Required Holiday Reading

I like to take this beautiful book out every December.
I've barely skimmed the surface--it holds lots of riches.

I bought this book by Caroline Kennedy when it came out, in 2007. I love it. It's her handpicked collection of special Christmas readings--from song lyrics to letters to short stories. One of the sweetest is her own letter to Santa written in 1962, when she lived in the White House.

She and her mom and dad and brother loved Christmas, it seems. Her mother Jacqueline's painting of an angel adorns the cover. Caroline says that her mom and her grandma each had special dresses that they wore every Christmas Eve. How chic and traditional is that?

She included an essay [copyright December 2006] by the great Garrison Keillor, called "The Old Scout: The Season of Letter-Perfect Families." It's a poke at Christmas newsletters that make everyone in the family seem successful and cheery. But what really touched me is this part:

I get a couple dozen Christmas letters a year, and I sit and read them in my old bathrobe as I chow down on Hostess Twinkies. Everyone in the letters is busy as beavers, piling up honors hand over fist, volunteering up a storm, traveling to Beijing, Abu Dhabi and Antartica; nobody is in treatment or depressed or flunking out of school, though occasionally there is a child who gets shorter shrift. "Chad is adjusting well to his new school and making friends. He especially enjoys the handicrafts." How sad for Chad. There he is in reform school, learning to get along with other little felons and making belts and birdhouses, but he can't possibly measure up to [his sister] the goddess Tara. Or Lindsay or Meghan or Madison, each of whom is also stupendous.

This is rough on us whose children are not paragons. Most children aren't. A great many teenage children go through periods when they loathe you and go around slamming doors and playing psychotic music and saying things like "I wish I had never been born," which is a red-hot needle stuck under your fingernail. One must be very selective, writing about them for the annual newsletter. "Sean is becoming very much his own person and is unafraid to express himself. He is a lively presence in our family and his love of music is a thing to behold."  --from an essay by Garrison Keillor, December 12, 2006

Here's the Amazon link to Caroline's wonderful book: http://www.amazon.com/Family-Christmas-Caroline-Kennedy/dp/1401322271.

Made it to church. Walked in the cold--twice, with my little puffball in her plaid winter coat. Had a nice visit from Meg and Greg, from Vermont. H. made a good, melty lasagna and got my favorite wine. Lit the second purple candle on my humble homemade Advent wreath. Dishes done. Laundry tumbling in dryer. Figgy didn't hate me too much today.

Time for my bedtime stories. About to curl up and read A Family Christmas. Visions of sugarplums dancing in my head. I won't lie, I wish I could turn back time and have my Figgy curled up next to me, waiting with awe for me to turn the next page in a storybook, but alas.....we both still love reading, just not side by side on my bed.

P.S. Please, if you are in NYC, go check out the holiday windows at Bergdorf Goodman--especially the Van Cleef & Arpels one, with a moving boat and waves, and the one on 57th Street, with an icicle-covered white bicycle, old fur-cuffed white ice skates and fabulous retro-looking clothing. DO NOT MISS THESE WINDOWS! Yesterday, Sis and I liked the boat one, and later, on my walk back to the Port Authority, I saw the bicycle one. I had to just stop and stare for a while, it was so lovely and evocative. True [and free] style art for the masses.