Christmas Books

Precious stories that will lift and warm your heart. I re-read them every year to stay in the spirit of Christmas. You will chuckle and nod in agreement at the actions and comments of the characters.

These two small books are nicely illustrated. Each book contains one very short, heartwarming story. (They can be read in about ten minutes.) The stories are enjoyable and well written. It's important that the buyer realizes that they are not novels, like the rest of the Mitford series.

We got the recipe and a wonderful book to read every Christmas to remind you what is important. Esther's Gift is very short but the perfect book to get you in the mood for Christmas. I will remember to read it every year!

I'm just a 32 yr.old Mom & wife, for now.,this is for the Baker at heart...
I'd heard of these books, but couldn't remember the titles , nor the author. When I finally figured out which books they were, and found the books, I orded the gift set, 'The Mitford Snowmen', and 'Esther's gift', for my self, just to 'try a few out', without buying the whole set. A friend said I'd love them, because I love to bake, and am also an avid reader. I love to try new and decadent desserts, to always top whatever my previous triumph had been. These 2 small books were a joy to read, and I am looking forward to reading all the others, as well as passing them on to other friends or family to read. Esther seems to be just like me, with all her worries, and her heart is always in the right place. I must say that I was a bit dissappointed at the short length of the books (they are only short stories), but I thoroughly enjoyed them. I look forward to reading the rest of the series, as I know that they are larger books. The Marmalade cake is GLORIOUS!! Never have I had any cake so wonderful. I recommend this to any woman who enjoys good, old-fashioned home-town stories; whom love to entertain, cook, and hear stories about the kind of characters we can all relate to.

Also recommended: Katherine Hepburn biography; 'Kate Remembered',any and all 'Chicken Soup for the Soul' books, all the Anne Rice trilogies,Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit. 'Taste of Home','Reminisce ','Cooking Light',&'Gourmet'magazine

I purchased two orders of 12 each. I belong to Women's Seafarers Friend Society and our ladies wanted copies of the book. We heard from the chaplain of New England Seafarers Mission that we were featured in the book, noting the 2005 ditty bag total of 1800 bags for the seafarers. This year we filled 1836 bags. The ladies were thrilled we are mentioned in a book about Christmas.

I found the balance of the book very informative and heart warming. Thank you for carrying this book.

Some fifty New England holiday regional traditions are gathered in a survey fit for either residents or ex-natives of the region, making for a lovely holiday celebration. From different interpretations of Santa - the flying version versus Secret Santa - to Christmas traditions in city and countryside and even historic holiday celebrations, Christmas in New England is a wonderful multi-faceted celebration any holiday enthusiast will love.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

This book covers every kind of Christmas topics and gives meaty stories behind them. I especially like the stories that include recipes like the Chirstmas pudding recipe and I think of many of the stories as mini travelogues and history lessons that come in a most palatable form. I think this would be a great book for the family to hold on to and try to visit one of the places or events described in the book every year. It would also help instill in children that Christmas is not just something invented to sell toys :) McGuiggan has an easy to read style and combines alot of information in one book.

McGuiggan has done a wonderful job collecting stories about New England Christmases, from James Van Alen's annual reading of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" at Clement C. Moore's Newport home to the "Flying Santa" who dropped gifts to the lighthouse families before the days of automated lights, from the beginnings of Christmas emerging in Puritan-bastion Massachusetts to events in the new century. Enhanced with old photos and advertisements. Just one question: does she plan a sequel? That's the only reason I can figure for writing a book about Christmas in New England and not including Edaville Railroad's annual Christmas rides! If this will be the linchpin of a second collection of Yuletide memories, I'm all for it!

Christmas in Paris is an exquisite study of Joseph Steiner's sublime slide into mid-life. Set in the period after 9/11 but before the Iraq invasion, Steiner faces the quiet bubbling of resentment simmering in Europe while wrestling with the redefining of his own identity. The book produces wonderful moments of originality, humor and psychological revelation that describe a parallel shifting of the main character's interior landscape with the geo-political upheaval around him. The book ends with refreshing clarity, that only traveling outside of the country can bring.

Ronald Fried's newest book is an insightful, beautifully written tale of a self doubting mid-life soul, told against the joys, memories and frustrations of a classic American in Paris holiday. Like his favorite author Balzac - some of whose 19th century characters provide leitmotifs for this 21st century tale - Fried has a wonderful eye for behavioral details: be it for overbearing journalists, competitive friends, knee-jerk French anti-Americans, a genteely nagging wife, forcefuly polite French shop clerks or perfectly charming French children. Fried weaves all into a delightful and moving read. Bravo !

CHRISTMAS IN PARIS: 2002 begins with a taxi ride from Charles de Gaulle airport to Paris. I've taken that taxi --- if you travel to Paris regularly, it's like a trip through your past, rushing you by hotels you've stayed in, reminding you of the person you used to be.

So it is for Joseph Steiner, a New Yorker who first came to Paris thirty years earlier. Now he's married, living in Manhattan, with a 20-year-old son off at college. Steiner may not be a star, but he has good connections --- he and his wife are staying in the apartment of married friends who are, like him, in the TV news business. (One was "in a place where there'd just been a war." The other was "on her way to a place where war was coming soon.")

The war that everyone knows is coming is a large presence in this book; it's a bookend to 9/11 and to the general question of American heroism. Steiner's wife, Mary, runs a small publishing imprint and has commissioned a book about Islamic radicalism. It's been selling briskly --- Mary is savvy and quite successful. Steiner is less so; he's just lost his job.

That gloomy fact looms even larger for Steiner than the drumbeats announcing impending war in Iraq. He has some money saved, but the loss of a vocational identity is a body blow --- and it isn't helped, in the borrowed Paris apartment, when he plucks some books from a shelf and discovers they're signed by the authors. There's also a framed picture of the cast of a popular TV show. Everybody's somebody. But, Steiner has to wonder, who is he?

The Steiners go to dinner with friends. The conversation is a deadly accurate portrait of accomplished people talking shop. Later, they pause in front of a store with a display for Karl Lagerfeld's new diet book. Steiner is astonished by the designer's weight loss; Mary wonders if the book has an American publisher. Not large events. But the right ones --- hey, the Steiners are on vacation.

Which means we spend a fair amount of time in Joseph Steiner's head. Reliving the experience of being fired. Thinking about Balzac, his favorite writer, who reminds him that "money became more important as you got older; it cushioned you from the world." And musing about Paris, a city he's visited as often as possible, because going there "was a bit like cheating on your wife without the burdens of deception or the pleasures of young flesh."

Paris is a theme park, a stage set --- a spread-out shopping mall for people who hate real malls. Mary springs for a leather jacket. (In a book of small incidents, this has the effect of a gun going off.) Steiner, though unemployed, does his share of shopping. "If Fitzgerald was correct and character was action, Steiner was in big trouble: he'd done almost nothing. But if shopping was character, then Steiner was a Hemingway hero."

You could easily conclude that this is a book about a small man and a shaky marriage. Wrong. It's the story of a real man in a real marriage --- it's like journalism tricked up to read like fiction. Because Steiner does "know" a few things. "He knew that his wife was beautiful and Lord knows she always tried to speak the truth....And there was still something beautiful within America, though darkness was falling all around."

These are not the exciting truths of the young. They're the home truths of middle age. They acknowledge loss but not defeat --- they're the guiding principles of people who lead middle-management lives. Put another way, they're the truths that power the lives of people we know --- of the people we are.

Reading Ron Fried, I began to think he could read my mind. He doesn't miss a beat --- he's terrific at describing worry and pride and vanity. He can do bitterness. He can recreate sadness. And in what looks like a little book about a ho-hum week in Paris, he can deliver a rich, satisfying portrait of two people who will make you think in a whole new way about yourself and your choices.


--- Reviewed by Jesse Kornbluth

this is an intense stream of concousness novel that defines the ambiguity that americans felt in a foreign land in the run-up to the united states invasion of iraq. this is seen through a middle-aged american who has returned to paris,where he had lived as acollege student.
this is a literary novel that enthralls with its references to balzac and other french writers of the 19th century, but most of it makes yoou think in broader terms about america and its place in the world and and how the perception that america may be falling from grace as the worlds leading hegemeny to the role of an agressor.
the narrator offers us incitful perceptions of paris and also the counryside nad rememberence of things past in relationship to the ambiguous future

Those who would dismiss this book as overgeneralized and flawed forget that institutions were originally established not to protect disabled people from society, but society from disabled people.

Popular notion of the time held disabled people would be much more of a hindrance than help to society, and looked odd. Thus, if they were locked up, society would know where they were at all times while being able to pretend that they did not exist to begin with. Indeed, when Blatt and Kaplan's expose appeared, it set off controversy from those who had the audacity to defend the charges against very quickly turning public sentiment.

Although they are certainly free to articulate what they consider flaws with the book, it is difficult to believe that critics of this work would actually want to downplay the seriousness of these (and other) investigations if they were in those instutitions. Indeed, I strongly suspect they would want to be treated like human beings and given adequate care and a stimmulating environment.

As a diabled person myself, the contents of the book hit very close to home. Fortunate enough to be born in 1979, I realized that had I been born 20 years earlier, I most likely would have been one of the unfortunate people in the institutions investigated in this essay. While I previously had been aware of the disability rights movement's work in this area, reading this book gave me a whole new perspective on my work as a disability rights activist.

Because this book was never positioned as an indictment of all facilities, I am suprised by the rather hostile nitpicking and the blanket statement allegations. I believe this says more about the individuals reviewers than the quality of the authors themselves, and should not be weighted when looking at this book.The institutions in this essay were picked because the actual practices stood in sharp contrast to the "help and loving environment" they promised parents and relatives that patients would get. Woe is the person who even suggests that this was not as bad as people have made it out to be.

If it is difficult to believe the conditions doccumented in this book, it is because of the continued ease with which society is encouraged to view disabled people as helpless children, rather than potential Supreme Court nominees, doctors, lawyers etc...Ironically, baby and bath allegories demonstrate the urgency with which this book should be designated as required reading for anybody considering a degree in social sciences or a job in a related field.

This book is the first to do a photographic expose on the condition of our nation's institutions for the mentally retarded in the 1960's. This was done on the heels of Senator Robert Kennedy's visits to several of his state's institutions and revelation of the horrific state he found them in. This is not an easy book to look at especially when looking at the children and how they were housed, contained, etc. It shows first the worst conditions that the author and photographer found and then documents an institute on the cutting edge at the time. Kaplan brings us face to face with how our ignorance and expectations can be self-fulfilling prophecies for those entrusted to our care. I found it an important book to keep as a reminder of where we have been so as not to return there.

I was told of this book in a meeting at of the company I work for.
We Provide Care to MR/DD people. This book is very disturbing and also enlighting. It makes me feel good to know that we, as a society have for the most part worked to change what these poor souls went through. A must read.

I was introduced to Christmas in Purgatory in 1996, when I took a course at Western Washington University called Introduction to Execeptional Children. There was no introduction to the essay, it was simply named in an assignment. Needless to say, I was horrified. I'm placing an order for it today as I feel that students taking courses related to people with disabilities need to see this. The book cannot be found on the national library system (in Norway), and therefore I've decided to buy a copy and donate it to my local university.

My five star rating comes with a single caveat: I don't believe this book, or any discussion of slavery, is appropriate for fourth graders, as has been suggested. This is a really well-done book, but despite the fact that it is a picture book, I feel it is better suited to grades 6-8, perhaps the occasional mature 5th grader. The topic is a painful one, especially if you are talking to large numbers of African-American children whose far-back families may well have lived in the quarters (kids like my history students). The thing I love about this book is that it doesn't try to present the slaves as essentially happy and festive, which is how they were depicted when I was growing up in the '60s. Instead, it is understood that they endure their position only because it is strategically the wrong moment to rise up and resist; you don't get the feeling these folks would really mind seeing the owners drop dead in their Christmas feast, but it isn't possible to make that happen right now, so they make the best of a bad situation, but only for the moment. The cluelessness of the white owners is beautifully rendered. That said, if you are shopping for a Christmas book to read with your young child at Christmas time to get that glowing, good-all-over feeling, this isn't the book you are looking for. Save this one for a serious discussion of slavery and the American Civil War.

This book describes the customs, recipes, poems, and songs used to celebrate Christmas in the big plantation houses and in the slave quarters just before the Civil War. I was filled with great trepidation after seeing the cover of this book. It was a relief to me to find that, fortunately, the text was respectful and historically accurate. But observe, as I did, this cover. We know, after reading the book, that this picture symbolizes the rare moment when the slaves were invited into the "Big House", or home of the white slave owners, to view the Christmas trimming. Yet it cuts too closely to the ancient inaccurate image of plantation owners and their "happy" slaves (ala Gone With the Wind) for the casual person browsing this cover. The back cover does little to alleviate this fear, showing a scene of black children skipping merrily with a white child. Inside, however, the authors deal deftly with the subject. Making it very very clear that certain positive traits exhibited by the slave owners during Christmas towards their slaves were the exception and not the rule, the book gives carefully annotated scenes from the lives of white plantation owners and slaves. The pictures accompanying the text are, most times, beautifully presented. There is a shot of a bonfire that is one of the most impressive drawings I've ever seen of fire. Unfortunately, some of the models for these pictures undoubtedly suffered from hair circa 1994, since it is obviously permed to perfection in a couple scenes. Please note that the authors have a keen sense of irony that plays well. After hearing the slaves sing a song that is code for someone escaping to freedom, the plantation owner's daughter writes in her diary that the day has ended with, "the sweet sound of a happy, contented slave singing a carol". This point is not elaborated on, and is exquisite in its simplicity. The endnotes found in the back of the book, annotated per page, are excellently done. This book is a valuable part of any collection, and would read best to children a little older. Kids who read this book on their own may not catch all the references and points that the book brings up. This would pair well with Mildred Taylor's "The Well", as a before and after to the Civil War.

This beautifully illustrated Christmas story explains the origins of many African-American Christmas traditions.

This is quite a fascinating book. Like another reviewer here, when I received this work I groaned inwardly, particularly when I noted the cover. I should have listened to the old saying "never judge a book by it's cover." This hold very true with this work. The book is the story of and a comparison of Christmas in the old south and how the folks in the "Big House" celebrated in contrast with the folks in the slave quarters. I found this work to bee extremely historically accurate. Social issues are meet head on with little or no surgar coating. The art work in this book is worth many more times the price of the book. It is truely well done. The only critical thing I might have to say here is that everything was depicted as rather clean and neat, a little too perfect. This includes the white owners living quarters and dress along with those of the slave. Things just were not that nice in those days. Other than that, I felt this was a very, very good work. I did enjoy the various recipes, discriptions of customs and songs. All in all, recommend this one highly.

Deep in the heart of most people who celebrate Christmas lurks the archetypal
holiday, the one depicted nostalgically in Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory," and
Dylan Thomas's "A Child's Christmas in Wales."
In the archetype, ritual is important, family and friends are important, snow is
good, and a tangerine in a stocking is enough to inspire oohs and ahs of delight.
"Christmas in the Country" is a worthy addition to the genre.
In it, our pony-tailed heroine lives in the country with Grandma and Grandpa in a
house that is "small and white. It had an old coal stove to keep us warm and a tiny little
kitchen for supper and a nice back porch for the dogs."
In the country, spring is for walks, summer for tomatoes, and fall for apples. In
winter, "The snow slows everything down. Birds are silent and serious. Dogs stay in their
warm houses. Children want cocoa and blankets. Everyone is ready for something really
special."
And - hooray - the something special has nothing to do with the mall or even
Wal-mart. Instead Grandpa will cut the tree in the forest, and the narrator and Grandma
will take the precious old ornaments from the closet that "smells like wool and mothballs."
Diane Goode's illustrations are just right - simple and energetic. Everyone's hair is
windblown at all times, as if country folk have better things to do than spray, mousse or
pin.

I just love the Appalachian culture and if you do, too, you will love ALL of Cynthia Rylant's books for children. I believe she grew up in West Virginia and these are stories from her youth....another place and time. All of her stories are filled with love and acceptance and the joy of belonging to a loving family. She has written MANY books and I would suggest you read them all. I have bought about 7 books so far, and they are so sweet, I can sit down and read them all by myself and totally enjoy them.....but my grandkids think they are GREAT!!! The artwork is very enjoyable and it just makes one yearn to go back to "the good ol' days"!!! This book will not disappoint!

The children and I were happy with this wonderful story. It is about a little girl who lives with her grandparents and her memories of happy Christmas days. The illustrations are wonderful and realistic. A must have for your Christmas collection.

Our son is 4, and we gave him this book on the first day of Advent in 2006. We have all loved it so much that we read it daily during December. It is a precious book about the anticipation and joys of Christmas seen through a little girl's eyes during a simpler, quieter time. I love how it talks about the special joys and memories of each season. It helped us all put away the ornaments and take down the tree with less sadness this year, understanding the comings and goings of Christmas and each season. Ms. Rylant's books are wonderful. We also have "The Relatives Came" and "When I Was Young in the Mountains" and they are treasures, too.

My daughter had me read this board book to her every day before christmas. She like the character has lots of stuffed animal "friends" - and the pictures are great

There are several things I love about this book, 1 is that the illustrator is excellent! The book is just beautiful to look at, it's a quick read and I'd love to have a stuffed dragon like hers white bandage and all!

I love the story and the excitement of Christmas day, for us parents it takes me back to my childhood and I'm sure it will do the same for you, I know it will be one of our books to read in December as well as a Christmas Eve reading along with Twas the Night Before Christmas, this book is that cute.

The last thing I love about this book is for me that I see the daughter as being adopted. I guess we all see what we choose to see and with my daughter looks exactly like the character.

My twin girls insist on reading their favorite book, "Goodnight" (by the same author and illustrator) every night, and I was thrilled to find another book with the same little girl, Max, Theo, JoJo, and the rest of the gang. Since the girl didn't have a name in "Goodnight", we named her Debbie, but now we know her name is Juliette! (so we now call her Debbie Juliette...). Anyway, these are MY two favorite books to read to my two favorite 2-year-olds, I can't get enough of the pictures, they are beautiful. I plan to buy this book for Christmas presents! Great simple story and dozens of things to look at on each page, again, the pictures are adorable, water-colorey...

I bought this book as a gift to my daughter and it has the most incredible pictures and cute story. This is the type of book that will be a keepsake and brought out every year as part of tradition!

Prompted by memories of happy childhood visits at Swanmere Manor, QC Rex Graves travels to that remote estate, looking forward to a relaxing Christmas holiday in the country. His mother's friend, the widowed Dahlia Smithings, is still in residence there, having converted her family home to a small hotel.
A series of unexpected events complicates his plans in this entertaining debut novel straight out of the Agatha Christie school of plotting.
His arrival coincides with a blizzard that will bury the inn, effectively isolating both guests and staff. Within minutes, he learns that the previous afternoon's tea had been disrupted by a sudden death. One of the guests confides to Rex that he has questions about the cause of death: Was it a stroke - or poison in the almond tart?
Soon, there's another death. An accident? Or is there indeed a murderer in the house? The body count rises and Rex investigates, aided by two fellow guests. The amateur sleuths uncover some curious secrets and an abundance of possible motives as the list of suspects grows. Unfortunately, that list must include Rex's two confederates, one of whom is an attractive young woman who has sparked a romantic interest in the bachelor barrister.
Finally, in the classic denouement, the survivors gather in the drawing room to hear Rex reveal the solution to this contemporary cozy mystery.

This mystery was recommended and had me turning the pages in total absorption until the very end. Good plot, compelling characters, humorous, and a little romance to-boot. The sleuth is a Scottish barrister from Edinburgh, very principaled and likeable. There's an exerpt at the back for the next Rex Graves mystery, "Murder in the Raw," which is set at an exclusive nudist resort in the French West Indies, and which I'll definitely read when it comes out!!

This was like Agatha Christies "And Then There Were None" but more readable. I liked the sleuth Rex Graves. He does not try to be enigmatic like many mystery sleuths. I will read the next book when it comes out.

Rex Graves is a red-haired Scottish barrister who wants to spend Christmas in Swanmere Manor, an historic hotel in East Sussex. But a harsh blizzard and an unexpected murder ruin those plans. The murderer must be among the guests. There are several possibilities, and Rex must sort through several intriguing clues in a search for the truth.

Challinor presents strong elements of mystery and suspense in a literary style that will remind you of Agatha Christie - at her best. This novel is one of the finest novels I've read in a long time. Fans of mystery will not be disappointed. Challinor is an author who will cause you to clear some space on your bookshelf in anticipation of her next offerings.

Highest Recommendation!

If you are going garage sale shopping, this book will fit in your tote and provide immediate information. Ms. Morrison does a good job of organizing alphabetically by designer, and she takes the time to warn about copies, particularly the Weiss tree pins. She also has a theme section with pointsettia pins, candles, reindeer, etc. I really like the cover where she lays a selection of her pins on a piece of Christmas fabric. I do find the print of the captions very small, even wearing my glasses, no doubt an accommodation for the size of the book. I also sometimes have trouble deciding which pin among three or four she is describing. Each is noted in the text with a letter of the alphabet, but there's no letter on the picture. I would also recommend that in her next edition, her husband not photograph any pins on dark paper backgrounds. In several instances, a dark burgundy or sapphire paper makes it impossible to see the details of the pin.

Mary Morrison has put together a wonderful array of some of the best costume Christmas jewelry out there! A good range of the inexpensive and available to the rare and most desirable pieces with reasonable prices that reflect the market of the time the book was published. If you only get one book on this collecting area, this is the one to get

Christmas Jewelry by Mary Morrison is the very best book currently available concentrating on costume Christmas jewelry. The photography is excellent, allowing you to clearly see the details in each pin. Mary's descriptions with each photo are informative and interesting. It's size is very convenient for carrying to shops and shows. It is extremely easy to use. The variety of pins shown is staggering; as a Christmas tree pin collector with over 100 pins, my only disappointment with this book is that it is not a catalog where I can place orders!

I love this book! I am a beginning collector and this book has inspired me. The research is thorough, and it is great to finally know the story behind the pins I already have.

Ms. Werts does an excellent job in taking scholarly research to new levels as she investigates how the medium of television has treated the most commercialized and well-loved holiday season of the year.

The text focuses on the basic history and various trends of the Christmas specials and episodes for the past forty some years of the genre. Segments include: the variety specials, the animated classics, the "anti-sentimental" specials, the mixed faith episodes, Dickens and A Christmas Carol, etc.

There's some great commentary on the classic Jack Benny-Mel Blanc seasonal skits that started on the radio and was eventually transplanted to television as Jack nearly drives a salesclerk (Mel) mad with constantly changing how he wants his Chistmas present wrapped. From such humble beginnings, Ms. Werts moves unto the black and white period of the fifties (Father Knows Best) to the golden age of the sixties (Rudolph, Charlie Brown, Grinch, etc). As the book evolves into the eighties, brief mentions are made of such episodes as the Nanny Christmas Special and the PeeWee Herman one.

Included is a pretty good summary of the infamous Bundy Christmas in "Married With Children" which may rank up there as one of the first "anti-Christmas" shows. I may even give the "Hebrew Hammer" a try, since its aroused my curiosity. How can it not? With a Jewish super hero trying to stop Santa's evil son from corrupting the holiday.

This closes the chapter, which examines the recent multicultural trend where couples of mixed faiths try to juggle a Christian celebration with a non-Christian faith such as Kwanzaa and Hannakah.

The text moves fast, and helps to refresh the holiday fan of all the different specials and episodes that we have seen over the years.

-- Ms. Werts knows her Christmas specials. An enjoyable read.

Some caveats:

At forty dollars, the book would do better in a paperback edition at about twenty.

There's enough material for a volume 2, even a chapter on forgotten tv specials such as The Great Santa Clause Caper with Art Carney.

The Christmas episodes of "Get Smart," and "The Six Million Dollar Man" were omitted. Ok. I'm being a bit of a stinker here, expecting her to include everything.

Lasty, it's a shame that Ms. Werts fails to recognize the genius that is the Star Wars Holiday Special from 1978. A sure fire classic that the author puts in the "worst" section.

Sincerely,

JThree
carolyn@dia.net

The first thing that struck me about Christmas on Television is that there was another person out there who has as much fondness for old holiday episodes of TV shows as I do. Each year I find myself watching Christmas episodes of TV shows that I do not even watch regularly. This wonderful book from Praeger Publishers and written by Diane Werts is the Holy Grail for fans of holiday themed TV. I don't know if she mentions every Christmas episode of every TV show but I bet she comes pretty darn close. Werts begins with a look at early shows such as Ozzie & Harriet and Father Knows Best, and early specials like the 1953 Liberace Holiday show where he is joined on the set by members of his family...which would become a common theme in many future specials.

Rather than just go chronologically through the years Werts takes a different tack, instead looking at these shows through the many different themes that were used over and over through the years such as shopping, decorating, feasting, being away from, or coming home for the holidays. Werts sites an unending supply of examples for the various themes such as the Partridge Family bus breaking down in a ghost town on Christmas Eve in a 1971 show or Tim Taylor being stuck in an airport during a storm in a 1995 holiday episode of Home Improvement. The theme of a working Christmas was explored in a 1970 Mary Tyler Moore show when Mary finds herself alone in the newsroom until the rest of the cast show up to bring the Christmas party to her.

One of my favorite themes is the one where Santa is proven to be real. In a 1964 Christmas episode of Bewitched, Samantha takes a little boy (played by Billy Mumy) all the way to the North Pole to prove to him that Santa is real. The same year also gave us the Flintsones show where Fred helped out an ailing Santa by delivering gifts but forgets his own family's presents. The desire for an old fashioned Christmas and lamenting commercialization has been a common theme from the days of A Charlie Brown Christmas right through the 2003 Christmas episode of Bernie Mac. And Dickens' A Christmas Carol has played out numerous times over the decades on shows like The Odd Couple, Sanford & Son, and The Simpsons. Thank God for TV land who runs blocks of these old Christmas shows every year!

Of course what would Christmas on TV be without mentioning the great, and regrettably now missing variety shows. Bob Hope did his first Christmas show on NBC in 1950 and continued for over forty years. His most famous shows were those he spent entertaining our armed forces throughout the Korean, Viet Nam, and first Gulf Wars. His 1970 and 1971 specials from Viet Nam are still ranked among Neilsen's Top 30 shows of all-time. Besides Bob there were so many other great variety shows...who can forget the annual Bing Crosby and Andy Williams shows, or even the Muppets. Werts also takes a look at the great animated shows like Frosty the Snowman, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer. While many classic Christmas episodes are forgotten and variety shows are no more, the classic animated specials never get old or lose their luster.

Werts' book is filled with a comprehensive bibliography and index making it easy to find your favorite old Christmas episode. There is also a short, but enjoyable photo section. Truly a fantastic book! My highest recommendation!

Reviewed by Tim Janson

Diane Werts' "Christmas on Television" is astonishingly well written, remarkably thorough, and utterly invaluable as a basis for future scholarship in this area. Every paragraph reads like the progeny of intense and loving research, yet the text flows and entertains in the manner of a first-rate episode of, say, "M*A*S*H." If the average pop culture survey were a tenth as good as this, mass-media scholarship would be sitting pretty. Such is hardly the case, but maybe if we're especially good, Santa will bring us more works of this quality.

This is a book that will be fun for both the casual television fan and the television historian. I found it informative and entertaining. There are no two stronger cultural icons in America than Christmas and television and the author did an extraordinary job weaving the two together.