Advent, My Way #22

The last of the seasonal books that I haul out for Christmas is an obscure one—How John Norton the Trapper Kept His Christmas, written by W.H.H. Murray, and published in 1890.

The book has a great deal of local appeal for those of us who live in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, plus I simply love the look of this book.

Author William Henry Harrison Murray was known as “Adirondack Murray”—during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he wrote books and gave numerous lectures that introduced people to, and popularized, the Adirondack Mountains. He is said to have coined the use of the word “vacation,” as opposed to the British “holiday,” with his urging of people to “vacate” the cities for the mountains.

And people listened. “Murray’s Fools,” as they were sometimes called, were entranced by the idea of a rustic mountain retreat and came in droves to this great wilderness on weekends, and many built seasonal “camps,” as well.

I’ll admit I haven’t read this book from start to finish. The dialogue—and there is a lot of it—is written in what is supposed to sound like a local dialect, probably French-Canadian—and reading it is like slogging through hip-deep snow. But I pick it up and admire the cover with its beautiful highlights of the drawings that illustrate passages of the book.

And I dip into the pages, reading at random, and have learned that John Norton, the trapper, has values to share with us all in the holiday season.

A cabin. A cabin in the woods. In the cabin a great fireplace piled high with logs, fiercely ablaze. On either side of the broad hearthstone a hound sat on his haunches, looking gravely, as only a hound in a meditative mood can, into the glowing fire . . .

At the table sat John Norton, poring over a book . . .

The whitened head of the old man was bowed over the broad page, on which one hand rested, with the forefinger marking the sentence. A cabin in the woods filled with firelight, a table, a book, an old man studying the book. This was the scene on Christmas Eve. Outside, the earth was white with snow, and in the blue sky above the snow was the white moon.

“It says here,” said the Trapper, speaking to himself, “it says here, ‘Give to him that lacketh, and from him that hath not, withhold not thine hand.‘

John Norton keeps his Christmas by providing food and, nearly as important, fun for an impoverished woman and her starving children. He takes time to twine wreaths of greens to adorn the pictures of “absent ones” on his walls and acknowledges, “I miss them so!” He sits before his fire and enjoys the company of his old hounds and the quiet of the wilderness.

In these ways, John Norton’s holiday is remarkable similar to many of ours, 125 years later—we miss loved ones who have died but hold them close in memory, we seek to help those in need, and we give conscious thanks for our secure hearth and home, no matter how simple.

Whether our Christmas days be many or few, when the great day comes round let us remember in good or ill fortun’, alone or with many, that Christmas, above all else, is the day for forgivin’ and forgittin’.

Advent, My Way #14

A Christmas story with all the ingredients to make a reader like me happy:

Drama in the form of a good human, willing to sacrifice all to save his friends.

A setting in a place familiar to us, and beloved.

A storm at sea.

An heroic cat who saves the day.

And a happy ending at Christmastide.

Put it all together in a book with beautiful illustrations and it becomes the story of The Mousehole Cat, by Antonia Barber and illustrations by Nicola Bayley.

This is another book I put out at Christmas when I remember, and I am always glad when I remember, to take time to re-read this beautiful book and enjoy it. It’s a children’s book and yet . . .

The book is set in southwest England, in Cornwall, in the tiny village called Mousehole. That’s pronounced “Mowzle,” unless you’re an uninformed American tourist (don’t ask me how I know this. I just do.) This is a beautiful region; we’ve been there, to see the tiny harbor at Mousehole and the wild sea beyond the harbor wall.

As the story goes, old Tom, a fisherman, and his cat Mowzer live in the town. They live alone together, their families long grown and gone.

A fishing village, Mousehole flourishes until one year at Christmas when a great storm rages for days. Mowzer knows it’s the Great Storm-Cat brewing.

The fishing boats of Mousehole cannot leave the harbor and, as Christmas approaches, the people, not to mention the village cats, are starving.

Tom tells Mowzer:

Mowzer, my handsome, it will soon be Christmas, and no man can stand by at Christmas and see children starve.

Someone must go fishing come what may, and I think it must be me. It cannot be the young men, for they have wives and children and mothers to weep for them if they do not return. But my wife and parents are dead long since and my children are grown and gone.

Because it was the same for Mowzer, and because, if old Tom did not come back, she would not care to carry on without him, Mowzer decides to join old Tom on his boat.

Mowzer and Tom set off and the Great Storm-Cat toys with them, plays with them, batters them, as a cat with a mouse, swatting the small boat around, threatening them . . . and enjoying the game.

At the critical moment, though, when the Great Storm-Cat comes in for the kill, Mowzer starts to feel “a sudden, strange sadness for him” in his loneliness, and sings to him, and purrs.

And her purring rose like a hymn to home above the noise of the Great Storm-Cat’s howling . . .

Puzzled, he paused in his howling, bending his ear to catch the strange sound. It seemed to him that he had once heard such a song long before, when he was no more than a Storm-Kitten . . .

Then the Great Storm-Cat began to purr with Mowzer, and as the soft sound grew, the winds waned and the waves weakened.

Night fell and the little boat sailed back across a slackening sea . . .

Mowzer and old Tom return to their village and find all the people and cats keeping vigil for them.

They come back with a hold full of fish. On the night before Christmas Eve, the townspeople cook and fry the fish and bake half a hundred star-gazy pies.

“Then, people and cats, they feasted together, until the hunger was no more than a memory.”

Sigh. I love a happy ending. And a sensitive, sweet cat who uses her purr to good effect.

This isn’t a traditional Christmas story. No Christ child, no manger, no Santa, no snow, no red-nosed reindeer.

But it still honors the best of humans (and cats!) at Christmas–community, compassion for the less fortunate, sacrifice, peace, plenty, and thanksgiving.

Do you know a more beautiful book for this time of year?

Advent, My Way #7

It’s time to decorate for Christmas!

You bring out the ornaments—the ones your kids made when they were little, the ones you were given the year you bought your first house, the ones you made from something you saw on Pinterest.

You find the wreath and tartan ribbons and lights for the tree.

You dig out every candle you own and the candlesticks and that special plate for Santa’s cookies.

Of course, you’d never forget the special Christmas stockings, to be hung by the chimney with care.

But what about books? So many of you love books—do you have special books that come out just for the holiday season? Books to re-read, books that are beautiful, books that, for you, are the essence of what the season means?

In our usual minimalist planning for Christmas, I don’t think about this kind of detail. But there are three books that I will run across occasionally during the year that make me think, “Damn. I should put that out at Christmas—I love that book.”

And this year, I’m remembering!

The book I love the most is this one.

My sister and I grew up in that era when it seems that every kid took piano lessons.

I didn’t care much for the lessons and never learned to play the piano very well—it seems one was expected to practice between the weekly lessons!

But this little book of Christmas music moves me no end.

It sort of captures what Christmas looked like in the early 1960s. I swear, in that era, Santa and the reindeer were not as plump and cutesy and cartoon-ish as they have become.

It has my grandmother’s handwriting on the cover. I love seeing the unique handwriting of people I’ve lost from my life.

It has the songs that I loved best then and the ones that still hit me in the solar plexus now. They’re all here: Silent Night, Away in the Manger, The First Noel, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.

And it has a few that make me smile now, even though I paid no attention to them then.

It also displays my incredible artistic talent and vision, as I used it as a coloring book. I liked coloring better than playing the piano. (That got me in trouble when I colored the libretto from my mother’s recording of Carmen . . . )

So, the music book will sit out this year, on a music stand because we don’t have a piano any longer. Seeing it will remind me of a simple time, loving family, the moving melodies of Christmas, and of my sweet, magical childhood.

And, I’ll ask it again. What about books? You love books—do you have special books that come out just for the holiday season? Books to re-read, books that are beautiful, books that, for you, are the essence of what the season means?