Each Christmas three books, all related to the season, make an appearance in our home.
The first is a children’s story, The Littlest Angel, by Charles Tazewell, published in 1949. It tells the tale of the littlest angel – we never learn his name – who arrived at the Pearly Gates at “exactly four years, six months, five days, seven hours, and forty-two minutes of age” quite unprepared for his new home. He’d even forgot a handkerchief.
How this angel upends heaven, finally comes to terms with living there, and offers a special gift to the newborn Christ is the rest of the story. It’s one of those charming pieces that makes you smile.
The second book is Norman Rockwell’s Christmas Book, published in 1977. It contains 85 illustrations from Rockwell’s own archives that are paired with wonderful poems, short stories, and even recipes of the season. Who can resist “The Gift of the Magi,” or “The Worst Christmas Story?” or Fanny Farmer’s recipes for a complete Christmas dinner which includes clam and oyster soup, roast goose with potato stuffing, Duchess potatoes, frozen pudding and vanilla wafers – all made from scratch.
Then there is Christmas in America, published in 1988. It’s over two hundred pages of photographs of the season between Thanksgiving and New Year’s as captured by 100 of America’s leading photographers of the time. There are pictures of children preparing for various pageants, a compendium of Santas, volunteers feeding the hungry, wildlife in repose, decorated trees of all shapes and sizes, and incredulous babies.
Given the most recent of these three books was published 36 years ago, it’s not surprising that there are no photos of computers or cell phones, no references to social media, and no pictures of Taylor Swift (She wasn’t even born.) or Beyonce (Neither was she.).
Perhaps it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I have enjoyed reading these treasures in the evening by our own decorated tree. They remind me of a calmer time. And isn’t that what the season should really be about?
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