Christmas Medley

Rather than reading any new books, I spent the last two weeks steeped in Christmas lit, travel guidebooks, and old familiar volumes. Fueled by my favorite seasonal sweets and bottomless pots of tea, I renewed my spirit with hours on end of feel-good reading.

Along with the tree ornaments and holly-bedecked Lenox china, one of the most welcome sights for our family at this time of year is the basket full of Christmas books that we have collected over the years. My tween and teen (and I) become children again, as we listen to each other read aloud our favorites: 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, The Polar Express (I always cry at the end), Star Mother's Youngest Child, How Six Found Christmas, Mr. Willoughby's Christmas Tree, all of Jan Brett's books and too many others to list. In recent years, I've introduced A Christmas Carol and A Child's Christmas in Wales. We find chapters in our favorite books that relate to Christmas: the Little House books, The Wind in the Willows, and Little Women.

During Christmas, we also begin to talk about trips we want to take this year and head to the library to check out DVDs and guidebooks to assist us in making our decisions. As this is the season of wishing, we like to cast the net wide, exploring the many possibilities out there on this amazing planet of ours, before zeroing in on one or two corners of the world. Guidebooks with their intriguing maps and Suggested Itineraries, as well as back issues of Travel and Leisure with their glossy pictures and promises of Off-The-Beaten-Path paradises fill our coffee table.

Finally, sometime during Christmas, I find myself pulling off the shelf a book or two that I've enjoyed before, like an old friend who always makes me smile. This year, Santa brought me the remastered Blue-Ray DVD of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, and there was nothing to be done but to watch it all the way through and then pull out the book and reread it. Next, we watched PERSUASION, also an adaptation of a Jane Austen novel, which I reread as well. My daughters have watched these movies with me before, but for the first time, they also slipped away into corners of the house with the books tucked under their wings and devoured them. The language of Austen was challenging for them, but the heroines fed their souls in a way that the TWILIGHT books never could. It was a joy for me to watch the blossoming of the next generation of Austen fans.