Tag: pioneer (page 1 of 1)

An Early American Christmas

Before we get to today’s scheduled post, I have to say something a little awkward: I no longer recommend Ann Voskamp’s book Unwrapping the Greatest Gift. This is due in large part to author’s writing style, which seemed passable when I read through the book alone but that fell apart when we read it aloud with our family, as the style rendered each story so abstract that even my husband and I had a hard time following Voskamp’s train of thought. We also began to suspect that there were some doctrinal soft spots lurking in the devotions, but the writing style (about which I really am trying to be gracious) made them hard to identify and therefore hard to discuss with our children.

I wanted so badly to love this book (did I mention the illustrations?), but we were only able to make it through four readings before reaching a unanimous decision to return the book and investigate other options.

And now I find myself in the prickly position of having to retract a recommendation that I made—not once, but twice—here on the blog. I know now that it’s not enough to read through family devotionals on my own, especially if I find myself swayed by beautiful illustrations, but that they need to be read with my family before I so much as draft a post to share with you. If any of you bought the book on my recommendation and had an experience with it similar to mine, I’m so sorry!

Today’s post is, instead, about a book that I have read dozens of times over the course of many years with my family and therefore can stand fully behind.


I don’t know what afternoons are like where you live, but up here in the Northwestern corner of the continental US, they are dark. Sometimes, they are cozy dark—”stay in and make hot chocolate” dark. But the rest of the time, they’re just drippy, dreary, dismal, ready-for-bed-at-5 o’clock dark. I have lived here my whole life and it happens this way every single year, and yet I still cannot get used to parting ways with the sun at four in the afternoon.

But one side effect that I’m discovering for the first time this year is that it’s difficult to photograph one’s books on the front porch when the light outside is effectively that of dusk by 2 p.m. The colors are weird, the shadows are weird, and the cat is cold enough to interrupt everything I do in the hopes that I might—just might—sit down so she can nest in my lap.

An Early American Christmas | Little Book, Big Story

Tomie dePaola turns that early darkness into something lovely in this passage from An Early American Christmas: “As the days grew shorter, the winds blew colder. Then the snow began to fly and December was here. Soon, soon it would be Christmas.” See? This only lasts until December 22—that is what I tell myself. And then: Christmas! And after that: more daylight!

An Early American Christmas introduces us to a small village in New Hampshire where celebrating Christmas is not a thing that is done, and to a family from Germany who moved to that village and brought their Christmas traditions with them.

“The Christmas family” celebrated the holiday with the sort of joy that simmered over the course of months as they prepared their home for the coming festivities: shaping bayberry candles, whittling nativity scenes, choosing their tree and baking sweets, as the year moved them closer and closer to Christmas. Tomie dePaola is the right sort of illustrator for a story like this, as he excels at depicting sequences: the grandmother and mother making candles moves from the top left of one page to the bottom right of the other, beginning with them picking bayberries and ending with the finished candles hanging to dry.

An Early American Christmas | Little Book, Big Story

He details the thoughtful creation of each piece of their family’s celebration in a way that stands in stark contrast to our highly marketed, factory-made gifts and decorations, and creates a sort of nostalgia (in me, at least) for a time when there was no option to purchase tacky decorations or token gifts: if you wanted something, you had to make it yourself. And if you wanted to give something to somebody else, you had to make it yourself.

(But whenever I start feeling this nostalgia for “the old times”—Lydia’s phrase—I remind myself of the state of medical care back then, with its leeches and blood letting and lack of anesthetic and bam! Contentment with my own point in history returns.)

An Early American Christmas | Little Book, Big Story

This is a slow-moving story filled with the anticipation and preparation before Christmas, and it captures beautifully how one family lived quietly among their neighbors and yet changed the ways of their village, until “one by one every household in the village became a Christmas family.”

I don’t know if this book is still in print, but it is available on Amazon for pretty reasonable prices. Also, for you local folks, there is a copy in our public library (that’s where I found this book in the first place).


An Early American Christmas
Tomie dePaola (1987)

The Little House Books

The Bennetts. The Marches. The de Luces. The Rosenburgs.

What do these families have in common? All have been blessed with a wealth of daughters!

A few weeks ago, we learned that we’re expecting our third daughter, so I thought I’d celebrate by writing about one of our very favorite, all-daughter families and, more specifically, our favorite father of daughters: Pa Ingalls.

The Ingalls family has reached such stature in our home that, for a time, Lydia answered only to Laura, called us Ma and Pa (we loved that), and so thoroughly convinced Sarah that her name was Carrie that Sarah would argue with anyone who said otherwise.

The Little House Books, by Laura Ingalls Wilder | Little Book, Big Story

You probably remember the Little House books from your own childhood: the homesteading adventures of the Ingalls family, who lived in a new state for each of the first five books, built their homes by hand, lived in the wildest places (often miles from their nearest neighbors), and grew up with a freedom that few of us know today.

In sharing her childhood with generations of readers, Laura Ingalls Wilder both captured a significant time period in American history and wrapped us in the details of her own family life. Who can read about the Ingalls and not long to be a part of a family like that?

This is another series that is cheapened by reading it in pieces, as it follows Laura’s life from childhood to motherhood with a surprising depth of detail. For those of you who think these books are too idyllic, I especially recommend reading through the entire series: as Laura starts a home of her own (in The First Four Years) one learns, along with Laura, how very hard her parents had worked for her all through her childhood. It is a credit to her parents that Laura carried such honest, beautiful memories with her to the page when she wrote.

The Little House Books, by Laura Ingalls Wilder | Little Book, Big Story

And so, to the Ingalls family, I tip my hat. To Pa, whom we Rosenburgs have come to love dearly, I give an especially hearty nod. It can’t have been easy, raising girls in the wilderness, but from his booming laugh to his singing fiddle, you’d never know if it were otherwise.

And lastly, to my husband, who is every bit as deeply loved by the womenfolk in his life, I give a deep and dignified curtsy. Here’s to raising our daughters together!

If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to close with one of my favorite quotes on the subject, from Greg Brown’s song, “Daughters”:

“I’m a man who’s rich in daughters
and if by some wild chance, I get rich in money—
like another two thou a year,
or even one thou a year—
I’m gonna look into having some more daughters.”


Little House Series
Laura Ingalls Wilder, Garth Williams (1932-1971)