Did you even know about these? The first was written by J.R.R. Tolkien to his children in 1920, and the collection was edited by Baillie Tolkien. (The last one, too, appears in the collection, although it's just a sampling of the oeuvre.) I discovered it this past autumn,
What a cozy little volume to read in December. Based around the series of annual letters written by the women of one family, this is not a plot-driven chronicle. It's a meditative, quiet collection of updates on everyday family life. You know, the Christmas Letter. As the author indicates in
Adam Gopnik's notes for this lecture/chapter read like this: "Chance to talk at length about ice hockey." If the idea doesn't thrill you, don't let it put you off the book entirely. The rest of that page and the next is about the Russian troika "racing through the snowy wastes".
Adam Gopnik's third lecture considers the making of the modern Christmas, winter's holiday. He describes it as a "profoundly compound festival" and discusses its origins. It marries "not just many different pagan holidays but also the two chief kinds of festivals that exist in the world: the reversal festival and
L. Frank Baum’s The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1902) Illus. Mary Cowles Clark Dover Publications, 1976 Of course when I was young, I would read this any time of year. But as an adult, I revisit it on the holidays. The way that other readers turn to Dickens
