Savoring seasons is a worthwhile exercise in civility. No one will ensure that you make the most of each time of year, but it does seem that people who purposefully savor the sights and sounds have a more enjoyable time. Laura Vanderkam writes memorably about some of the reasons for the power of savoring.
Christmas, bringing hope and light to the Winter Solstice for so many of us, is particularly rich with sensory opportunity. Warm beverages before a fire or the lighted tree. Christmas caroling on a frosty evening (or turning the air conditioning down on an evening drive if seasonally appropriate frostiness proves elusive). There are so many ways of entering into the mood of light and hope. In a strange environment or in a strange mood, it can still prove hard to capture.
For the bookish among us, there is perhaps no better way to enter into the Christmas spirit than a cozy read. The very best avenue is a book from childhood. The type of book in which you studied every page and traced the festive images with the eye for hours surrounded by familiar smells and decorations. If such a book is hard to find, there are books exceptionally replete with festive ambience that can invite us in when all else leaves us feeling out-of-sorts.
A few places to start:
Astrid Lindgren’s “The Children of Noisy Village”: Nine-year-old Lisa is our guide in Lindgren’s fictional reimaging of her father’s childhood in a close-knit community on a Swedish farm. There is a marvelous assurance that the traditions they partake in are steady, unchanging signposts. As we wrote previously, “Lisa explains that Christmas begins on the day she and her brothers bake ginger snaps. She has confidence that this event has occurred several times before and betrays no fear that there will ever come a time when this will not be the case.
Lisa continues, ‘When we had almost finished baking we put all our last little pieces of dough together and made a big prize cooky. We always do this. Then in the afternoon, when all the ginger snaps had come out of the oven, we put dried peas in a bottle and went around all over Noisy Village to let everyone guess how many peas there were. The one who made the closest guess would get the big cooky for a prize.’”
After the cookies, come decorating, feasting, cutting down the tree—one for each farm and a small one for the grandfather’s apartment—an annual trip to an aunt’s house for more feasting and celebration and a day of playing with cousins.
Tasha Tudor’s “Take Joy” and “A Time for Keeping”: Tudor’s decorative arts are nowhere on display as exquisitely as in the celebration of special occasions. Her images of celebrating Yuletide and the New Year in “A Time for Keeping” are luminous and inspiring. Always old-fashioned, she aspired to live as though she were in the 19th century and did so with dedication few people can hope to attain, there is a coziness and reassurance in the strength of tradition found in all the old implements of feasting and decorating. For an entire book of Christmas images and inspiration, Tudor’s “Take Joy” includes stories, poems, songs, and recipes: a veritable compendium of old-fashioned, New England Christmas festivity.
Jill Barklem’s “Brambly Hedge”– It’s worth noting that the mice and voles of Brambly Hedge do not celebrate Christmas. But they do have incredibly cozy wintertime gatherings to celebrate the rare snowfall and the gathering of Mid-Winter. For each special occasion, Basil selects special wines and frothy beverages, punches, and hot drinks. The kitchens of Brambly Hedge are a flurry of activity to produce the special dainties of Brambly Hedge feasting. The Mid-Winter Fest is particularly inspiring in the tradition of having young mice recite poetry, a rediscovery of creating over consuming that our current culture of Christmas would do well to recall. Whether or not the dignified little animals along the hedgerow are celebrating the birth of Christ or not, their celebrations are a marvelous reminder of the kind of celebrating and savoring we wish for our own holidays.
If the Christmas glow is hard to grasp in the midst of illness, chill, noise, and discomfort, reach for a tried and true tale of genuine and beautiful celebration. Your heart will be glad.
