Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories/Auntie Knickers’ Advent Storytime: December 2

Once again, I find I have nothing further to report on the writing prompt for today in the Geneabloggers’ Advent Calendar: Holiday Foods. Since I went on and on about them last December, you should look there if you want to know about some of our food traditions. Or, you could listen to tonight’s story, Robert P. T. Coffin’s Christmas in Maine.  Robert Peter Tristram Coffin is one of four literary figures memorialized in the sidewalks of our town, and the only one who is a native of this area (the others, who all sojourned here for just a few years, being Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.)

Coffin not only grew up on a farm in Harpswell, he stayed around as a professor at Bowdoin College, while also writing Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry as well as memoirs and other works. I wrote more about Coffin in the blog for December 21, 2008. 
I chose the song “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen” as sung by the BBC Welsh Chorus to accompany this night’s reading because it sounded to me like something the Coffins might have sung on their sleighride. According to both William Studwell in his useful The Christmas Carol Reader and Walter Ehret and George K. Evans in The International Book of Christmas Carols, the melody dates from at least the 18th century and probably earlier; the words are probably 18th century and may have originated with the London Waits, carolsingers of the time.  This carol is even mentioned in DIckens’ A Christmas Carol when Scrooge nearly assaults a carolsinger who dares to serenade him.
The recorded introduction was for 2006 when Sisterfilms was still living in City of Lakes and was flying out to be with us for Christmas.
DOWNLOAD TONIGHT’S STORY HERE

Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories/Auntie Knickers’ Advent Storytime: December 1

Today’s writing prompt for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories is the Christmas Tree. Now, I think I said just about everything I can recall about our Christmas trees last year, on December 2. So rather than repost, I’ll just send you there.
We have two Christmas trees at our house this year. One is the traditional balsam fir and the other, as best we can determine, is a hemlock (more on this anon.)
Sisterfilms has just unformed us that what she’d really like is a Scotch or

Norway pine with long needles.
Perhaps next year our woods can at least provide a white pine.

For tonight’s story, I had several Christmas tree stories to choose from; I picked one of the oldest, The Peterkins’ Christmas Tree by Lucretia P. Hale. Here’s the book it comes from – one of the Junior Deluxe Editions I used to get in the mail. I’ve had this book for about 55 years!

Lucretia Peabody Hale came from old Boston stock, and literary stock at that. Her father, Nathan Hale (named for his famous Revolutionary uncle) was an editor, and her mother an author. One of her many siblings was Edward Everett Hale, author of The Man without a Country, which I remember being assigned to read in junior high. And on her mother’s side, Lucretia could count as a relative the orator Edward Everett, now famous chiefly for being the “main” and lengthy speaker on the occasion when Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address.
Lucretia, who was born in 1820 and died in 1900, saw the introduction of the Christmas tree into New England. In Germany, Austria, and Scandinavia, Christmas trees were a long tradition by the 19th century, when Ernst Anschutz wrote some new words to an old tune, O Tannenbaum. I’ve selected a version by the Wiener Sängerknaben (The Vienna Boys’ Choir). Although Tannenbaum means “Fir Tree,” this is where we get back to our hemlock, for Maine’s own Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, apparently in the throes of unrequited love, wrote a non-Christmas poem, The Hemlock Tree, which is obviously meant to be sung to the Tannenbaum melody.
DOWNLOAD TONIGHT’S STORYTIME HERE

December Blogging Plans

Strictly speaking, I should have begun my Advent blogging last Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent. But since Advent calendars usually start on the first of December, I'll begin tomorrow.

Those of you who are my friends on Facebook may have noticed that I promised myself to check Facebook only once a week starting December 1 (and for as long thereafter as I can hold out). Instead, I'll be spending time blogging, reviewing, and reading blogs. I have two specific projects for December, both of which I also attempted last year. One is the Geneablogger Advent Calendar of Family History; the other is Auntie Knickers' Advent Storytime.

Geneabloggers is an aggregation of people who blog about genealogy and family history. Each day from December 1 through 24 has a writing prompt. The prompts are the same as last year's, so if I can't think of anything different to write about I'll skip a day here and there. I thought it might be fun, when possible, to coordinate my read-aloud stories with the family history tales, so I'll be doing that when it's appropriate.

As I did last year, I'll be posting my readings of Christmas stories to a filesharing site where readers who wish can download them. I'm using MediaFire this year. The Sendspace links from last year are no longer active; if anyone requests it, I can repost them on MediaFire. Since Sisterfilms, for whose benefit I did this last year, is now in residence here, I'm not going to post individual files for Mac users unless someone else asks me to. The files I'll post are Self-Extracting Zip Files and seemed to work fine last year. After I've posted the first one I'll possibly have a few more instructions for you.

I've written at length about some of the stories and songs before, and I'll point you to those posts in the blog archive, but I'll also try to find some more information about the authors or anything else that seems interesting.

I hope a few people will enjoy these stories. One last note: there are a few tales that are a little more adult in nature; on those days I'll include two stories so there'll be one for kids too.

See you tomorrow!

Friday Five: The Season You’re In

kathrynzj at RevGalBlogPals writes:

“Headquarters for me is the northeast of the United States. Here school is getting back in session, the tease of autumn is in the air (or the hope for the tease of autumn is in the air) and church life is gearing up to full throttle.

One thing I've learned with blogging and social media is that the where I live is not necessarily where you live. And so I want to know what September means to you, in your place of the world and time in your life.

This week's Friday Five is:

What are 5 things that the beginning of September mean to you?

1. Putting up a new desktop wallpaper! I got this pretty one from www.kate.net. It’s a misty moisty morning today, just as in this photo, although I’d have to go inland a bit to see mountains like this.

2. Back to school: this is the first September in many, many years that none of my kids are in any kind of schooling, but Onkel Hankie Pants and I will be starting weekly tax classes next week so in a way we’re the ones going back to school. No new clothes are required, however. Back to school also means the return of the college students to our town, just about the time most of the summer people leave. We grumble, but we’re grateful to have them.

3. I love the cooler weather – the shortening of the days, not so much. Soon we will be seeing the autumn leaves, and the air is already crisper.

4. September means it’s time for the autumn playlist. One of my favorite fall songs is “Fall Is Here” by Charlie Maguire, the Singing Ranger of Minnesota. You can hear a sample and buy his recordings by going to www.charliemaguire.com. And then there are the classics like this one:

Les Feuilles Mortes by Yves Montand, 1951.

5. Apples! And the return of Maine apple cider – the last few weeks the market seems to have run out and Onkel Hankie Pants has had to buy New York State cider.

Bonus: Something I don’t like so much: the consciousness of time passing and time getting away from me. It seems only yesterday I was enjoying the first forsythias and daffodils, now we are seeing some leaves beginning to change, soon it will be winter. I’m hoping the autumn of my life can last a while longer.

Rainy Day Friday Five

Sally at RevGalBlogPals, who lives in the UK, has a day off, but it’s raining.Instead of an outdoor activity she will be heading to an art gallery. So she asks:

What do you do on a rainy summer’s day?

1. At home?

We had a rainy day yesterday, and are in for some more this weekend as Hurricane Irene is expected to pay us a visit. I think we are all more likely to take naps on rainy days, and to put off outdoor projects and even indoor projects in favor of reading or watching a movie … or napping. But the dog still must be walked, rain or not – and he doesn’t seem to mind it, or any weather, much.

2. In your local area?

Here’s what I wouldn’t do: go shopping, at least not at Outlet Shopping Mecca in the next town. Because that’s what the summer people do when they encounter a rainy day during their Maine vacation. If we needed entertainment, we’d probably go to a community theater production or a public supper.

3. If you are away on holiday?

Mosrt of the things I would enjoy doing on a holiday are not weather-dependent; I’d put off the outdoor sight-seeing and enjoy being with people, reading, cooking if facilities were available, or visiting some kind of museum.

4. Name a rainy day read.

Well, yesterday I finished reading Gardens of Delight by Erica James. It’s a “women’s fiction” novel set partly in Cheshire and partly at Lake Como in Italy, and most of the characters are keen gardeners. So there are descriptions of both rain and sunshine, and lots of flowers, trees, and fruit, as well as the multiple human interactions. I rather like rain so reading about rain when it’s raining doesn’t depress me. Then in the evening Sisterfilms and I watched It Happened One Night, which has some great scenes with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert getting thoroughly rain-drenched.

5. Is there a piece of music/ a poem/ story that cheers you up?

I have a long playlist of Rainy Day Songs. I’m thinking now of all our friends in Texas and other places who would love to see a rainy day, so here’s a song for them,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFNRglWwcKg&feature=related
Bonus: post a rainy day photo!

Had I but known, I could have taken one yesterday! Instead I’ll post one of Onkel Hankie Pants’ photos from a long-ago trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Our friends are looking at a rainbow, so the caption is Genesis

9:13-17.

Friday Five: Road Trip

Jan at RevGalBlogPals writes:

My husband and I just returned (on Wednesday night) from a long road trip up the middle USA to Canada, going through various national parks, and on to the Puget Sound of Washington State. This brought back memories of family road trips with my children and when I was a child, so the idea of today's Friday Five arose.
Tell us about five road trips--in your childhood, in your family, in your recent past, with friends, and/or hoped-for-places-to-drive-to. Don't forget the one that stands out as the BEST or as the worst time.

1. The first road trip I remember was in the spring of 1955 when my parents, four younger siblings, and I drove from El Paso, Texas to Bowdoinham, Maine, with a stop in Norwalk, Ohio “on the way.” My father had orders for Germany, to which we’d follow in about 6 months, so he ws taking some leave time to take us back to our little house in Maine where we’d await our port call. I don’t remember what kind of car we had other than it was a sedan of some kind. My eldest younger brother sat in front because he had a tendency to get car-sick. I was in back with the twins, who were about 2 1/2, and baby brother who was just about to turn one. The space between the front and back seats was filled with footlockers padded with blankets. I’m not sure about the diapers – I think disposables were just becoming available and we may have used those some of the time, but I also seem to recall a diaper pail and occasional stops at laundromats.

We did some sight-seeing along the way – I remember a stop at a scary snake farm – and sampled indigenous cuisine such as catfish-flavored grilled cheese sandwiches in the Ozarks. The visit to Norwalk was to see my aunt’s family, which included my one same-age cousin, and was a welcome respite from the road. When we arrived back in Maine at last, I remember my parents pointing out damage from the previous fall’s hurricane. I think it was a good trip.

2. After our return from Germany, we lived for several years in southern Connecticut, about a six-hour drive from home in Maine, so there were several trips a year. My mother would make sandwiches (to this day I dislike egg salad; I preferred when she would make “Italians” as we call them here); my parents would have a big thermos of coffee, and I suppose we kids had something to drink too. The clearest memory of these trips is the landmarks we looked for – East Rock and West Rock in New Haven, which meant we were really on our way; the various giant billboards and advertising statues just north of Boston; the fourteen (I think( underpasses of New Hampshire, and then the bridge across the Piscataqua from New Hampshire to Maine, which cost a dime. I would begin to feel at home as soon as the first toll-booth attendant said “Thank YOU sah!” but the twins did not ever believe we were in Maine until the smell of woodsmoke wafted through the car windows. When we got to our road, since nearly everyone who lived on it was a relative, my father would honk the horn at every house we passed until we arrived at my grandparents’ house, where Grampie’s dog Dinah would rush out to welcome us.

3. When we went to Germany again in the mid-60s, I hung out at the post library a lot. The librarian and I became friends and the summer before my senior year we took a little road trip in her VW Beetle. Since we were in Stuttgart, we took a wonderful trip around Bavaria to the south, visiting Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Oberammergau, and two of Mad King Ludwig’s castles, Schoss Linderhof and Schloss Neuschwanstein (the latter the model for Sleeping Beauty’s Castle). We also got as far as Lake Constance and looked across to Switzerland. At night we would stop wherever we were and find a Gasthaus mit Zimmer Frei – I just remember one town, Bad Kohlgrub, the name of which my parents found hysterically funny. Riding through the Bavarian Alps was a bit scary for me but we sang folksongs and musical theatre numbers which distracted acrophobic me at least a bit. It was a great trip.

4. Our third Christmas together, Onkel Hankie Pants and I headed for Maine from southern Minnesota, in our little Austin America. Our first child was on the way. I had checked out the Mobil Travel Guide from the library and planned a route through Toledo, Ohio (our first stop) and then a stop in Fairfield, Connecticut to see my friends whose families still lived there. In Toledo we even had a motel reservation – unfortunately in the same motel where some bowling club was having a loud Christmas party. Not much sleep there. Driving through the Poconos in a slushy snowstorm was interesting, to say the least. Also, the muffler gave up the ghost so our stop in Connecticut included a visit to the muffler shop; as I recall, the repair didn’t exactly work and the Wisconsin-Minnesota portion of our return trip was a little noisy. However, we had a fine time in Connecticut even though we all went to see a Bergman film, and a wonderful Christmas in Maine.

This is a picture of the Austin; imagine it bright orange.

5. I’ve enjoyed many road trips since, and hope to have a few more, but the one that stands out is a “shunpike” tour we took when our son was 4 years old. With the help of Jane and Michael Stern’s book Roadfood and a few other guidebooks, we planned a fun and educational trip. (And I know my daughters are jealous now. There are advantages to being the eldest.) Some highlights of the trip included visiting the reproduction of the Ingalls family cabin in Pepin, Wisconsin (we had already read all of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books to SonShineIn), followed by riding the ducks at Wisconsin Dells. We went swimming in Lake Michigan at Indiana Dunes State Park, rode a barge on the Erie Canal (where SonShineIn covered himself with glory by loudly bursting into “I’ve got a mule, her name is Sal, Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal” unprompted); and on the return trip, Niagara Falls. Below, a few photos from that trip.

Indiana Dunes State Park

Onkel Hankie Pants and SonShineIn at the Ingalls cabin reproduction in Pepin, WI.

Looking back, I can’t remember a road trip that I didn’t enjoy most of the time. I’ve been fortunate in my traveling companions!

Christmas in July and a neat giveaway

It's been a long time since I've posted and I really need to get going on this again, especially since I'll be guest blogging at Kaye Barley's blog in a little over a week! It's "Christmas in July" at some of the other blogs I frequent (Ernie (Not Bert) for example) and while looking at a few of them I came upon one that's new to me, Joanna Wilson's Christmas TV History. Since our cable company just did away with our "limited cable" option and we now get a lot more channels, I expect I'll have a lot more chances to watch Christmas TV old and new when the time comes, so I'll definitely be following this blog. This month (and there are only a couple of days left), she and her publishers are having a giveaway of her books and a lot of other swag. I'm entering by posting this and, even though it would reduce my chances, you are encouraged to do so as well. Go to her July 1 post to see the procedure. Happy Christmas in July! (Sisterfilms points out, it is now less than 5 months to her birthday!)