FOR OLDER "YOUNG SOULS": TWO JANE AUSTEN DECEMBER GIVEAWAYS

If you happen to be a Jane Austen fan, you're probably aware that this December not only marks the 240th year since Miss Austen's birth (December 16, 1775), but also the 200th Anniversary of the publication of her beloved Emma (published December 25, 1815).

"Where shall we see a better daughter, or a kinder sister, or a truer friend?"

To celebrate one of my all-time favorite books and authors, today I'm offering two giveaway books, for two lucky readers.  I'm also sharing a Christmas recipe and fun ornament project - for everyone!

Christmas is referenced in all of Jane Austen's novels. Christmas celebrations in Georgian England included balls, parties, wassailing, and visiting.

Here's a recipe for the traditional "wassail" drink carried in bowls by Christmas carolers as they went through neighborhoods singing Yuletide songs.

Holiday Wassail
1 gallon apple cider
1 large can pineapple juice (unsweetened)
3/4 cups hot tea

Place in cheesecloth sack:
1 T. whole cloves
1 T. whole allspice
2 sticks cinnamon

Perfect for the crockpot: Let simmer on low very slowly 4-6 hours (add water if needed). Serve warm.  Garnish with orange slices (splash of rum, optional).  Serves 20 [source]  There are many variations of Wassail - go here for more on Pinterest.

Next, I found a fun ornament project for your Christmas tree - or for that Jane Austen Party you've always wanted to have! (Both the recipe and project are from Jane Austen.co.uk. The website suggests using old book pages from a discarded Jane Austen novel. But of course, you could always photo copy a page - double sided - if you can't bring yourself to cut up one of Jane's books.)

Create a Jane Austen Christmas tree ornament - go here.

Ornament Project
1. Cut the page into 8 strips about 3/4" wide.
2. Set 2 strips aside.  Then cut 1/2" from 2 other strips; 1" from two more; and 1 and 1/2" from the remaining two strips.
3. Stack strips into two piles, with the longest strip on the bottom of each pile and so on, until the shortest strips are on top.
4.  Place the two piles together, face to face, with the shortest strips on the inside. Then staple the bottom of the strips together.
5.  Gently guide and line the top ends together, turning down this stack of ends down by turning both sides to the inside of the heart, pinching them together.
6. Staple the top ends together, inside the heart.
7. Form a loop of ribbon, and place it in the center where the strips meet.
8. Staple the strips together again, a bit higher, making sure the ribbon is caught.
9. Add a bow to the front with glue (hot glue gun works best).

On to the giveaways!  I'm delighted to offer you, dear readers, not one, but two books.

Giveaway #1 
My first giveaway book is in honor of Jane Austen's Birthday (December 16, 1775)...

Giveaway #1

A Jane Austen Christmas, Celebrating the Season of Romance, Ribbons, & Mistletoe. "Carlo DeVito provides an intimate portrait of Austen's most cherished Christmas memories with her family: from the gift of her first writing desk, to her first love and heartbreak, to her brewing mead and beer in time for the holidays. Along the way readers will spend a holiday in the Austen house, celebrate Jane's birthday, meet the inspiration for more than a dozen characters, attend the Christmastide series of balls, and learn how to make family's favorite recipes and dedicate a novel to the Prince Regent. Remarkably fresh and supremely entertaining, A Jane Austen Christmas brings Austen's world to life as never before."

Giveaway #2
I just love Miss Woodhouse and Mr. Knightley!! My second giveaway book is in celebration of Emma turning 200 on December 25, 2015...

Giveaway #2

Emma: 200th-Anniversary Annotated Edition (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) with introduction by the book's editor, Juliette Wells.  She refers to it as a reader's edition as opposed to a scholarly one and has included maps, a glossary, several contextual essays, and illustrations of earlier editions of Emma.

Giveaway Details...

There will be one winner for each of the two giveaway books. The giveaway starts today, December 8 and ends on December 15.  Winners will be announced on Jane's birthday, December 16!

Please enter the giveaway by using the Rafflecopter box below:

(Click the left/right arrows to make sure you enter both giveaways!)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Ansel Adams' Photographs and Washington Irving's "Sketch Book"

"When words become unclear, 

I shall focus with photographs. 

When images become inadequate, 

I shall be content with silence."

 – Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams [2/20/02 - 4/22/84] source

Today marks the 29th anniversary of the death of legendary American photographer Ansel Adams. He has been called the most influential photographer for the cause of our beloved national parks. 

Are you curious about why I am featuring him here on my blog about children's books?  Well, on a recent trip to Yosemite National Park, we stayed at the historic Ahwahnee Hotel, and I discovered that Ansel Adams is not only linked to Yosemite because of the many photographs he took, but also because of his part in an annual event there that is based on a children's book!

Celebrated every December since 1927, the Bracebridge Dinner  transforms the beautiful dining room at the Ahwahnee Hotel into a 17th century English manor for a feast of food, song and mirth.

Bracebridge Dinner

The inspiration for this yuletide ceremony was "Old Christmas" from Washington Irving's Sketch Book. It describes Christmas Day, 1718, at Bracebridge Hall in Yorkshire, England. (You may be familiar with Sketch Book - it includes Irving's short stories, including "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow".  You can see it here in its entirety on Archive.org, here).

"The Christmas Dinner"
Illustration by R. Caldecott
source: Project Gutenberg

What does this dinner have to do with famed photographer Ansel Adams?  Adams wrote the Ahwahnee's original Bracebridge Dinner program, which still follows his score of classic Christmas carols.

Adams was also the original "Lord of Misrule" (the court jester given rule over the evening) of the first dinner in 1927, and the Pageant Master of the Bracebridge Dinner for 40 years! Ansel Adams wrote the lines for all the characters in a rhymed, upbeat cadence, and searched out appropriate music.

Ansel Adams (right) as the Lord Of Misrule, a role he played in 1927-28.
[Photo courtesy of KennyKarst/DNC Parks & Resorts@Yosemite Inc.]

Today, a cast of over 100 people, including performers from San Francisco's Eugene Fulton Chorale move diners to tears with an a capella rendition of "O Holy Night" one minute, and have them howling with laughter the next at the antics of the Lord of Misrule.

Ansel Adams was born in San Francisco four years before the great earthquake of 1906. An aftershock of the earthquake threw him to the ground, breaking his nose and marking him for life.

He spent his childhood days playing in the sand dunes beyond the "Golden Gate" (the entrance to the San Francisco Bay, where the bridge would eventually span the Pacific to join San Francisco and Marin across the narrows).Young Ansel gained an appreciation for nature there, which would become his primary source of photographic inspiration.

Natural shyness and a certain intensity of genius, coupled with the dramatically “earthquaked” nose, caused Adams to have problems fitting in at school. He was finally pulled out of school to be tutored at home by his father and aunt. He eventually became a gifted musician, teaching himself to play the piano and read music at the age of 12.

Adams first visited Yosemite in 1916, when he was 14 years old. On that trip, he hopped up on a tree stump to take a photo of Half Dome, then stumbled, headfirst, and accidentally pushed the shutter release. The upside-down image remained one of Adams’s favorites, he wrote in his autobiography.

Here is an amazing vintage 1958 video, "Ansel Adams, Photographer". Watch and listen to how Adams integrates the artistry of his piano playing with his artistic photography talents!


I love the view of the Yosemite Valley as it opens up to you, just after you've driven through the tunnel, arriving at Inspiration Point.

I took this photo during our visit in February 2013.  I just realized in writing this post,
that I was there just a few days before Ansel Adams' birthday, which was Febraury 20!

Ansel Adams has shot several dramatic black and white photos of this stunning view during different seasons and weather conditions...this particular shot is during a thunderstorm.

"Yosemite Valley Thunderstorm" by Ansel Adams, 1945 - source

And I love this unique photo I found of Adams with his camera, shooting another picture of the same view in 1976...

Ansel Adams at Inspiration Point, 1976
Alan Ross Photography - source

Here is a wonderful biography for kids, illustrated by the photographs of Adams. The text follows the pictures, with an insightful account of Adams' life, from his upbringing in San Francisco to his love of nature and photography.


For Grades 5 and up, but children of any age who have visited Yosemite National Park (or are planning a trip there) will enjoy looking at the photography.

Ansel Adams: America's Photographer, A biography for young people, by Beverly Gherman.

CHRISTMAS AROUND THE WORLD: GREAT BRITAIN

Greeting: Merry Christmas
St. Nicholas Tradition: "Father Christmas"
Highlighted Custom: Christmas cards & Christmas "crackers" (not the kind you eat!)

Following the intense scrutiny by the Puritans under Oliver Cromwell, Christmas celebrations in Great Britain were in decline. At the same time, the Industrial Revolution allowed workers little time for the holy days.  But Christmas celebrations began to make a comeback in the mid 1800's, in great part due to Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and... Charles Dickens!

Many of the Victorian-age Christmas traditions are still practiced today.  In 1841, Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, made popular the custom of decorating Christmas trees after he brought the idea to the British Isles from his native country of Germany.  Victorian trees were candle-lit and decorated with fruit, nuts, candy, and roses.

from "Godey's Ladys Book", December 1860

The first Christmas card made its appearance in the 1840's, designed by English artist John Calcott Horsely. If you love vintage Christmas postcards and heartwarming  stories, have I got the book for you...  

It's Aunt Olga's Christmas Postcards, by Kevin Major and it's truly one of my favorite Christmas treasures. Anna’s Great-Aunt Olga has collected Christmas postcards all her life (she’s ninety-five years young). Aunt Olga takes advantage of a holiday visit from her favorite niece to share her memories and collection of antique postcards - she received her first from her brother when he was a soldier during World War I - and we, as readers, get to delight in her collection too! Decked out in red, Aunt Olga is ready for fun as she teaches Anna how to write her very own Christmas rhymes. Written with warmth and slightly quirky humor, this unique story shows how sweet a loving relationship can be between a youngster and an oldster.


Finally, it was in large part due to the works of Charles Dickens, specifically his masterpiece A Christmas Carol, published in 1843, that the joys of Christmas were rekindled in Great Britain. Below is Dicken's self described "Carol Philosophy":

"a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of other people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."

English poet Christina Rossetti was the author of many Advent and Christmastide poems.  Her most famous, A Christmas Carol became a favorite Christmas hymn entitled In the Bleak Midwinter after it appeared (posthumously) in The English Hymnal in 1906, with a setting by Gustav Holst (and later by Harold Darke).  It has been performed by choirs and soloists ever since, including the Robert Shaw Chorale, Chanticleer, Julie Andrews, Sarah Mclachlan, and most recently, James Taylor (who sings my favorite modern rendition). Click HERE to read my post about Christina Rossetti and listen to two beautiful settings of this hymn.

The tradition possibly most enjoyed by English children - Christmas "crackers" - was developed in 1844 by Thomas Smith, an English candy maker who visited France and saw cosaques ("crackers") there.  The French versions were sugar-coated almonds wrapped in squares of colored paper with each end tightly twisted.  Upon his return to England, Smith began making crackers that contained candy, jokes, mottoes, and riddles.  Still popular today, a cracker is placed beside each plate at the Christmas Dinner, ready for its tabs to be pulled as the anticipated "pop'' sound is followed by the emptying of its contents (trinkets, a paper crown, and riddles) by an eager child.

Illustration of children pulling a cracker
from ‘The Graphic Christmas’ 1878. [Image Source]

What's for dinner?  Turkey (first sent over by colonists from North America in the 1600's), cranberry sauce (which must still be imported from the U.S.), mashed potatoes, brussell sprouts, and a baked plum pudding. The pudding is traditionally prepared with 13 ingredients to represent Christ and His Disciples. Every member of the family takes turns to stir the pudding with a wooden spoon from east to west, in honour of the Three Kings.  A foil-wrapped coin is baked inside, for good luck.

Children send letters to "Father Christmas", which are tossed in the fireplace.  Legend has it that the smoke from them burning letters gets carried up the chimney directly to the jolly man in the red suit!  J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a book about Letters from Father Christmas, that I posted HERE last year.

"Boxing Day", celebrated the day after Christmas, marks the beginning of the Christmas pantomimes (plays, such as "Cinderella" or "Peter Pan", which are performed for children).  Boxing Day was originally a public holiday on which church alms boxes, filled with donations for the poor, were opened and the money inside was distributed. Today, people still give gifts of money to servants or other people such as postal workers, police, and newspaper vendors, who serve the public during the year.