Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Link

I wasn't going to post any more before Christmas, but I loved this article in the Wall Street Journal: Can Tolstoy Save Your Marriage by Alain de Botton.

Making a list

I'd like to leave a post here about our handmade Christmas gifts and all the traditions we've been practicing and happy memories made, but since I would be lying, instead I'll just wish everyone a Merry Christmas.  We leave before the morning star rises tomorrow morning to return to the land of my birth, the land of snow and ice, the land a long 12 hour drive north. 

The car is packed. The pets have gone to their vacation homes. The mail is stopped. The playlists are updated. Most of the gifts are stowed in secret spots. The coffee pot is ready to brew a pot to go. But I leave many items unfinished. On the other hand, I also am leaving behind worrying about whether I got just the right thing, or that I didn't get Christmas letters in the mail yet, or that I never did get around to making all the cookies the kids wanted. We did make it to Confession today, and now all those priority to-do items don't seem quite so important. I'm sorry for being snappish and selfish about my agenda all these days of Advent. I hope the kids don't grow up with memories of their mother the grinch.

Maybe on the long drive I'll get around to reading some of those Christmas stories I meant to read to them.

We did find time to take a matchy Christmas photo at the souvenir shop. At least the dog smiled.



Happy Birthday, Jane Austen!

http://www.literaryhistory.com/19thC/AUSTEN.htm

UK google users got to see this:

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/files/2010/12/janeausten.png

Today also marks nine days before Christmas - time to start praying the O Antiphons.

Veni, O Sapientia,

quae hic disponis omnia,

veni, viam prudentiae

ut doceas et gloriae.

Gaude, gaude, Emmanuel

Nascetur pro te, Israel.

**************************************************

O come, Thou Wisdom, from on high,

and order all things far and nigh;

to us the path of knowledge show,

and teach us in her ways to go.

Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!

Irony

A To-Do List:

People, look east. The time is near
Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
Trim the hearth and set the table.

... and don't forget to wrap your front porch manikin in a warm robe:

Decking the hall

It’s taken a couple weeks, but now, just in time for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, it seems Advent has officially arrived at our house. The announcement that a new niece joined our family in the wee hours of the morning has provided a boost to the spirit of festivity. What a good day to celebrate a birth! Our celebration has been limited to eating marshmallows for breakfast and participating in a nice long school mass. Tonight we’ll journey forth in the cold night air to attend the school band concert, the fifth amateur performance we’ve attended since Friday, and then we will toast Mary’s sinless birth by indulging in sinfully sweet desserts.

After a late start, what with Thanksgiving travels, leftover laundry, and someplace to be every night last week, we finally revived some of our Advent traditions this past weekend in order to welcome St. Nicholas on Monday. The kids put a few ornaments on the Jesse tree (still haven’t found the book with the readings – might help if I looked for it), and I opened a box of Christmas decor to place around the living room: squashed red bows, sparkle stars, a few out of shape artificial wreaths. I roasted a chicken and sweet potatoes, threw together some rolls and opened a can of cranberry sauce for a festive Sunday dinner. We lit the second candle, said some prayers from the Catholic Family Prayer book, and set our shoes by the door.

The Jesse tree ornaments come and go, depending on the pre-schooler's whims.

Ready for St. Nicholas Day. He gifted us with chocolate coins, real coins, candy canes, and an elf, our one new ornament.

There’s an ad on the radio about expired Christmas ornaments from 1988. What you’re supposed to do after hearing this jingle is rush out to the store and buy new decorations for this year. Most of our ornaments look like they’re from 1988, and some, hand-me-downs from my grandparents, are actually a lot older. I don’t have any plans to replace them. They all have sentimental value worth more than the impression shiny new coordinated décor would make. My first shopping expedition at the end of last week overwhelmed my senses – I felt like I needed to crawl in a hole, like a kid with that sensory processing disorder. Instead I lashed out at my husband. Then we had to go be jolly at a Christmas party with his co-workers. At least the food was good.

Fortunately, the weekend improved. After a good rest, we made our apologies and started over. Maybe it was the act of reconciliation, or the readings at Mass on Sunday, or hearing the message of self-gift reiterated at the performance of “A Christmas Carol” at the Community College, but by the end of the weekend, Advent finally seemed to have begun in our home.

(Some hand-me-downs with photos of some of the benefactors. Can you find Betty Duffy?)

Like Melanie, we’re having a slow Advent: no cookies yet, no outdoor lights, but we’re slowly dragging out the ornaments and reliving the memories attached to them. We’ve found our Christmas music, the kids are practicing for their pageant, and each night they take a turn praying “Jesus Christ is the light of the world; Come, Lord Jesus, Come,” as they light the candles. They have taken the initiative to move the wise men and Mary and Joseph around the dining room closer to the nativity set. They count down the days until we’ll pack up and head north to see family. The feeling of hopeful anticipation is palpable.

Note the bow - this ribbon is circa 1975. It has held up well - very sustainable. Looks like Mary and Joseph have already found the stable.

In Honor of the Naval Construction Battalions

Happy Birthday, Seabees!

The Song of the Seabees

(1943)

Words by Sam M. Lewis

Music by Peter de Rose

We're the Seabees of the Navy

We can build and we can fight

We'll pave the way to victory

And guard it day and night

And we promise that we remember

The "Seventh of December"

We're the Seabees of the Navy

Bees of the Seven Seas

The Navy wanted men

That's where we came in

Mister Brown and Mister Jones

The Owens, the Cohens and Flynn

The Navy wanted more

Of Uncle Sammy's kin

So we all joined up

And brother we're in to win

http://www.navy.mil/navydata/personnel/seabees/seabee1.html

(another attempt to woo my spouse.)

Keeping with the list theme

It always makes my day when I catch "Writer's Almanac" on the radio. I know I could go to the NPR website and read it, but part of the experience is Garrison Keillor's voice.  So I learned that today is not only Pearl Harbor Day, and the birthday of the Seabees (maybe we'll let the kids watch John Wayne and the Fighting Seabees tonight while we are at a reception for veterans - a rare weeknight date!), it is also the birthday of Willa Cather, born in 1873.  She has been one of my favorite authors, and after my grandfather introduced me to her writings, I spent my summer vacation money at the little bookstore on the copies of her books with beautifully illustrated covers.  I am reminded that I meant to reread One of Ours this year after rereading My Antonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop in the recent past.

But I just spent way too much time filling out this meme from Melanie so I don't have time to read anything.

1. Favorite childhood book?
I think I’d have to go with the Anne of Green Gables books.

2. What are you reading right now?
The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan – trying to catch up with the kids. Also almost done reading By the Shores of Plum Creek, our sometimes outloud chapter book. Nearly finished with Coming Down the Mountain, my post-retreat book. Not sure that I’m going to finish An Arsonists Guide to Writer’s Homes in New England.

3. What books do you have on request at the library?
The Lost Hero was my last request. I’m debating about requesting Parched for Reading for Believers or buying it.


4. Bad book habit?
Starting to read when I should be turning out the light to sleep.
5. What do you currently have checked out at the library?
The Lost Hero, The Way to Paradise by Mario Vargas Llosa, and a big stack of kids’ books.
6. Do you have an e-reader?
No.
7. Do you prefer to read one book at a time or several at once?
See above. Several at once.

8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog?
I used to read more before starting to read blogs and occasionally write one. But I like reading other people’s recommendations and keeping tabs of what I’ve read on the sidebar. I meant to write more about what I read, but so it goes.

9. Least favorite book you read this year?
Hmm, Maybe World Without End by Ken Follett
10. Favorite book you’ve read this year?
Tough one.


11. How often do you read out of your comfort zone?
Hmm, I tend to stay away from romance novels and erotica.
12. What is your reading comfort zone?
A hot cup of tea and a blanket, thermostat at 65 ... not sure – I don’t read a lot of non-fiction, except essays.


13. Can you read on the bus?
On the bus, in the car, on a train, on a plane, in the bathroom…
14. Favorite place to read?
It used to be my green chair, but now it is probably my bed. But I do most of my best reading standing in the bathroom.

15. What is your policy on book lending?
I don’t get many requests, but I don’t make many offers.

16. Do you ever dog-ear books?
Frequently, if I own the book and want to talk about it to someone.
17. Do you ever write in the margins of your books?
I sometimes underline or star a quote.

18. Not even with text books?
Still sticking with underlining

19. What is your favorite language to read in?
English. Although I recently purchased Olivia in Latin.


20. What makes you love a book?
Book Karma. Or maybe interesting characters, lyrical diction, fascinating insights to the human heart, etc.

21. What will inspire you to recommend a book?
I loved it and I think that someone else will love it too. – I’m copying Melanie here.

22. Favorite genre?
Hard to pick. But I love most British and American novels of the first half of the 20th century.
23. Genre you rarely read (but wish you did)?
If I rarely read it, I probably don't wish I did. Dittoing Melanie again.
24. Favorite biography?
My favorite (only) this year was Eudora Welty on William Faulkner
25. Have you ever read a self-help book?
Yes – more than one. Like Melanie, mostly parenting and home-schooling books, but also books on prayer, and recently the 7 Habits of Highly Successful Teens. But I don’t think they helped myself much.

26. Favorite cookbook?
I love A Continual Feast by Evelyn Birge Vitz – a great primer on living a Catholic home life, but our go-to cookbooks are the Pillsbury Bake-off Cookbook we received for a wedding present and the album of recipes my mother-in-law put together. My favorite literary cookbook is How to Cook A Wolf by MFK Fisher.

27. Most inspirational book you’ve read this year (fiction or nonfiction)?
I think the Peter Kreeft book on prayer.

28. Favorite reading snack?
Cereal or chocolate chips or both.

29. Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience.
Unlike Melanie I liked The Penderwicks, but I was disappointed in Jewel by Brett Lott and Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier.

30. How often do you agree with critics about a book?
Sometimes.
31. How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews?
Depends on how strongly I feel about the book


32. If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you choose?
I wish I knew Spanish.


33. Most intimidating book you’ve ever read?
I found time to read War and Peace in college.
34. Most intimidating book you’re too nervous to begin?
Once I checked out Proust.

35. Favorite poet?
The one I read most often is Wendell Berry. But how can you top Shakespeare? Recently reread Hopkins’ “Pied Beauty” – delightful.

36. How many books do you usually have checked out of the library at any given time?
It depends on how many I have out for the kids. My reading and library visits have declined drastically since taking a job and giving up homeschooling.

37. How often have you returned books to the library unread?
Seldom.

38. Favorite fictional character?
Like Melanie, I can’t pick one.
39. Favorite fictional villain?
Saruman?

40. Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation?Something long.

41. The longest I’ve gone without reading.
A handful of days.
42. Name a book that you could/would not finish.

Sartor Resartoris. The Old Curiosity House. That Philip Roth book.

43. What distracts you easily when you’re reading?

Small children. Blogs
44. Favorite film adaptation of a novel?

Pride and Prejudice miniseries. Ditto Melanie

45. Most disappointing film adaptation?

The first Harry Potter movie was a disappointment to me, but I liked the most recent – maybe because it has been awhile since I read the seventh book.
46. The most money I’ve ever spent in the bookstore at one time?

No idea.


47. How often do you skim a book before reading it?

A lot of books from the library I’ll flip through and not check out.

48. What would cause you to stop reading a book half-way through?

A book that can’t keep me awake when reading at night.



49. Do you like to keep your books organized?

In a way that makes sense to me.

50. Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once you’ve read them?

I prefer to get books I don’t think I’ll read again from the library. Once I own a book I don’t like to give it away.

51. Are there any books you’ve been avoiding?

Atonement – I want to forget the movie before I read the book.

52. Name a book that made you angry.

Julie and Julia. And a Philip Roth book that I didn’t finish and an early Neil Gaiman book, Stardust.

53. A book you didn’t expect to like but did?

I was surprised by Caryl Houselander’s Reed of God. And something reminded me the other day of how much I enjoyed Dr. Strange and Mr. Norrell a couple years ago.

54. A book that you expected to like but didn’t?

Julie and Julia is the most recent disappointment.

55. Favorite guilt-free, pleasure reading?

Children’s chapter books – Ramona, Little House on the Prairie, Rick Riordan... and Jane Austen.

Another List

Today I went to a short professional development session on "Teaching Millenials." I was hoping for a few more practical tips, but the tips were limited to "use technology" and "provide opportunities for group projects and teamwork," ideas I'm aware of, although I don't incorporate them often. The presenter focused primarily on stereotypical characteristics of the Millenial generation and the three generations preceding. I noticed that he left out one characteristic that my generation, Gen X, shares with the Millenials - we like to make playlists as gifts.  There's a "Truly Pathetic Love Song" tape still floating around in our car (which has a tape deck), one of the first gifts I gave my husband, back in college when he was getting ready to go away for a year in Rome. (Proof of Memorex's enduring quality?) We'd only been dating a few months, so maybe it was a little bold of me to send him a bunch of sappy love songs, but then he made me one, too. Sweet!!When he went away this past spring to Afghanistan, I made another love song mix, this time from the Itunes songs we have. And now, because I'm trying to butter him up, here's a list of those songs. Some are from the original mix.

• In Your Eyes – Peter Gabriel
• You Are the Everything – REM
• Fall On Me –REM
• Strong Enough – Sheryl Crow
• I Shall Believe – Sheryl Crow
• Better than ice cream – Sarah McLachlan
• Don’t You Forget About Me – Simple Minds
• Joy – The Sundays
• All I Want is You – U2
• Brown Eyed Girl – Van Morrison
• Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight – James Taylor
• How Sweet It Is – James Taylor
•  Follow Me – John Denver
• Walking ON Sunshine – Katrina and the Waves
• Stay – Lisa Loeb
• Anyone Else But You – Moldy Peaches
• Come Away With Me – Norah Jones
• Turn Me On – Norah Jones
• The Nearness of You – Norah Jones
•  Livin’ On Love – Alan Jackson
• Home - Alan Jackson
• I’d Love you All Over Again – Alan Jackson
• When You Say Nothing At All – Alison Krauss
• The Lucky One – Alison Krauss
• If I Had a Million Dollars – Barenaked Ladies
• She Talks To Angels – Black Crowes
• She’s Always a Woman – Billy Joel
• You’ve Made Me so Very Happy – Blood Sweat and Tears
• I’ll See you Soon – Coldplay
• Longer – Dan Fogelberg
• Crash Into Me – Dave Matthews
• Lover Lay Down – Dave Matthews
• Wonderful Tonight – Eric Clapton
• More Than Words- Extreme
• Your Song – Ewan MacGregor
• We Make A Lot of Love – Harry Connick, Jr
• Better Together – Jack Johnson
• If I Could – Jack Johnson
• Banana Pancakes – Jack Johnson
• Do You Remember – Jack Johnson

 

 

Just to post something and because I love lists

I still haven't quite put all the laundry from Thanksgiving away, but I did finally put away the pumpkin candle holder and paper turkeys and pull out the Advent wreath (note to self: put it on the top of the box next year) and the Jesse Tree. (Every year I think I'm going to remake this thing that I made with felt and a glue gun with some help from toddlers who are now teenagers, but the kids taped it up before I got around to fixing it. My youngest asked yesterday whether my little lamb was a birthday cake.) How could over a week have passed since we left the house - that means only 2 weeks left before we leave again? Why are we thinking that a trip from the Deep South to the Midwest to New England and back home down through the Mid- Atlantic is a good idea? Think of all the reading time! And so here is this list of some books that maybe I should try to read.

I copied this meme from Worthwhile Books who got it here.



Here are the instructions. I'm not going to tag anyone though.

BBC Meme on the Classics

The BBC claims that most people haven't read more than six on the list

How many of these have you read?

Instructions: Bold those books you've read in their entirety. Italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses!

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien

3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling

5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

6. The Bible

7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10.Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott

12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (maybe not complete - but more than half?)
15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18. The Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

19. The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

20. Middlemarch – George Eliot

21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis

34. Emma – Jane Austen

35. Persuasion – Jane Austen

36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis (repetitive see 33)

37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere  (saw the (bad acting by Nicholas Cage) Movie ...)
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

41. Animal Farm – George Orwell

42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown

43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving

45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery

47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50. Atonement – Ian McEwan  (again, saw the movie...)
51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52. Dune – Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt

64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac

67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

72. Dracula – Bram Stoker

73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson (Walk in the Woods, Short History)
75. Ulysses – James Joyce

76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome

78. Germinal – Emile Zola (Red and the Black)
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

80. Possession – AS Byatt

81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry (I own this...time to take up....)
87. Charlotte’s Web – EB White

88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down – Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare

99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Nearly 80%... but don't ask me for details about them.