The Holly and The Ivy is a traditional English Christmas song with a rich and mysterious history. The established version (see lyrics below) with the lyrics and melody was first published by English folk song collector Cecil Sharp (1859-1924) in 1909. Sharp, in turn, collected the song from from a...
Thanksgiving is past and IMO that means the Christmas season is HERE!!! I can guarantee that over this past weekend we got our tree up and I at least started decorating the house. I simply LOVE, LOVE, LOVE CHRISTMAS! Hands down my favorite holiday season, which is why I shall...
“Thanksgiving is the holiday that encompasses all others. All of them, from Martin Luther King Day to Arbor Day to Christmas to Valentine’s Day, are in one way or another about being thankful.” The quote above is from American novelist Jonathan Safran Foer and struck me as especially profound this...
Because I’ve written so many blogs about this fabulous and unique American holiday, I am not going crazy re-posting them separately. Instead, here are links to those past blogs, which cover everything from trivia, games to entertain during the holiday, recipes, and of course the history of Thanksgiving Day itself....
I have discovered a plethora of perks to our new stage of life in Kentucky. I am sure I will share many of these perks as time goes on, but for today I will discuss two that directly pertain to the autumn season. First, the kids are grown and on...
Merry Christmas to all my wonderful, faithful readers and friends! I love meaningful quotes. Whether serious, inspirational, poetic, literary, or humorous, the well-crafted sentiments from clever people of the past are a joy to read. After the chaos of Christmas morning present opening wanes and the mess is cleaned, grab...
I doubt any of these words associated with the Christmas season are unfamiliar, but often the meanings and origins of even the most common words can be fascinating and surprising. At least to me, an avowed vocabulary nut! Read on for Christmas fun facts and knowledge (Additional fuel to dazzle...
I love Christmas and I love The Muppets! The late, great John Denver on the original The Muppets show. A terrific rendition of The 12 Days of Christmas. It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year – The Muppets Christmas Song. Mindy Kaling joins The Muppets for their Christmas group...
What Child is This? was written by William Chatterton Dix (1837-1898), the manager of an insurance company in Glasgow. In 1865, when only 29 years of age, Dix was struck with a near fatal illness and consequently suffered months confined to his bed. During this time, he read the Bible comprehensively and...
As my writing and publishing timeline moved on past the first three novels in The Darcy Saga, the timeline of events for the characters began to overlap in unusual ways. What do I mean? In early in 2010, just as I finished In the Arms of Mr. Darcy, my publisher...
CAUTION: Whenever looking into the past, we must remember the changes in values, ideas, and lifestyle over the course of time. Keeping that reality in mind, I’ve gathering a bunch of Christmas advertisements from decades past, and some not all that long ago, which to our modern eyes are questionable...
In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered — flushed, but smiling proudly — with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top. – Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol All of us, I presume,...
As my readers already know, the first three novels in The Darcy Saga series moved very slowly in time, covering the first year of Darcy and Elizabeth’s marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy ended as the winter of 1816 turned into 1817 with spring budding on the horizon and Lizzy...
Decorating with Evergreen— Placing boughs of evergreens into the house is a practice dating to ancient times and present in numerous cultures for various reasons signifying life, prosperity, good luck, and so on. Church records dating to the 7th century tie evergreen boughs and trees to religious symbolism. Martin Luther...
The Darcy Saga novels detail roughly five years of Darcy and Elizabeth’s marriage. When writing a saga-type series recounting the day-by-day and month-by-month events of life, it is inevitable to include scenes from several Christmas celebrations. Additionally, my novella A Darcy Christmas is ALL about my favorite holiday. I suppose...
