And just a few little tidbits that came across my feeds today. Oh yes, and a little bit of research as well!
As a native New Yorker, interested in learning that the first unofficial Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting was held on Christmas Eve, 1931. From my Facebook feed:
Make sure to take a look at the post mentioned to learn more about ‘Twas the Night before Christmas, Santa’s birthplace and Yuletide sleigh rides. And while you are it, check out the New York Historical Society.
From my Twitter Feed:
https://twitter.com/USMCArchives/status/680120879087521792
Make sure to click on the link to get more information about this image, from the Jonathan Abel Collection (COLL/3611), Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections, Quantico, Virginia. It made me feel as if I were a click away from honoring those men and women in service during this holiday season.
Absolutely delighted to find the University of Sheffield Library’s Special Collections Advent Calendar 2015. They have been revealing an image for every day in December in anticipation of Christmas Day. You can click on each image to learn more about the item.
Excellent outreach, I think.
Back on this side of the pond, St. Louis University Libraries Special Collections is highlighting their nineteenth- and twentieth-century Christmas works:
SLU’s rare book collections contain a number of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Christmas works, from copies of Charles Dickens’ The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, and A Christmas Carol to the whimsical depictions of Christmas tree decorating and beneficent Santas spread across the pages of Our Young Folks, an 1865-1873 Boston children’s periodical. However, Christmas publications produced before the nineteenth century (and thus before many of today’s most ubiquitous Christmas traditions became popular) are thinner on the ground. Those that we do have are solemn religious texts, such as The Christian Advent, or, Entertainments for that Holy Season (1759), a book of “moral reflections” and “pious thoughts and aspirations.” The dizzying leap in language, tone, and content from this book’s biblical commentary to Dickens’ well-known A Christmas Carol makes Christmas’s transformation from “holy day” to “holiday” almost palpable.
Read on about their collection of seventeenth-century Christmas carols!
And lastly, from Archives and Special Collections blog of the University Libraries, University of South Dakota a highlight of the pioneer experience:
Since winter break is coming up and the holiday season is nigh, I thought I would dig through the Archives and Special Collections for some Christmas-related items.
The object that caught my eye was Ellen S. Mills’ diaries, of the Richardson Collection, that span from 1881 to 1883. It appears Ellen and her family lived in the Yankton area for a period of time. Ellen’s diary entries are short, sweet and to the point. If one would be interested in an account of day to day life and expenses during the early 1880s, Ellen’s diaries reveal a glimpse into that time period. In the year of 1881, the family started preparing for Christmas on the 1st of December, between buying gifts and sending Christmas tokens via mail. On the 22nd, the “children came to pop corn & string it for [the] Christmas Tree.” The Christmas tree would be fully decorated on the 24th by Annie and Abrm. On Sunday, December 25th, 1881, the weather was pleasant and Ellen received a fully furnished writing desk, a gold pen, and verses written for her. At the end of the diary, she put things such as expenses, notes, or lists (I found the prices of some items to pleasantly surprising). The diaries offered a perspective of the past that I thoroughly enjoyed reading and experiencing. Alas, the diaries end in the midst of March of 1883, the last entry of Annie singing and playing, not a formal goodbye to be spotted.
Rockefeller Center. Our troops at holiday time. Dickens. Carols. The pioneer experience. A little bit of a lot, with much more to be had.
And on other note:
Enjoy!
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