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An HRM Special Holiday Edition

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Christmas Shopper

Victorian Gifting

An excerpt from “The Gift of Christmas Past: A Return to Victorian Traditions” by Sunny O’Neil-

For the Victorians, preparations for Christmas-gift exchanges started weeks in advance of the big day. Although many presents were made at home, the shops were filled with all sorts of goods in abundance.

There was great concern about the holiday becoming too commercial and a “festival of store-keepers,” as one editor put it, in a current issue of The Ladies Home Journal. That theme was repeated in many publications of the time; but considering the profusion of objects for sale overflowing the shelves, no one paid much attention to the admonition.

Things were not all that different in some aspects. The author goes on to say that people that lived in remote towns and villages mail-ordered items from catalogs and magazines. Not only that, many people shopped and made items to sell at charity bazaars. Gifts of preserves and edibles was also popular. These gift-giving traditions feel familiar, don’t they?

One of my favorite economical, whimsical holiday gifts to my mother (and occasionally myself and a niece and nephew) is the Jacquie Lawson Advent calendar. https://www.jacquielawson.com/advent You really must go look at them if you haven’t seen them. Mellow fun for all ages, each day in December unlocks a new “door” to a game or puzzle or activity that you can play on your computer, smart phone or tablet. This year’s calendar is a Cotswold Village setting, and last year’s (which you can opt for in the Shop tab) is in Edinburgh.

Charlotte’s Family Christmas Traditions

I come from a family that celebrates Christmas, so since that is what I know, I’ll be sharing from it. I hope next year to attract some holiday descriptions from your experiences!

My husband and I have carried on many of the traditions that our parents gave us and we also added some to fit our own family ideals.

Christmas Eve is cozy. We have lots of candles, a fire in the fireplace, a meal of soup and bread, homemade frosted molasses cookies (made from a WWII recipe from my maternal grandma, passed down from the sugar ration days) fudge, maybe some cheese fondue and red wine and sparkling juice. I’ll be putting together my annual jigsaw puzzle with my mom and stepdad. Others may drift in and place a few pieces and then move on. When gifts were plentiful, the children get to open one gift on Christmas Eve- usually we asked which box contained the new pajamas so we could wear them to bed. They used to be encouraged to open the footsie PJs boxes- until those were outgrown. Then the hosting matriarch recites “A Child’s Christmas in Ulster,” prose by Maggi Pierce that we found years ago via a radio broadcast of Celtic Christmas Sojourn. The last thing we do that night is sit around the fire and listen to the old, crackling recording of Dylan Thomas reading his own epic work, “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”.

Each year we have stockings for the children (which in our house and in our parents’ houses lasts until the adult child leaves home). The toe is full of an orange or citrus fruit and nuts in their shells. small gifts from Santa are wrapped in unmarked wrapping paper or tissue paper. The cats get catnip calico mice, and the dog gets a treat. Even the birds get special healthy goodies.

After the “kids” are done unpacking their stockings, we open gifts with cups of tea and coffee in hand- keeping the lights low and a re-lit fire. After that, we call our relatives celebrating elsewhere, begin cooking, sledding (if we can) and game-playing and new book reading. We invite extended family to stop in if they want, but we don’t make an enormous feast, it’s carefully planned but a bit modest, so that all of us can also relax and play.

Thanks for letting me ramble on. May your month be blessed.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Coming in 2020 issues of HRM- Insightful interviews with Beverly Jenkins & Grace Burrowes, Laura Frantz & Lauren from American Duchess as well as newsy book and life tidbits from our brilliant columnists.

Weston, Vermont

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On Love, Letters & Shakespeare's Sonnet 116

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Love and Letters

by Charlotte Brothers

In this post, let’s explore our private associations with Shakespeare’s famous Sonnet 116, love letters, and talk about Austen’s more seasoned heroes & heroines.

From a letter to Eliza signed Alexander Hamilton-

Coming in the next issue, popular inspirational historical romance author and Christy Award winner, Laura Frantz, invites us to re-visit some love letters from well-known men written in that first blush of love or as long-time husbands.

“Sadly, our electronic age has far removed us from the art of letter writing, even rendering them antique. Yet who among us who’ve received or written a love letter have ever forgotten the emotion behind it? Or the occasion it became?”

Laura Frantz “Historical Love Letters” for HRM coming 2020

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

One of the most familiar and oft quoted love poems of the English language, William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 conjures up pleasant memories for me.

I’m probably not the only one here that first heard it first in the 1995 movie version of Sense and Sensibility and then committed it to memory that same year along with my husband who was taking a Shakespeare class at the time.

Nowadays, when I hear this sonnet in my head, it’s spoken in the sable baritone of British actor Richard Armitage who reads it in the Audible Collection of Classic Love Poems. This audio collection features poems from a variety of poets, not only Shakespeare, and it’s provided me excellent listening material while I paint or cook.

Here’s a link to an old interview with Richard about his experience recording the poems. https://youtu.be/1CWi73TYWHE Interview with Richard Armitage – narrator of 'Classic Love Poems'

Richard Armitage as John Thornton in “North and South” BBC

Who else here watched or read Sense and Sensibility as a much younger woman and just could not see appeal in the Colonel Brandon character? How about Persuasion? Was the plainer or older hero and heroine harder to identify with? Has that changed for you as you’ve gotten older?

I’d like to know what you think.

How we relate to fictional characters may correlate to our own evolving understanding of love in all its seasons. The word “love” in English really has a variety of meanings and by its nature, or our nature, seems to change through the years.

Alan Rickman as Colonel Christopher Brandon in 1995 “Sense and Sensibility

My husband and I met before the internet and cell phone era. I lived in Maine and he lived in Washington state. We wrote long letters to each other, and there was nothing more thrilling at the time then getting a letter from him in the mail. We talked on the phone 1x a month and the letters flew twice a month at about 20 pages each. We have them saved and bundled with ribbons.

Moving away from lovers… do you have anyone close to you that you still write to with pen and paper?

I am grateful that I have letters from my grandparents, great-grandparents and other dear relatives and friends saved. It’s so precious to see their handwriting and remember the family events that were going on while they were alive.

I have a dear friend that gave me a blue lapis pen with gold flecks in it and some handmade writing paper many years ago. I still treasure the pen. It’s got the very unromantic name of ‘Super Pen” and I still buy it ink and use it for letter writing. This friend and I correspond through letters only and share a passion for art, books, and paper craft. Our relationship has produced a very special collection of letters that now span nearly thirty years of our lives and the exchange won’t stop until one of us does.

Remember the gift that a card or written words can be.

The lapis pen and postcards in “Memories of Summer” by Thimgan Hayden

The lapis pen and postcards in “Memories of Summer” by Thimgan Hayden

I hope you’ve enjoyed this foray into the art of love and letters! Cards and letters are an inexpensive and yet precious gift to give.

Won’t you write and tell us of your special letter or life event that connects with a topic mentioned here?

Sincerely,

Charlotte B.