Countdown to Christmas 2012: Year-End Round-Up

(from The Book of Days)

So this Christmas countdown degenerated into a pair of advent book-ends. But hey, as Scrooge teaches us, it's never too late to make amends and there's still time for a Christmas round-up featuring some of my favourite subjects from the inaugural year of American Scrapbook. Is it a coincidence that they've all written on Christmas?

Countdown to Christmas 2012: The Almanack of the Month

"Holding out their little hands, with their hearts in them, to receive something!"

Happy December. Consider this the beginning of an unreliable Advent Calendar...

A Thanksgiving Triptych

"More Turkey", from "Thanksgiving in the Country", Scribner's, December 1871

In a different world this would be a more elaborate post - or, since we're making believe, a whole series of posts - on Thanksgiving in nineteenth century literature, with an emphasis on sentimental and local-color writing and, in particular, the work of Rose Terry Cooke, who seems to have had a particular fondness for the holiday. But hey, time flies! So instead, for your enjoyment, and without further comment, here's a triptych of Thanksgiving stories by prominent Gilded Age women writers that fit that description:

1. Louisa May Alcott, "An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving", from Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 6 (1882).
2. Harriet Prescott Spofford, "A Thanksgiving Breakfast", Harper's New Monthly Magazine (December 1895).
3. Rose Terry Cooke, "How Celia Changed Her Mind", from Huckleberries Gathered from New England Hills (1891) (and make sure to check out the table of contents - two other stories with Thanksgiving in the title!).

If you're after some more context for these nineteenth-century Thanksgiving stories, this History Kitchen post comes recommended.

Countdown to Halloween: Gathering in the Pumpkins

(From the Library of Congress, c.1904)

Gathering in the pumpkins at the end of this Countdown to Halloween.

Countdown to Halloween: A Gilded Age Halloween Extravaganza

We've reached the penultimate post in this Halloween Countdown - and we've hit a rich vein of Gilded Age spookiness.