakfast. It didn’t even look like snow for the sky was clear. It was before she had even called the children that a knock on the door was heard.
    “Oh, Mrs. Kabrick,” Timmy sighed with relief as she opened the backdoor. “Please, could you spare a few matches? We used up the last one this morning and the fire in the stove just won’t light and if it won’t light, Mama can’t cook breakfast and if Papa doesn’t get breakfast, well—” he paused for breath.
    “Of course you may borrow some matches, Timmy. Here.” Mrs. Kabrick took a box from a high shelf and said, “Now run along and start your fire. And Merry Christmas!”
    “Merry Christmas!” Timmy flung back over his shoulder as he dashed across lots to his own kitchen door.
    Smiling, Mrs. Kabrick closed the door and went to call her children. It was good to be able to stay home today.

What do you think so far?

Any thoughts or comments?

December 5th

Have you ever made a Moravian Star? Do you even know what a Moravian star looks like? Up until last year I'd never made one and didn't really know what one looked like. Then Professor Carol, in her Advent posts did one on the Moravian Star and even gave a link to make one. It was little tricky since I didn't have paper quite long enough so had to tape mine together, but it was a lot of fun! If I had the right size paper, I'd enjoy making more.

You should stop by Professor Carol's blog and check out her Moravian Star post. She did it again this year. And while you're at it, you should sign up for her Advent posts or just stop by her blog each day and see what new thing she has to tell about.

And if you want to make these fun stars, the instructions are right here. Enjoy!

December 4th

For me, reading Christmas books in December is as much a part of the month as my birthday is a part of April. When I was young, for as long as I could remember, my Mom would read a few certain Christmas books to us kids. When she stopped reading them years ago, I read them to myself and younger friends. I grew up hearing these stories and now, even though I have the stories practically memorized and know the plots by heart, I still read them. Soon I'll be reading them to my niece and nephews.
As the years have passed, we've discovered new treasures in Christmas stories and I've added many to my "read each Christmas time" list. But right now, we'll just start out with my four old friends. 

(Click on the title to read my book review from another year.)

A Pint of Judgment

by Elizabeth Morrow

(Oh the simplicity and charm of this story! A delightful little book.)

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

by Barbara Robinson

(I have to put a disclaimer on this book. There are two places where one of the characters uses God's name in vain. When my mom read the story, she'd always skip those words. Other than that, I love the story.)

The Bird's Christmas Carol

by Kate Douglas Wiggin

(This sweet story might make you laugh and cry.)

And my favorite of all favorite Christmas stories:

The Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas

by Madeleine L'Engle

(I don't know why I love this story so much, but I do. It just wouldn't be Christmas without reading or hearing this story.)

What are your favorite Christmas books?

Have you read any of these?