Posted on by TracyC

Christmas Trolls

Christmas Trolls by Jan Brett, 1993.

In this Scandinavian Christmas story, young Treva and her brother Sami are getting ready for Christmas when strange things start to happen.

First, Treva feels like someone is watching them when they go to pick out a Christmas tree in the forest. Then, after they start decorating for Christmas, some of their decorations start to disappear. They had already wrapped Christmas presents and hidden them away, but they discover that those are gone, too!

Treva begins to realize what is causing these disappearances when she spots their Christmas pudding, apparently moving quickly across the snow, stuck to the back of a hedgehog! Treva follows the hedgehog and pudding into the forest, where she finds two trolls, pulling the pudding up into their tree house.

In the tree house, Treva finds the trolls arguing over all of the Christmas things they’ve taken from Treva’s family. Treva confronts them about stealing their Christmas things. The trolls say that they just want Christmas. They’re like small children who want something but don’t know how to get it or make it for themselves, so they just started trying to take it from other people.

Treva tells them that she will show them what to do for Christmas. She helps them clean up their little house, make decorations, and decorate their tree for Christmas.

She also explains to them that arguing and being greedy isn’t the proper Christmas spirit, and it’s been ruining their mood. She tells them to try cooperating with each other and playing nicely together while they decorate. Finally, she teaches them that Christmas is about being generous and giving something to each other, not just taking things. To demonstrate what she means, she gives them their first Christmas present, her favorite Christmas decoration.

With the trolls now able to have Christmas on their own, Treva is able to reclaim the rest of her family’s Christmas presents and decorations. However, the trolls and their hedgehog friend have one more special Christmas present to give now that they understand what giving is.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction

This is a fun Christmas story with beautiful, colorful illustrations! I really loved the pictures in the book, with all the colorful Christmas decorations. The designs of the family’s Christmas decorations are traditional Scandinavian decorations. The side and bottom panels of the illustrations also explain some of what’s happening even before the main character understands.

I also loved the designs of the troll and their fun hedgehog friend. Around the time this story was published, troll dolls, which have existed since the late 1950s, were having a rise in popularity. The trolls in this story somewhat resemble troll dolls, with their fluffy hair rising to a point, although the troll dolls have more colorful hair options. I enjoy stories that use fantasy creatures, especially ones that aren’t especially common. The trolls in this story are troublesome, but in a little kid manner, not overly threatening. They’re more about mild magical mischief and lessons they have to learn.

Posted on by TracyC

The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree

The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree by Gloria Houston, pictures by Barbara Cooney, 1988.

Ruthie is a little girl living on a farm in Pine Grove in the Appalachian Mountains during World War I. (The story calls it The Great War because that was its name before WWII.) During the spring, Ruthie’s father selected a tree for the village church’s Christmas celebration. The local families take turns providing the tree, and it’s their family’s turn. Ruthie goes with him to pick out the right tree and mark it with a red ribbon.

However, during the summer, Ruthie’s father has to go away to be a soldier overseas. Ruthie and her mother tend the farm while her father is away, but money is tight. Ruthie thinks ahead to Christmas and prays for her father to come home and for a special Christmas present for herself – a pretty doll with a cream-colored dress with ribbons and lace.

In the fall of that year (1918), Ruthie’s father writes a letter, saying that the Armistice has been signed, meaning that the war is over, so he’s sure he’ll be home for Christmas. Ruthie and her mother keep waiting for him to arrive any day, but he doesn’t seem to come, and they don’t know exactly when to expect him.

At school, Ruthie is told that she will have the role of the heavenly angel in the Christmas play and that they are still expecting Ruthie’s father to supply the Christmas tree. Ruthie is looking forward to it, but Ruthie and her mother don’t have enough money for a new dress for the angel costume, and there is still the worry about when her father will return home, and if he will make it in time to cut the Christmas tree and take it to the church.

The local preacher tells them that the person who is due to provide a Christmas tree next year is willing to do it this year instead, if Ruthie’s father can’t get home in time, but Ruthie’s mother is still sure that their family can manage the tree. Ruthie’s mother decides that she and Ruthie will go get the tree themselves. It isn’t easy, but they manage it, and Ruthie’s mother also finds a way to make a dress for Ruthie’s angel costume.

However, there are two more things that would make this Christmas perfect for Ruthie – if her father returns home in time for Christmas and if she somehow receives the doll of her dreams.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction

This is a sweet, old-fashioned Christmas story about wishes coming true. Wishes coming true at Christmas is a popular theme in Christmas stories, and in this book, they come true because Ruthie’s mother and Ruthie do what they need to do to make everything work out the way they want it to. They could have let someone else provide the Christmas tree, and no one would have thought less of them for doing it because the father of the family was still away, but they were determined to see their family’s promise to provide the Christmas tree through. The mother also uses her old wedding dress for the material for Ruthie’s angel costume, and it’s implied that she also made the angel doll for the top of the Christmas tree that becomes Ruthie’s special Christmas present.

The pictures are charming, and they fit well with the Cottagecore aesthetic that’s been popular in recent years.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

The Mystery of the Golden Reindeer

Three Cousins Detective Club

#30 The Mystery of the Golden Reindeer by Elspeth Campbell Murphy, 2000.

Titus doesn’t really like to go Christmas shopping. The department store is always crowded around Christmastime, and he’d really rather just stay home, where it’s comfortable and quiet, and eat popcorn and watch videos. However, his mother really wants to go to the department store and so do his cousins, so they persuade him to come along. The three cousins are allowed to browse in the toys without adult supervision, as long as they stay together. They make arrangements to meet Titus’s mother for lunch in the store’s restaurant.

When they get to the toy department, they hear an announcement about a lost child, and to their surprise, their younger cousin, Patience, suddenly appears. She had been shopping with her grandmother when she spotted her cousins and started following them. As far as Patience is concerned, she wasn’t lost because she knew where she was. It was her grandmother who was lost, and she points out that she found her cousins instead of them finding her. The cousins manage to find Patience’s grandmother and reunite the two of them, and they invite them to come to the restaurant with them for lunch.

When they meet up with Titus’s mother, they all are surprised when she tells off Titus for wandering around the department store by himself when he was supposed to stay with his cousins. They all insist that Titus was with them the entire time. Titus’s mother was sure that she saw him riding the escalator alone, but none of them were on the escalator because Patience is afraid of escalators. Patience suddenly speaks up and says that she must have seen the “other Titus”, not the “real Titus.”

They enjoy the restaurant, which has a large Christmas tree, decorated with golden reindeer. During lunch, Patience tries to point out the “other Titus” to them, but nobody else spots who she’s pointing to. Patience is known for having an imaginary friend named Amy and for making up tall tales. She sometimes mixed up things she’s imagined with things that are real, so they’re not sure if she really saw the “other Titus” or not. (Personally, I thought this was silly on their part because they already know that Titus’s mother saw someone who looked a lot like him. Titus is wearing a distinctive black-and-white scarf, so I figured at this point that there’s someone wearing a scarf that’s also black-and-white.) Titus feels a little uneasy that there might be another him wandering around.

Titus’s mother wants to look at some furniture after lunch, and she asks Patience’s grandmother if she could come with her and give her opinion. The three cousins would rather go look at store windows instead of furniture, and Patience insists that they take her with them. The older cousins know that Patience can be a handful to look after, but Sarah-Jane knows that she would feel badly if they didn’t take Patience somewhere where she would have more fun than she would have looking at furniture. Patience promises that she’ll stay with her cousins and not run off anywhere, so the adults agree to let her go with them.

While Titus and Patience are looking at the Christmas tree together, Titus is surprised by a teenage boy who comes up to him and starts talking to him as if he knows him. The teenager says that he has a message for him and tells him, “Happy Birthday. The golden reindeer. Dish towels. Christmas tree.” Titus asks him what he’s talking about, and the teenager says that he was paid to deliver that message to him and that he must have been expecting him. When the other cousins come back from the restrooms, Titus and Patience tells them what happened, and they’re equally confused. All they can think is that this bizarre message was meant for the “other Titus.” But, who is the “other Titus”, and what does the message mean?

Theme of the Story:

“What you get from wisdom is better than the finest gold.”

Proverbs 8:19

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction and Spoilers

This mystery does involve a lookalike for Titus. However, the mystery doesn’t quite end when they meet the other boy. He tells them that he got a phone call telling him to come to the department store for a special message about something that belongs to his family that was stolen. When the other kids tell him the message that was given to Titus, he finds it just as confusing as they do.

It’s Patience who really solves the mystery of what the clues in the message mean, and that’s both because she is nosy and because, as a young child, she doesn’t take certain things for granted, the way an adult or older child would. Sometimes, people see not what’s actually there but what they expect to see. Titus’s mother didn’t really see him on the escalator alone; she saw the other boy, who happened to be wearing a different black-and-white scarf. She just figured it was Titus because she expected the boy with the black-and-white scarf would be her son, and she didn’t look closer to notice that it wasn’t the same boy and that the scarf actually had a different pattern. It was the same with the teenager who was looking for the other boy. In the case of the clues, all of the older kids assume that the packages underneath the decorative Christmas trees in the department store are just empty boxes, wrapped up for decoration. Because Patience wants to check to see if they’re all empty, she’s the one who realizes that one of the packages isn’t like the others.

We never learn who stole the object that the other boy was looking for, but he does get it back. Also, Patience learns to get over her fear of the escalator.