Holiday Reading: Christmas!

The holiday fiction reading display is out at the library, thus it is time to start reading Christmas books. Well I’m not much of a cozy reads kind of person, but I decided that for my seasonal reading project I would read one of those heartwarming cheesy holiday books. So who should I choose other than the unofficial storyteller of Christmas, Debbie Macomber! And within that frame of reference, I went for Mrs. Miracle.

Seth and Reba are two people dealing with tragedy and hurt in their lives. These are old festering wounds that neither are able to move on from. Seth is the father of two young twin boys, whose mother died four years ago. The twins moved back in with Seth after staying with their grandparents following their mother’s death. Seth is trying to learn how to be a single father, but is having lots of issues. It doesn't help that every housekeeper quits on him and the agency is all out of options for new ones to send. Reba owns her own travel agency, but her hurt comes from the betrayal of her sister and loss of her former fiance, which happened four years ago. These two broken people might have remained hurt if not for the saving grace of one spirited and oddly knowing housekeeper.

Mrs. Miracle arrives on Seth’s doorstep to be his new housekeeper, and automatically the children take to her. Things start looking up from their and a relationship that neither Seth nor Reba saw coming suddenly starts spinning itself into existence.

My reaction to this book upon first opening it was “Wow, this is a Hallmark movie in book form”. As a matter of fact, they did make it into a Hallmark movie, so I was right. The characters' flaws are obvious, but they are loving good people all the same. The story is transparent and everything falls into place a little too perfectly. All in all, it’s not believable, but who wants believable this time of year? These books aren't made to be believable, they’re made so that you feel warm and snugly inside. Sometimes you just need something that goes right in this chaotic world, and books like Mrs. Miracle provide an outlet for a happy ending. Although there may be tragic circumstances that happened in the past and drama during the book, these books aren't violent or shocking. Mrs. Miracle also has Christian themes running throughout it. There are a couple of side stories that are attached to the main story within Mrs. Miracle and I thought they were fun to read and provided some diversity to the book.

I must say I didn't care for the characters because they were unrealistic. Sure they had problems and issues, but they said the right things all the time and provided the perfect amount of drama while making up for their shortcomings in the end. Another thing I found unbelievable was that all the other housekeepers thought the twins were so out of control, and this one woman, within an hour, calms them down. Honestly, they didn't seem any more rowdy than other seven year old boys, so why are housekeepers who are used to working with children having such a problem?

All in all, Mrs. Miracle is good for what it is, a potato chip read. It’s doesn't have any nutritional content, but it can be so yummy. This is a nice little story about forgiveness and family, all surrounded by the Christmas holiday. If you want something with Christian undertones about family and Christmas this is a quick and easy choice. 

Holiday Reading: Halloween

Well Halloween is a couple weeks gone and we are well into the Thanksgiving hype, but I need to talk about my holiday read for Halloween. This year I read Death Makes a Holiday: a cultural history of Halloween by David J. Skal.

This is a book of essays about different events, history, and paraphernalia of Halloween as we know it today. There were essays on events like, the candy man, Halloween parades, horror films, and haunted houses, along with a short history of the holiday and how witches came to be a symbol of Halloween. All the essays were informative, entertaining, and researched. Skal makes it easy to get into the spirit and see this spooky holiday from an industry and eerie perspective.

I have read other nonfiction books on Halloween and its origins, but this book focuses on the current celebration of Halloween while nodding its head at where we derived these traditions from. I thought the book was fresh and fun.

For those of you who are Halloween lovers or enjoy reading about societal trends, this is a good choice

H-A-DOUBLE L-O-W-DOUBLE E-N....

Halloween is magical, at least to me. There's a spellbinding aspect about this holiday that gets me giddy as a school girl. Walking into homegoods stores and seeing the bounty of spooky ceramics, dolls, trinkets, and wall hangings brightens my round little face. The chill in the air and the crisp leaves falling from the skeleton boughs above them are timeless. The change of season is my favorite of the year, but there's one main component that adds to my adoration of this season. Halloween.

Other holidays have lost a lot of their appeal to me. Christmas is taken over by consumerism, St. Patty's by mass alcohol consumption, Easter way too much pastel! But Halloween still retains its age old magic, traditions, and mystery. There's a communion with nature, magic, mystery, terror, spirituality, and the unknown that can never be explained fully or taken away from my love. That doesn't mean I don't want to figure out why I feel this way for my beloved season, so I turn to books.

Lesley Pratt Bannatyne, wrote Halloween: An American Holiday, an American History and gave a well written, concise history of where Halloween came from and how it transformed into the holiday we know and love in contemporary times. The Celts were the first to celebrate what we envision as Halloween. Their Festival of Samhain, lord of the dead, was a late autumn festival during which the Celts celebrated the dead and the beginning of winter, the spirit season. Villagers offered sweets to appease mischievous spirits, or for more harmful, evil spirits, villagers dressed up as ghouls and led a parade out of the village to trick the spirits into leaving. See some similarities? Of course, witches are a major part of the holiday because practitioners were able to practice their craft at a higher level during this spiritual season. Once Christianity came, the leaders of the church put in new holy days where the old pagan celebrations originally set. Thus began All Saints and All Souls Day. People made soul cakes for these days and gave them to the poor. Soon boys and the poor began going door from door begging for soul cakes.

Come colonial times, the pagan traditions were set aside, at least in their out and out format, but harvest festivities and Guy Fawkes day were passable. As religious fervor calmed, the traditions came back and new ones were born. Halloween took on romantic aspects. Girls used superstitions and divination to learn who their future husband would be. Ghost stories were told and came from regional tales and cultural backgrounds.

During the 20th century, Halloween became a national holiday, but the trick part of trick-or-treat became a little too mischievous for communities. In an effort to divert trickster children causing property damage on this night, communities began holding parties for kids. From here, our Halloween parties, trick-or-treating, and the treats, tricks, and costumes all fell in place from the old world, to the new traditions.

Lesley's book was informative without being overly detailed about everything. She didn't use scholarly terms that are such a turn off unless you're doing heavy research. I thought this book was a great source for my Halloween history. I'm still ever so curious about the pagan routes of the holiday. Witches, bats, black cats, fairies, ghouls, and ghosts are the eerie, mysterious part of the season that haunt me and leave me wanting more. It may be a bit early to be thinking about Halloween, but I like to live up the season while it's still around.

The Halloween Tree

Seeing as I'm cheap and prefer to borrow some books from the library, I didn't get Ray Bradbury's book, The Halloween Tree until after Halloween. So much for my Halloween spirit.

Well this book is about young Tom Skeleton and his gang of Trick-or-Treaters. It's Halloween night and the boys go to meet their best bud Pipkin at a strange secluded, squeky house at the edge of town. There they meet Mr. Moundshroud, the eerie Tim Burton-esque man, who takes the boys on a journey to discover why Halloween exists. 

The book was creepy at places, especially as I thought about reading it to a child. It was an easy read and informative. I learned about different celebrations of the dead throughout history and the world. The writing flowed well and the pictures were great. This is a short book and is worth a quick read. I could certainly see a youngish boy liking this one. Perhaps it's the fact that I could see Tim Burton jumping all over this book that made me wary. I didn't have a problem with this book, but if it went on for much longer I don't think I would have felt inspired to continue reading. It wasn't an entrancing read for me, but seeing as this is a children's book, perhaps they would find more worth in the pages.