I approached my first read of 2020 — the first book I’d read from in the new year — with seriousness. I hoped it would set a good tone for continuing to read on a daily basis, which meant it needed to hold my interest even when my brain was tired. I struggled to find the mental space for recreational reading in the first few months of my new job; I’ve learned a lot since starting, but it took a toll on what my brain wanted to do when I came home each night.

So, the book needed to be interesting, but not overly challenging. I got several new books for Christmas and considered cozying up with one of them. But new relationships can be a lot of work. For every kindred spirit we encounter at first meeting, there are dozens of awkward conversations about the weather and what we do for a living. Ultimately, I decided, in keeping with the season, an “auld acquaintance” was the right choice.

Charlotte Holmes, who solves mysteries while contemplating whether another slice of cake will bring her too close for comfort to her maximum tolerable chins, was just the ticket. Charlotte would take no pity on my slower mental agility, but she would tolerate it as long as I made an effort to keep up. After all, she has genuine affection for her dear friend, Mrs. Watson, and for her sisters, Bernadine and Livia.

Plus, The Art of Theft, the fourth book in the Sherry Thomas series, is set at Christmastime, so it’s even seasonally appropriate to read it now. And I’d bought it back in the fall, when Sherry Thomas came to town, so it was just waiting on the shelf for me to have the time to spend with its cast.

I did not read much, but I did get through the first couple scenes of the book. And I think it will be the right choice. I look forward to spending more time with Charlotte as she leaves England behind for France.

What was your first read of the new year?

Season’s Greetings! Today is the 11th day on our Virtual Advent Tour. With only two weeks until Christmas Day, I hope your planning is going well and that you are managing to fit in fun amidst the chores. Rudi and I finished decorating our tree tonight while watching an old Yogi Bear/Hanna-Barbera special, and I dug the Christmas cards out yesterday, with the hopes that I can spend some time writing them while Rudi’s out of town for the next week.

Behind today’s door is a post from DOD, my dear old dad, who has once again provided us with some interesting facts about one of our favorite Christmas traditions — music:

It’s always been interesting to me how a song evolves from classical or popular music to become one of the Christmas season’s classics. And we already know that you are not required to write about Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Wise Men, Shepherds, or mangers to have your song be accepted and loved at Christmas time. Having Googled “Christmas songs that don’t necessarily refer to Christmas,” the category and number seem to vary in the area between 12 and 20. Most music fans could readily identify songs such as Leroy Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride,” made popular as a holiday song by Arthur Feidler and the Boston Pops, singer/cowboy Gene Autry’s “Frosty the Snowman,” written by Jack Rollins and Steve Nelson, and, of course, “Jingle Bells,” a tune James Lord Pierpont, a church organist who was tasked by his minister dad to write a little ditty for Thanksgiving Service (and which of us hasn’t been so tasked).

While it’s tough to say why a song becomes popular enough to move into the Christmas category and be viewed with sanctified awe and respect, we do readily accept those moves. Look what we have accomplished with Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” But I digress. I actually have two songs that did not fall into any of the Google informative paragraphs, but which, if you look into information about either, you will find that those two songs have been accepted as Christmas tunes. Thought I’d run some thoughts by you to see whether you concur. The songs are presents — one each — from the 50’s and 60’s. One came to pop music from folk music and the other from the pop format. Both became increasingly popular through singers of country music, but I would expect to hear either song on any Christmas music-formatted radio station between Thanksgiving and Christmas morning. Although both tunes list a composer and a lyricist, words count, so we’ll be writing about the person who gave us the pleasure of singing along.

In 1957, the Lennon Sisters (Lawrence Welk’s very own) recorded and released a song about a shopper who overhears a little girl standing outside the window of a toy store. The girl is enthralled by a dolly whose sales card reads, Shake me I rattle, squeeze me I cry. Please take me home and love me. While the song does not mention the Christmas season, you should know that it was snowing. The woman recalls an earlier time when she herself was looking in a toy store window at a doll and was a penny short of the price. We don’t know whether she was able to negotiate the purchase, but the woman goes into the shop and buys the doll and sends it home with the little girl. Regrettably, the Lennon Sisters didn’t make the charts with the song. However, in 1963, Marion Worth recorded the song and it made it to the pop charts up to #42. A decade later, Cristy Lane resurrected the song which made it to #16 on the country music charts. Three decades of successful recordings. And Cristy Lane added it to both of her Christmas albums.

“Shake Me I Rattle (Squeeze Me I Cry)” has lyrics by Hal Hackady (1922–2015) who was born in Middletown, CT, and graduated from Wesleyan University. He went on to a career writing tv shows (GE Theater) and Broadway shows (Snoopy, the Musical). He wrote the song “Just One Person” for Snoopy and it was a favorite of the Muppets. It was sung at the funeral of Jim Henson and again in the tv tribute show to Henson. Both performances are available on YouTube, but be prepared to be affected. Hackady sure could write some sensitive music.

On to song 2.

In 1949, Jack Segal (1918–2015) from Minneapolis, Minnesota, spent 15 minutes dashing off a lovely little ballad, “Scarlet Ribbons (For Her Hair).” Very popular singer Jo Stafford recorded the song in January, 1950, but it didn’t go anywhere. (Some may surmise that it just missed the Christmas season. Could be, could be.) The song sat around the office for a couple of years until Harry Belafonte recorded the tune in 1952. (Yes, Harry also gave rise to Jester Hariston’s “Mary’s Boy Child” later in his career and not part of this story.) “Scarlet Ribbon” was released in 1954 and started its way into our hearts. In 1959, a country group, the Browns, recorded/released the song in November, 1959, just in time for you-know-what holiday. They took the song to #13 on the pop charts and #7 on the country music charts. If you are the person who is not familiar with the song, it describes the plight of a dad who overhears his daughter’s bedtime prayer in which she asks for scarlet ribbons for her hair. Poor day. All of the stores are closed and shuttered — not like these days, eh? — and while he drives around and searches for some ribbons, he finds none. He goes home, peeks in her room and there on her bed are a profusion of scarlet ribbons. He has no idea where they came from, but obviously as a good member of the dad club, he accepts the appearance of the ribbons and knows how happy it will make his daughter. No kidding, I can almost feel those tears welling up now.

The song has been recorded by at least 50 artists; it’s been in tv shows (Wayne Newton sang it on Bonanza), and it was sung by one of the musical acts in something Brian Epstein called Another Beatles’ Christmas Eve Show in 1964. Other artists who have added it to a Christmas album include Burl Ives, Patti Page, Jim Reeves, Michael Crawford, Cliff Richard and Celtic Thunder. If that doesn’t make you want to put it in your next Christmas album, I’ll be surprised.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Merry Christmas, DOD, and thanks for taking part again in this year’s Tour. I always learn so much from the posts you write.

We’ll see you back here tomorrow.

Welcome to the tenth day of the Virtual Advent Tour. Today I’m combining our holiday tour with That Artsy Reader Girl’s Top Ten Tuesday meme to share ten Christmas-themed books (spanning all age groups) that I recommend:

1. The Birds’ Christmas Carol by Kate Douglas Wiggins: This overly sentimental, melodramatic picture book tells the Victorian Era story of an ill girl, Carol, who invites the neighbor children, The Birds, to her Christmas Day birthday party. I wept buckets over this as a child and teen and would borrow it annually from the library in order to do so.
2. The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg: I first encountered this picture book in a French translation, which we read aloud my senior year of high school. Charming in any language, this story, about a boy who takes a train to the North Pole, ultimately is about faith and believing in the unseen, yet still known. The movie adaptation is also quite good.
3. A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas: This prose piece, a fictionalized memoir about a bygone Christmastime in a Welsh village, was originally written by one of the early 20th-century’s best poets as a radio broadcast. Sentimental without ever becoming sappy, this story is beautiful whether read on the page, listened to as read by its author, or seen performed by actors.
4. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson: I think, although I don’t remember for certain, that I saw a tv adaptation of this first and then discovered the book, but it could have been the other way around. Either way, this middle-grade novel focuses on the Herdmans, a poor family of under-supervised, over-bullying, mean children, who get it into their heads that they want to take over their local Sunday School production of the Nativity play.
5. Greenglass House by Kate Milford: In this fantastical middle-grade novel, a tween boy and his adoptive parents live in an old inn. Just as they’re closing up for the holidays, a series of strangers parade in and a snowstorm descends, and a mystery is set forward.
6. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss: Converted into one of the 20th-century’s best loved holiday cartoons, this book is just as charming as its televised (and subsequent films) adaptation. In it, a hard-hearted grinch has had it with his neighbors’ over-exuberant merry-making and decides to ruin their holidays in order to get them to shut up about Christmas already.
7. My True Love Gave to Me, edited by Stephanie Perkins: In this series of romantic Christmas tales by some of the biggest stars in YA literature, you’ll find contemporary romances and historical fiction rubbing shoulders with fantasy and sci fi. In other words, there’s a story for everyone.
8. Let It Snow! by John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle: In this interlocking trio of stories/novellas (adapted into a charming Netflix film), a blizzard strikes the mid-Atlantic on Christmas Eve, stranding a train heading to Florida just outside Gracetown, Virginia. Included on the train are a horde of high school cheerleaders headed to a competition and two other solitary teenagers, Jeb and Jubilee. Independently, they all head to the Waffle House they can see from the train window through the night’s snow. The stories are what happens next.
9. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens: We all know the bones of the story: a miser is visited by three Christmas spirits who attempt to get him to mend his ways and take a greater interest in his fellow man. But the details of the story often get glossed over in the tv adaptations, and it’s worth a return visit to the source material to see how the Victorian Era’s most beloved social crusader gets his message across.
10. A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg: Typical of Flagg’s quirky small-town-centric novels, this novel focuses on a man who must move to the South for his health and the locals he encounters once he does so.

Thanks for stopping by, and I’ll see you tomorrow for our next door on the Virtual Advent Tour! (I’m a little behind in matching dates with folks who wrote to me over the weekend, but we do still have a couple openings if today is your first visit to our tour and you want to join in.)

Welcome back to the Virtual Advent Tour! Today is the end of our first week, so I hope the season has been going well for you so far.

We are big music listeners in my family, and our tastes are broad, particularly at the holidays. My dad’s Christmas music collection numbers in the hundreds, and mine is catching up, having overflowed the milk crate I keep it in a few years back. In fact, while in New York last month, I bought a new Christmas cd based on nothing more than the fact that it was one.

As kids, we listened to vinyl and the mix tapes Dad made, and our favorites included his holiday recordings, which later moved to cd as the media changed.

For many years now, I’ve also made an annual Christmas cd. In fact, I wrote about my process for one of my very first Virtual Advent Tours, and I have shared songs off my cds on occasion over the years.

This year, I’ve been auditioning music intermittently since mid-November, but listened to quite a few tunes while working late earlier this week. While I may share some of the new songs I’m considering later in the tour, today I thought I’d give you a trio of the songs that made it onto last year’s cd.

First up we have The Sugarpills performing “Christmas Is the Time to Say I Love You,” originally written and recorded by Billy Squier. Their pared down version of the song gives it an earnestness I like:

Second, we have “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” performed by Miley Cyrus and Mark Ronson and featuring Sean Ono Lennon on the song his parents wrote:

Finally, we have Leilani and the Distractions with their klezmer adaptation of Johnny Marks’ “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” I’m a sucker for reworkings and mashups of well-known songs, so my mixes often include at least one:

Today, we’ll be cleaning our apartment in preparation for our tree-trimming party on Sunday, and I’m looking forward to finally getting a chance to listen to Dad’s 2019 Christmas mix while I do it. I hope your Saturday also includes some musical highlights, however you prefer them.

I’ll see you back here tomorrow. Oh, and if you’d like to join in on the fun of the Virtual Advent Tour, leave me a comment and we can set you up with a date. We still have openings throughout the rest of Advent.

It’s been nearly three months since I started this new job, and I’m finding it a struggle to achieve the work-life balance that’s previously been mostly effortless for me. While I haven’t missed a volleyball game yet (yay, physical activity!), my knitting and recreational reading have been at all-time lows.

With only 13 more days in the office this year, I don’t foresee making any radical changes before the holidays, but I do think I could probably make some incremental changes:

T’is the season for Christmas movies, which do not require much brain power. Sock knitting also does not require much brain power and I think if I reach for one of my socks-in-progress, rather than my phone first when we start up a film, I will actually stick with it long enough to make some noticeable progress.

I also think that if I set aside 15 minutes when I get home to decompress with a book I’ll be a happier camper. Finally, I need to finish The Library Book, because it’s detracting from all the lovely fiction I want to read, so I’ll make that a priority while I’m in Connecticut for the holiday weekend.

If nothing else, the new job is making me good at developing actionable plans for accomplishing tasks, right?

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl is a Thanksgiving freebie. I’ve decided I’d like to share ten bookstores I’m personally thankful for:

1. Politics & Prose: A D.C. institution, this now trio of shops bring authors to the District on a daily basis. And they have a music buyer on staff, making them pretty much the only place in town I can buy new cds still.
2. Kramerbooks: A mainstay of my Dupont Circle neighborhood, this bookstore, cafe, and bar is open until 1 a.m. weeknights and 3 a.m. Friday and Saturday (and was very handy this year when I realized I didn’t have any cake for Rudi rather late on his birthday this year).
3. Powell’s: This Portland, Oregon, megastore is like a beacon for booklovers, being pretty much a block wide and several stories tall. Do not plan a trip to the Northwest without stopping, and do not stop without several hours to adequately explore.
4. R.J. Julia Booksellers: This was the first bookstore I ever joined as a member. Located in Madison, Connecticut, it has long hosted great author talks and provided hours of entertainment. It also took over the bookstore in Middletown, around the corner from my old house, after I moved.
5. Whitlock’s Book Barn: This is one of Connecticut’s great used bookshops and one of two (that I’m aware of) in the state housed in barns. Located in Bethany in the Housatonic Valley, you can find both antiquarian titles and used paperbacks in this rural paradise that my parents used to drag us to kicking and screaming when we were kids.
6. Capitol Hill Bookstore: This rowhouse near Eastern Market in D.C. is filled to bursting with books. While the fire marshal has clearly vetoed the piles of books that used to sit on each stair tread, they are still in stacks in the bathroom and on every other flat surface. Plus, they are deliciously cranky both in person and on their Twitter.
7. The Strand: New York City’s answer to Powell’s (although don’t tell a New Yorker that), the Strand is home to 18 miles of new and used books. When I win the lottery and am ready to purchase my unabridged copy of the OED, they have a copy of all 20 volumes on hand.
8. The King’s English: This Salt Lake City, Utah, shop is one of my favorite stops when we’re visiting Rudi’s mom.
9. East City Bookshop: This Capitol Hill-area bookstore has quickly built a loyal following, and not just because of their stroller parking area and photo wall of dogs. They boast an extremely knowledgeable kids/YA bookseller and run a plethora of bookclubs, including W(h)ine and Angst, a YA bookclub for adults.
10. Mahogany Books: This tiny bookstore, located in the Anacostia Arts Center, is the only bookshop East of the Anacostia River in D.C. and delivers Black-centric books for “readers in search of books written for, by, or about people of the African Diaspora.” It was this bookshop that introduced me (literally — she came in to pick up a book just after they hand sold me her poetry collection) to Elizabeth Acevedo.

Local runners-up you can visit here in D.C.: Loyalty Books, Solid State Books, Bridge Street Books, Second Story, Lost City (formerly Idle Times), Sankofa, Wall of Books, Carpe Librum, The Lantern, and more.

How about you? What bookstores are you thankful for?

Have you signed up for the Virtual Advent Tour yet? We’d be excited to have you join us!