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.
It’s winter, and Kirsten’s family is just starting to prepare for Christmas. Kirsten’s mother has her help make their Christmas bread. So many things have changed for their family since they came to America and moved to the frontier in Minnesota, Kirsten asks her mother if they will be celebrating Christmas just like they used to when they lived in Sweden. The family doesn’t have much money and can’t afford extra treats, but her mother says they will do the best they can.
When they arrived last summer, the family didn’t even have enough money to pay for a wagon to carry their belongings to their new house, so they had to leave them in storage in Riverton, including Kirsten’s doll, Sari. Since then, Kirsten has been using a stuffed sock as a doll. Kirsten’s mother tells her that her father has arranged for their trunks to be sent to Maryville, which is closer, but still 10 miles away. Kirsten is eager to retrieve them, but her mother says that will have to wait because there are too many other things they need to do now to get ready for winter. Kirsten worries that they won’t be able to get their trunks before the snows come. If the roads are blocked by snow, they won’t have their trunks until spring! The more Kirsten thinks about the trunks, the more she wishes that they had the things in them, the things that would remind her of her home in Sweden and make their cabin feel more like home.
One day, while she is playing with her cousins, Lisbeth and Anna, Kirsten mentions St. Lucia, and she is surprised when her cousins don’t know what she is talking about. In Sweden, families traditionally celebrate St. Lucia’s Day before Christmas. However, Lisbeth and Anna were too young when they left Sweden, years before Kirsten left with her family, so they don’t remember that tradition, and since they came to America, they only remember celebrating Christmas in December. They ask Kirsten what happens on St. Lucia’s Day. Kirsten explains that it’s the shortest and darkest day of the year. One girl in the family dresses up as the Lucia queen, wearing a white dress and a wreath of candles on her head, and she wakes her family, bringing them a special breakfast with coffee and Lucia buns. Anna is enchanted by this description, and the girl talk about surprising their families with their own St. Lucia’s Day celebration.
Then, Kirsten remembers that the long, white nightgown she used for her St. Lucia’s Day dress last year is in one of her family’s trunks, and St. Lucia’s Day (December 13th) is only five days away. The other girls are about to give up on the idea of celebrating St. Lucia’s Day, but Kirsten thinks maybe they should ask Miss Winston if she knows what to do. Miss Winston is their schoolteacher, and she’s still living with Lisbeth and Anna’s families. Miss Winston has mentioned that she misses the Christmas parties her family and friends had back East, so the girls think that she might enjoy helping them plan a special surprise.
Miss Winston is happy to give the girls some candles and help them make St. Lucia crowns, but Kirsten’s father is still too busy to get the family’s trunks. He gets so annoyed with Kirsten asking about them that he tells her not to ask about them again. Lisbeth says that, if their plan won’t work out for this year, they can do it next year, but Kirsten feels badly for getting their hopes up. Her own hopes are also set on having a St. Lucia Day, but she doesn’t know what to do without the dress in the trunk.
Then, one day, she finally hears her father say that he will have time to go for the trunks, and he thinks he had better do it soon because there will be more snow coming. Kirsten is excited and asks if she can go along with him to get them. At first, he doesn’t want to take Kirsten because there won’t be much room in the sleigh for her, and he thinks it would be better for her to go to school with the other children, but she persuades him to let her come.
The journey to Maryville is fun, riding through the snow and singing a Christmas carol. Kirsten even gets a piece of candy at the general store. When they retrieve the trunks, Kirsten wants to open them right away, but her father says they need to leave because it’s already snowing harder, and they need to get home.
The weather gets worse on their way home, and Kirsten wonders if they should turn back, but her father thinks they can make it home. As it gets worse yet, Kirsten’s father gets out of the sleigh to lead the horse through the snow, and he accidentally twists his knee. With her father injured, Kirsten gets out the sleigh to lead the horse. The situation is dangerous, but fortunately, Kirsten realizes where they are, and she knows that there is a cave nearby where they can take shelter.
When Kirsten and her father arrive home, they are greeted by their worried family, and it’s St. Lucia Day. With some help from Miss Winston and her cousins, Kirsten is able to give her whole family their St. Lucia Day surprise, but it has even greater meaning because of everything they’ve been through.
There is a section of historical information in the back of the book about how Christmas was celebrated on the American frontier in the mid-19th century and how it was different from the Christmases families like Kirsten would have experienced in Sweden.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
This was my favorite of the Kirsten books! Although there is some danger to Kirsten and her father when they get caught in the snowstorm after retrieving the trunks, everything turns out fine, and Kirsten saves her father because she insisted on going with him on the trip. This book is also fun because it introduces readers to the concept of St. Lucia’s Day. I think the first book I read as a kid that explained about St. Lucia’s Day was the nonfiction book Christmas Around the World, but I liked seeing this frontier family celebrate their St. Lucia tradition.
thought that Kirsten’s parents impatience with her “pestering” them about retrieving the family’s belongings was realistic, just like parents in real life might act when a child repeatedly asks for something they can’t give them right away. However, at the same time, Kirsten’s mother seems to understand that Kirsten is asking for the trunks for deeper emotional reasons. Not only does Kirsten badly miss her doll, which has been stored in one of the family’s trunks since the beginning of the series, but the other things in the trunk are both useful for the winter season and have connections to the people the family left behind in Sweden. With Christmas coming, Kirsten and other members in the family are missing those connections and the feeling of home. Kirsten’s mother points out that people are more important than belongings, but she also agrees with Kirsten that some belongings represent ties to other people.
Kirsten also misses the tradition of St. Lucia’s Day because that tradition usually marks the beginning of the Christmas season for the family. When Kirsten surprises her family by dressing in her St. Lucia costume, it’s a happy surprise for everyone and really makes everyone feel like Christmas. However, Kirsten also feels the significance of the holiday more than she ever did before because, having been welcomed home by the lights of their house and her waiting and worried family, she better appreciates the tradition of St. Lucia welcoming others with light and food.
As with other historical American Girls books, I also enjoyed the detailed colored pencil drawings of the characters and scenes!
A farm family in 1881 lives in their barn because they haven’t built a separate house yet. Outside the barn, there is an old apple tree that the family loves.
They like to pick the apples from the tree, and use them for cider and applesauce. The two girls in the family like to climb the tree. Josie, the younger girl, likes to swing on the vines that hang from the tree’s branches. Katrina, the older girl, likes to draw in the tree with her paper resting against a crooked branch. She thinks of that special limb as her “studio.”
Then, a terrible winter storm ruins the apple tree before Christmas. The whole family is sad at the loss of the tree, but Katrina is particularly devastated at the loss of her studio. Will she even be able to draw again if she can’t craw in her special place?
The family uses most of the ruined tree as firewood, and they use apples they’ve saved from the tree as decorations on their Christmas tree. However, because of the loss of the apple tree, it doesn’t really feel like Christmas to Katrina. Then, their father shows them that he has saved their favorite parts of the tree and turned them into special Christmas presents.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
I thought this was a charming Christmas story! When I first saw the title, I guessed that the family would use an apple tree as a Christmas tree, but that’s not it at all. It’s just about the family feeling sad about the loss of their apple tree and how the remains of the tree made it a memorable Christmas. Because the father of the family saved their favorite parts of the tree when he was cutting up the rest for firewood, they will still be able to enjoy the things they loved about the tree, particularly Katrina, who receives a special drawing table made out her favorite branch of the tree.
The author dedicated the book to her own father because he made a special drawing board for her. On the inside dust jacket of the book, the explains that the inspiration for the apple tree and vine swing came from her own childhood in rural Michigan.
I love the artwork in this book! The pictures are realistic and detailed, and they have an old-fashioned charm that fits well with the modern Cottagecore aesthetic. I love the family’s home in the barn, with the girls sleeping in the loft and being wrapped in colorful patchwork quilts! The first book that I read by this author was The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash, but she wasn’t the illustrator for that book. I didn’t know the she did illustrations, but seeing the illustrations in this book makes me want to see more by her!
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.
Following the death of Jodie and Peter’s father in a car accident, Jodie’s mother decides that she want to move to a new town and have a fresh start. For some reason, people have been gossiping about the family, particularly Jodie’s Aunt Claire. Jodie doesn’t really want to leave her old home, but she does make a new best friend in her new school. However, they don’t return to their home town of East Hill until Great Aunt Winifred invites them to visit for Christmas.
Jodie loves Aunt Winifred and her big, old-fashioned house with the old toys in the attic. She has fond memories of her whole family getting together for Christmas there, and she thinks that if they visit for Christmas, things will be like they used to be. Jodie’s mother knows differently. Things are not like they used to be with Jodie’s father gone and the gossip still hanging over the family, although Jodie doesn’t understand why. Her mother refuses to return to East Hill, but she says that Jodie can visit Aunt Winifred if she wants. Jodie doesn’t want to be away from her mother and little brother on Christmas itself, so they decide that Jodie can visit Aunt Winifred the week after Christmas, between Christmas and New Year’s.
Jodie still can’t understand why her mother doesn’t want to see Aunt Winifred, but it’s really Aunt Claire that she doesn’t want to see. Jodie’s mother explains that, around the time that Jodie’s father died in the car accident, some money was stolen from Mr. Carrington. Jodie’s father was a lawyer, and Mr. Carrington was once of his clients, and the theft was discovered after Mr. Carrington himself died of a heart attack. Aunt Claire accused of Jodie’s father of stealing the money, but since he was killed in the accident, he never had a chance to defend himself against the accusation. Uncle Phillip, Claire’s husband and vice-president of the bank where Mr. Carrington kept his safe deposit box, never believed that Jodie’s father took the money, but it was bad publicity for the bank when it was stolen. He was trying to get to the bottom of the situation, but he had been in the car with Jodie’s father during the car accident and was also killed. That may have been why Aunt Claire started making public accusations against Jodie’s father – to deflect any blame or suspicion of Phillip because of his role in the bank and maybe also because she blamed Jodie’s father for getting him killed in the car accident when they skidded on a snowy road.
In spite of everything that’s happened, and even because of it, Jodie feels like she has to return to East Hill to see Aunt Winifred and face Aunt Claire. She’s not sure how, but she thinks that if she goes back to East Hill, she might find something that will clear up the situation. There had been another suspect in the theft, a nephew of Mr. Carrington, who was known to be in debt, but nobody could figure out how he could have stolen the money. When it comes down to it, Aunt Claire herself spends more money than she should.
When she gets to East Hill, she realizes that her mother was correct that East Hill doesn’t feel like it used to. Jodie no longer feels like East Hill is her home. She likes her new town and misses her best friend. Her older cousin, Lisa, who is Aunt Claire’s daughter, used to get on her nerves sometimes because she was always the “perfect” child. She is very pretty and talented on the piano, always seems to look great and do everything right, and is also kind of a snob. When Lisa is at the train station with Aunt Winifred to meet Jodie on her arrival, Jodie realizes that Lisa bothers her even more than she used did before.
Lisa is still fussy and snobby and impatient with Aunt Winifred, who sleeps more because she’s getting old. One thing that interests Lisa about Aunt Winifred is that she’s heard that Aunt Winifred is making a new will, and she openly speculates about who is going to get the most out of it. Jodie is disgusted by this talk and asks her why anybody has to get more than anyone else, and Lisa matter-of-factly tells her that there is always a favorite and that the favorite always gets the most. (I can guess that her mother probably told her this.) From the way Lisa talks, Jodie can tell that she thinks of herself as the “perfect” favorite and, therefore, already entitled to receive the most. It disturbs Jodie that Lisa doesn’t seem to care that Aunt Winifred would have to die for her to get anything at all. One day, she overhears Aunt Claire lecturing Lisa that she needs to practice her piano music more while visiting Aunt Winifred because she wants Aunt Winifred to pay for Lisa to study music in Europe. Aunt Winifred seems to want it even more than Lisa does.
While Lisa busies herself with practicing at the piano and calling her friends on the phone, Jodie goes up to the attic to see the old toys they used to play with. When she looks in the attic, she is surprised that her feelings about the attic have also changed. There is something about the attic that now bothers her, but she can’t quite think what it is. She feels like something in the attic has changed or that she wants to change something there, but she’s not sure why. When she looks for a log cabin toy with little pioneer and Indian (Native American) figurines that her father always loved, she is surprised that it is missing. Aunt Claire doesn’t think much of it, suggesting that Aunt Winifred might have just thrown it away, not knowing that it was Jodie’s father’s old favorite toy. However, Jodie knows that can’t be it. Aunt Winifred never had any children of her own, and she loved her two nephews as if they were her sons. She was very sentimental about the toys that they loved, and Jodie doubts that she would just suddenly decide to get rid of one of them.
When Jodie finally figures out what happened to the log cabin toy, the whole truth about the theft comes out.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction and Spoilers
I liked the setting of the story. Big old houses like Aunt Winifred’s aren’t very common anymore, and I always wanted to live in a house with an attic that had a solid floor to it, like the one in the story. Jodie’s memories of playing with the old toys and dress-up clothes there sound fun. Although Jodie doesn’t spend Christmas itself at the house, she is still there during the Christmas season, so the Christmas tree with its unique, old ornaments is still there, and the family enjoys Christmas treats, like chocolates and mince pies.
I had theories about the mystery right from the start. I hoped that Mr. Carrington’s nephew, who we never met, wouldn’t be the thief because that felt too much like bringing in an outsider as the culprit. When Jodie meets a boy named Kenny and becomes friends with him, I thought his family might have something to do with the theft, but they don’t. He’s just a boy who likes Jodie and has fun with her, doing things that Lisa thinks she’s too grown-up to do anymore, like throwing snowballs and making a snowman.
I really suspected Aunt Claire as the thief from the beginning. She definitely has expensive tastes, and when she appears in the story, her clothes and hairstyle sound much more expensive than I would expect from a widow raising a daughter in a fairly small town. The way she and her daughter talk about getting their hands on Aunt Winifred’s money emphasizes how callous and money-grubbing she is. Even Lisa admits that she doesn’t really want to go to Europe to study music. Her mother is the one who wants to go to Europe, and she’s using Lisa as the excuse to get money so both of them can go there. Lisa doesn’t like her mother’s plans because she wants to stay at her school with her friends. It occurred to me that Claire’s accusations about Jodie’s father taking Mr. Carrington’s money could have been to cover up for herself doing it. Since her husband worked at the bank, she could have used his position to get access to the money herself. That’s not exactly what happened, though.
Claire is not the thief. In a way, she was the motive for the crime, so when the truth comes out, it’s still going to hurt. When Jodie discovers what really happened, she even feels sorry for her aunt because she knows that the truth will be hard for her to hear and will affect her reputation in this town in the same way that the suspicions about her father affected her mother. Jodie also feels sorry for Lisa, which I felt was more justified than sympathy for Claire. However, the story ends with Jodie finding out the truth for herself, and we aren’t shown the moment when she reveals it to everyone. We don’t get to see everyone’s reactions, and if it changes any of Aunt Winifred’s thoughts about her will, we don’t see that happen. We don’t know what arrangements Aunt Winifred made originally, so that doesn’t matter too much. The talk about the will is really to establish the moral characters of Aunt Claire and Lisa.
I suspected that Aunt Claire was set up as being so awful and unlikable that readers wouldn’t be sorry if she turned out to be the thief, kind of like how the people who get murdered in old episodes of Murder She Wrote are usually the people who are the most nasty to everyone during the first ten minutes of the show, so viewers are not too sad about them dying and can get on with the puzzle of figuring out who did it. Aunt Claire makes a great villain because I disliked her so much that I wouldn’t have cared no matter what she was guilty of or what happened to her. She’s the snotty kind of woman who says awful things about other people, both behind their backs and to their faces. She criticizes people she sees for being fat and offers unsolicited critiques of their clothes, like she’s the fashion police. She’s extremely manipulative of other people and their emotions for the sake of getting what she wants and making herself feel good, and this even extends to her own daughter. Basically, she’s one of those middle school mean girls who never grew up beyond that point. That she’s good at being awful to other people and getting things she wants is enough justification to her that she sees nothing wrong with being the way she is. I’ve known so many other horrible adults exactly like that in real life that I knew I would cheer to see her shoved under the proverbial bus.
I was expecting that her greediness and high maintenance lifestyle were her motives and that her nastiness was a set-up so readers could focus on the puzzle of how she gets caught. I even thought that the story might take a dark twist with her tampering with Aunt Winifred’s medicine to slowly poison her for the inheritance she expected, since Aunt Winifred said that her medicine was making her unusually sleepy. However, Aunt Claire isn’t an attempted murderer any more than she’s a thief. She’s just an awful person who uses people, and her high maintenance lifestyle was the motive for the real thief, who was probably also manipulated by Claire and her expensive tastes.
Lisa’s character softens a little during the course of the story. She’s still fussy and a little spoiled because of the way her mother is, but Jodie realizes that Lisa isn’t very happy with the way her mother is. Lisa likes music, but her mother is manipulating her as much as anyone else to further her lifestyle. Lisa knows what she wants for herself, and hopefully, even though the truth about the theft is going to hurt her, it might actually change things for Lisa’s benefit in the long term.
I also wondered whether the car accident had anything to do with the theft, but apparently, it doesn’t. It doesn’t seem to have been caused deliberately or by anything directly related to the theft. It was just an accident that took place at an unfortunate time.
In the beginning, Lucy is an orphan who lives in the countryside with her elderly Aunt Olive. The two of them are very fond of each other. Then, Aunt Olive dies, and Lucy has to go live in London with her distant cousins. Even though Lucy inherited her aunt’s house, there were bills to settle, and the trustees in charge of Lucy’s legacy had to sell the house to pay them and provide money to help support Lucy. Lucy’s cousins have agreed to take her for Christmas, but Lucy isn’t sure whether or not she will be living with them permanently. It depends on how well Lucy gets along with the children of the family. People keep telling her “we’ll see” and reminding her to be brave and sensible and that changes are natural after someone dies. Her trustees and her aunt’s old friends want to do what’s best for Lucy, although they’re secretly a little concerned about whether their plans are what’s best for her. If she doesn’t get along with her relatives, they might have to send her to a boarding school, although they know that type of environment isn’t really suited to Lucy’s personality.
Since Lucy was raised and home-schooled by an elderly and old-fashioned woman, she is not accustomed to living in a big family or with other children and not even accustomed to any type of school environment. The adults who know her understand that Lucy is a quiet, reserved child who acts older than her age. Before she goes to stay with her relatives for Christmas, one of her trustees, Mr. Thomas, talks to Lucy about her life with her aunt and the need to give her other relatives a chance to be friendly. He says that Aunt Olive was an old woman who had a tendency to look back to the past, but Lucy is young and still has her future ahead of her. Mr. Thomas advises her to look forward. However, Lucy can only think of how much she already misses her life with her aunt and how she can’t imagine being happy with these relatives she’s never even met. She escapes thinking about these things by imagining herself other places, immersing herself in past memories.
Lucy feels out of place in her new home and worries if these relatives really want her. The father of the family, called Uncle Peter, is an architect, and the mother, called Aunt Gwen, is an artist who used to design theatrical costumes. Their three children are pretty close in age to Lucy. Patrick is the oldest, Rachel is closest to Lucy’s age, and Bill is the youngest. Their house is an old Victorian house, which pleases Lucy, but she doesn’t like it when she finds out that Uncle Peter is modernizing it. Home renovations are part of what he does as an architect, but Lucy prefers old-fashioned styles to the modern ones, which feel too stark and have garish colors. The children of the family are noisy, and Lucy has to share a room with Rachel, when she’s used to having a room of her own in a quiet, old-fashioned house. Rachel points out that they haven’t been in this house very long themselves, and there are rooms in this house that haven’t been renovated yet. When the renovations are done, Lucy could have one of those rooms for herself, but again, Lucy feels like the renovations are destroying the old-fashioned charm of the place. She doesn’t see why everything has to be new and modern. While she has no idea where else she could go, Lucy just can’t imagine herself living in this house with these people.
Then, Lucy makes an unusual new friend. Alice is a girl about Lucy’s age, and she used to live in the aunt and uncle’s house 100 years before. Now, she haunts it as a ghost. Lucy first sees Alice in a mirror in the attic, where there are many antiques that have been stored away from Alice’s time. Alice brings Lucy back in time to visit her in the Victorian era because Alice is lonely in the past. She has six older siblings, but four of them have already left home to marry or start careers, and two are at boarding school. Her parents are away much of the time, so most of the time, she is alone with her tutor, whom she calls Mademoiselle. Alice says that she really wants someone to play with.
Alice shows Lucy her toys and games, which are all familiar to Lucy, looking like the ones she always played with at Aunt Olive’s house. However, Alice is spoiled and cheats at games to win. The two of them argue about it, and then Alice sends Lucy to the attic because her tutor is coming, and Alice doesn’t want her to see Lucy. Lucy finds herself in the attic in her aunt and uncle’s house in modern times, unsure of what just happened.
Over the next few days, Lucy spends part of her time with her relatives, preparing for Christmas, and part of her time in the Victorian era with Alice, which is also around Christmastime. Things are still awkward between Lucy and her cousins. On the one hand, she has some fun with them, doing things that Aunt Olive would never have allowed her to do, like going to the movies without adults and eating take-out fish and chips. On the other hand, Lucy is still overwhelmed when her cousins get boisterous, and she is repulsed by their ultra-modern Christmas decorations. Although Alice intimidates and even frightens Lucy, whenever things get overwhelming for her in modern life, Lucy retreats into the past with Alice … only for Alice to get intimidating and frightening again as she tries to keep Lucy in the past with her.
In some ways, Lucy feels more comfortable in the past than she does in her aunt and uncle’s modern home. She likes the homey feel of the house as it was in the Victorian era. The old-fashioned Christmas decorations and Alice’s party are far more charming to her than the modern ones, and she likes the old-fashioned party games better than dancing to modern music. However, Lucy becomes increasingly afraid of Alice. Alice tries to trap Lucy in the past and make her forget all about the present. When Lucy resists and tries to remember things about her family or modern times, Alice gets angry and threatens her. She says that she’ll make something bad happen if Lucy tells anybody about her. Alice has sinister intentions for Lucy. Alice is a lonely and selfish child who isn’t above lies, cheating, and manipulation to get what she wants. She exists only in the Victorian era, and what she wants more than anything is a playmate to join her for all eternity. She says that she always gets what she wants. She wants Lucy.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies). The original British title of this book was Come Back, Lucy, which was also the title of the tv mini-series from 1978 based on the book. You can sometimes see trailers, clips, or episodes from this series online on YouTube. This fan page has more information about the tv mini-series and the book and its author.
My Reaction and Spoilers
The heart of the story is about looking back and living in the past instead of looking forward and living in the present. Aunt Olive, as an elderly woman, had a tendency to live in the past, bringing up Lucy as if she were a Victorian girl instead of a modern one. Because that was the only life Lucy knew from a young age, she clung to it after Aunt Olive’s death. It was what was familiar and comfortable to her when her life was changing, and she needed comfort. Her London relatives know that this is the case, but they’re not sure how to connect with her at first and to help her see that modern times and a new home can also become comfortable.
There’s a difference between just liking old-fashioned, vintage things and styles and the type of living in the past that Lucy does at first. There are people in modern times who still like the Cottagecore aesthetic and who try to live a slower pace of life and enjoy old-fashioned things and simple pleasures, something that came out of the coronavirus pandemic. But, just having a few vintage things and learning to slow down and appreciate the small things in life isn’t quite what Lucy does. It is the sort of thing she misses from the old-fashioned house in the country, where she used to live, but the problem is that she uses her memories of that time, Aunt Olive, and the stories that Aunt Olive used to tell her about life in the past to take her mind off the things and people in the present too much. Whenever things get stressful or upsetting to her, she retreats into past memories, so she doesn’t have to think about how her life has changed or learn to appreciate the things around her or get along with other people. Her relatives can tell that she’s shutting them out, and while they’re sympathetic to her struggling through her grief, it’s also hurtful that she’s rejecting them. She’s not just using her past memories or love of old-fashioned things for comfort but to avoid dealing with things in the present and forming new relationships.
At the same time, Lucy feels like her relatives don’t really care about her or the life she had before she came to them because they never express sympathy about Aunt Olive’s death or ask her any questions about what she was like. However, that’s due to a misunderstanding and miscommunication rather than her relatives trying to ignore Lucy or Aunt Olive’s death. If Lucy had bothered to read Aunt Gwen’s letter to her all the way through before she arrived at their house, she would have known that Aunt Gwen had told her children not to bring up the subject of Aunt Olive until Lucy did because she didn’t want them upsetting Lucy by forcing her to talk about her death if she wasn’t ready. Her relatives planned to wait for Lucy to feel ready to talk to them and for her to raise the subject herself. Because she was too upset to read the letter, Lucy didn’t understand that and has been waiting for them to talk to her first. At the end of the story, Lucy does read the letter, and she and her relatives have an honest talk about everything, including Alice. This is exactly what Lucy needs to free herself from Alice.
Alice is a similar sort of malevolent child ghost to Helen in Wait Till Helen Comes or Emily in Jane-Emily. She is selfish, and she has no concern for Lucy and Lucy’s life and future. Alice is dead, and she lives only in the past because that’s the only place where she can live. She has no future left. The one thing that past Alice is waiting for is a message from her parents, who are looking for a house in the country to buy. When the message finally arrives for her on December 21, 1873, Lucy has her final encounter with Alice on the 100th anniversary of the event. Alice is happy because she wants to move to the new house and live there with her parents, but she’s also decided that she’s going to bring Lucy with her by drowning her in an icy pond. In a frightening scene, she tricks Lucy into walking out on thin ice, but fortunately, Lucy is saved by her cousin Patrick.
After this incident and her brush with death, Lucy is finally able to release all of her bottled-up feelings about Aunt Olive and the changes in her life and explain everything to her relatives about Alice and how Alice has been influencing her to do and say things that upset them. Aunt Gwen had suspected that Lucy had seen a ghost or at least thought that she had, but she had thought that maybe Lucy had seen someone who made her think that she was seeing Aunt Olive’s ghost. Then, Aunt Gwen saw a door in the house open and close by itself, making her think that maybe the ghost was real. Rachel knew that Lucy was upset about someone named Alice because Lucy was talking in her sleep, but she didn’t know who Alice was. By the time Lucy reveals everything, all of her relatives have had encounters with Alice or things Alice caused to happen. Lucy isn’t sure when she explains things whether or not they all believe her that Alice is a real ghost. Aunt Gwen is convinced, and so is Bill because he met Alice face-to-face at one point and can describe her. Uncle Peter does consider the idea that Alice is a ghost in Lucy’s mind, inspired by all of Aunt Olive’s stories about her Victorian youth and the old house they now live in, but then, he looks through more of the things in the attic and finds Alice’s old scrapbook with her final note about moving to the countryside and starting a new life on December 21st. In the context of the story, Alice is a real ghost who posed a real threat to Lucy, and not just the imagining of a distraught child.
There are a couple of factors that end Alice’s threat to Lucy. The first one is getting past the 100th anniversary of Alice leaving the house, which seems to hold great significance to the ghost, like it was her last opportunity to connect with the house in the present. We never find out Alice’s full history or why she haunts the house as a child in the time shortly before she was supposed to move to the country. She simply disappears after her attempt to kill Lucy so she can remain in the past forever and go to her new home with her. Alice is a ghost who is conscious that she is a ghost, and she knows that Lucy lives in a different time period with people who inhabit her house in the future or present time. Because Alice is a child and seems forever stuck as a lonely child, it seems that she died young somehow and is aware of it, but we never find out exactly how that happened. I have a theory that she was killed in an accident on the way to her new home, but we are never told that. It feels like a let-down that we don’t get the rest of the story about Alice, especially because Lucy says that she would like to learn more about the historical Alice so she can think of her more as a person and less as a ghost.
There is a sequel to this book called Lucy Beware, so perhaps more of that information is revealed in the sequel. The sequel is much more rare than the original, book, though. It only rarely comes up for sale, even online. I’ve checked Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Alibris, and Abe Books, and currently, none of them have a copy. It’s not even on Internet Archive. (At least, not yet, as of this writing.) You can try to get the sequel through an interlibrary loan, but not all libraries will loan out books that are considered “rare.”
The most important factor that breaks Alice’s connection to Lucy is Lucy’s changing feelings. Lucy has some control over when she goes back in time and when she returns to the present, although it takes her a while to see it. There are times when she deliberately seeks out Alice in the past, even when Alice disturbs her, because she just finds the present time and her relatives so overwhelming. While she doesn’t really want to stay with Alice in the past forever, especially at the expense of her own life, Alice gives her someone to talk to about things that she can’t bring herself to talk about with her relatives and a place to retreat to so she doesn’t have to think about the present or her future. At one point, Lucy and Rachel are talking about the importance of making plans for the future. Rachel says that everyone needs to think of the future, and she is exhilarated by all of the possibilities that modern life has to offer for young women. However, because of her life with Aunt Olive, who lived mainly in the past, Lucy is unaccustomed to thinking about the future and finds the prospect frightening. To a woman like Aunt Olive, girls should simply receive a basic education and then get married. Beyond that, Lucy doesn’t know what she wants out of life. She has never considered having a career or learning to support herself because Aunt Olive never discussed things like that with her and never prepared her to make decisions like that. At the beginning of the story, Lucy finds it difficult to look much beyond the immediate future anyway because it seems uncertain where she will live since Aunt Olive is gone. However, once she and her relatives open up to each other and it becomes clear that they do want her to stay with them, her doubts and fears about her immediate future are resolved. She has people who love her, care about her feelings, and want her to talk to them about things, so she no longer feels so overwhelmed about her situation and in need of a retreat. Aunt Gwen says that Alice no longer has influence over her because, whether or not Alice still wants Lucy, Lucy no longer wants or needs Alice. Lucy can now face her present and future without feeling the need or temptation to escape into Alice’s past.
It’s true for people who are victims of living narcissists, too. Abusive people count on their victims being unable to leave them, and they even try to gaslight victims into thinking that they really need them in their lives, for some reason. As soon as their victims realize that they can escape and manage without them, their abusers lose their hold on them. Lucy has no more desire to return to her abuser/attempted murderer because she has dealt with the insecurities that made her vulnerable to Alice and kept her tied to the past, and she has forged new bonds with other people.
One other thing that I really liked about this story was the description of the antique games and game pieces that Lucy kept from Aunt Olive’s house. If you’ve never heard the term before, Spillikins is an old name for Pick-up Sticks. One of the more unique gaming pieces was the set of fish-shaped game counters. There were real fish-shaped game counters (link repaired 12-11-23) like that that were used in the 1800s for playing card games.
#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.
#6 The Mystery of the Magi’s Treasure by Elspeth Campbell Murphy, 1995.
Timothy, Titus, and Sarah-Jane go to visit their grandparents in the resort town where they live over the summer. Their grandfather is the pastor of a church, and in their Sunday school class, there are three boys, all named Kevin, who are close friends and have a reputation for being troublemakers and goofs. The three cousins have little to do with the three Kevins, but it’s because of the three Kevins that they are recruited to help with the community’s Christmas in July art fair.
The community holds an art fair every summer, and this year, they’ve chosen Christmas in July as their theme. Some of the local churches are holding a special concert of Christmas music as part of the event, and someone through it would be a fun idea to have children dressed in costumes from the Nativity play, like shepherds and angels, to hand out flyers for the concert. The three Kevins get the roles of the Three Wise Men, but it becomes obvious pretty quickly that this arrangement isn’t going to work because they’re more like the Three Stooges than stately wise men. The choir director says that they need more reliable children to be the Three Wise Men, so naturally, he gives the roles to the three cousins. After all, their grandfather is the pastor, and their grandmother is always bragging about how well-behaved they are.
As soon as they put on the wise men costumes, Timothy realizes that there’s method to the Kevins’ madness. If you get a reputation for being reliable and doing good work, people give you more work. If you get a reputation for not doing anything right, nobody will even let you do certain jobs. The job of being wise men in July is anything but fun. The robes are too heavy and hot for summer. They can’t even complain because everyone says they look adorable, which is humiliating, and their grandmother keeps telling everyone how proud she is of them. It’s almost like they’re being punished for being good, and they can’t say a thing about it without disappointing Grandma.
Then, something really strange happens while they’re passing out flyers. A woman they’ve never seen before runs up to them and gives them three boxes. She says that they’re supposed to be part of their costumes, the gifts for Baby Jesus. She seems a little flustered and has trouble remembering exactly what the gifts are supposed to be, forgetting the words “frankincense” and “myrrh.” She tells the kids that she’s in charge of the props and that they have to take good care of these boxes and only return them to her. Then, she rushes off again.
The kids think that it’s an inconvenience to have to carry around the boxes as well as pass out flyers, but the woman’s manner struck them as strange. When they look more closely at the boxes, the workmanship also seems unusually good for objects used only for a Nativity play.
Then, the kids overhear a couple of artists talking about some artwork stolen from a fellow artist. Suddenly, they have an uncomfortable feeling that they know what was stolen, who took it, and where it is now. The big problem is that the thief is watching them.
Theme of the Story: Goodness.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction and Spoilers
After the kids hear about an artist’s work getting stolen, it doesn’t take them long to realize that the boxes they were give were probably the stolen artwork and that the “prop” lady who didn’t seem to know what she was doing was the thief. She was just looking for a convenient place to leave her stolen goods so she wouldn’t be caught walking around with them, and she happened to spot the children in their wise men costumes. Three fancy boxes look like what people would expect the gifts of the Three Wise Men to look like, so the thief could essentially hide the stolen goods in plain sight. The artists talking about the theft were uncertain exactly what type of art was stolen, so most people at the fair also wouldn’t know what to look for and would just assume that the boxes were props.
The Kevins got them into this mess in the first place, and they turn out to be the way out of it, too. The thief was counting on the kids being easy for her to watch because they stand out in their costumes but almost invisible to bystanders because everyone else just disregards them as being in costume and doesn’t look closer. What the kids realize is that maybe she also hasn’t looked closely enough to really recognize them and is only following the costumes, no matter who happens to be wearing them. Once the cousins explain to the Kevins what’s happening, it’s exciting enough for the Kevins to be more than happy to participate. They finally put their playacting and thrill-seeking to a good purpose!
Weirdly, the thief also unintentionally did a good deed for the artist. The artist has been doubting herself and the quality of her work. While stealing from her was a bad thing to do, the thief unintentionally confirmed that her work was so good that she was willing to steal it! It reminded me of a funny line from an old episode of Remington Steele with an artist whose work was stolen: “I’ve finally hit the big time! I’ve been stolen!”
The theme of “goodness” sounds somewhat generic, but the story is really about turning something bad into something good. The kids didn’t really like getting the roles of the Three Wise Men, but if they hadn’t taken them, they wouldn’t have found this mystery and saved the stolen artwork. Instead of goofing off and messing up like usual, the Kevins came through when it was really important. The woman who tried to take something that didn’t belong to her proved that it was something with value. The boxes themselves were made from pieces of junk, but they’re beautiful. It doesn’t mean that stealing becomes right if it unintentionally accomplishes something good, but the kids come to realize that even things that don’t seem like they’re worth anything can have unexpected good sides. Even Baby Jesus was born in a humble stable.
The Night Before Christmas by Clement C. Moore, illustrated by Corinne Malvern, 1949.
This version of The Night Before Christmas is part of the classic Little Golden Books series. The original poem, A Visit From St. Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore, has been made into picture books for children many times since it was first published in 1823, but this version has some sentimental value to me. I think it was the first version that I ever read as a child. I had forgotten which version it was for years, but when I found this book again recently, I recognized the pictures. (It’s funny, but I remember thinking as a child that the youngest child looks a little too big to be in a cradle, but she is in the picture when the children are being put to bed.) Most people think of the poem as being called The Night Before Christmas instead of its original title, A Visit From St. Nicholas, because the phrase “the night before Christmas” appears in the first line of the poem. Many of the picture book versions that we read as children used The Night Before Christmas or ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas as a title.
This Little Golden Book makes a cozy and pleasant bedtime story for Christmas Eve with its images of a 19th century/Victorian family hanging up their stockings and going to bed on Christmas Eve with the anticipation of the sweets, presents, and fun of the next day. Then, the father of the family is suddenly woken when he hears Santa Claus arriving.
This 19th century poem established and popularized the image of Santa Claus as generations of Americans came to know it. It describes him as a fat and jolly little old man and names all of the reindeer who pull his sleigh. This is probably the first piece of writing that established that Santa has eight reindeer and gave them specific names, which would later be echoed in the storybook and song versions of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
The father of the family in the poem happily watches Santa Claus leaving presents for his children and then leaving by the chimney and riding off in his sleigh with a cheery, “Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!”
Not long before Christmas, the lighthouse keeper at Tern Rock, Byron Flagg, approaches Martha Morse, asking her if she would be willing to temporarily take the job of tending the lighthouse while he takes a vacation. The lighthouse can never be untended because ships rely on that light, and it can be difficult for Mr. Flagg to find someone to take over his duties for an extended period of time, especially so close to Christmas. Mr. Flagg wants to hire a substitute with experience tending the lighthouse. Mrs. Morse lived there for 14 years while her late husband was the lighthouse keeper. Although many people would be daunted by the isolation of the lighthouse, Mrs. Morse actually loved it because she enjoyed the beauty of the sea and nature. She knows that she would enjoy staying there again. However, she hesitates to take the job of temporarily tending the light because she is caring for her young nephew, 11-year-old Ronnie. Ronnie might enjoy the adventure of staying in a lighthouse, but he would have to miss some school.
Mr. Flagg appeals to Mrs. Morse’s sense of nostalgia about the lighthouse and points out that Ronnie could bring along some of his schoolwork to study during their stay. Mr. Flagg says that their stay will only be for two weeks, and that he’ll return and relieve them on December 15th. Mrs. Morse points out that the weather around Tern Rock can be unpredictable and that he might not be able to return when he says he will, but Mr. Flagg says he is confident that he can. They talk to Ronnie about it, and Ronnie says that he would like to see the lighthouse, but he wants to be home for Christmas. Mr. Flagg assures them that won’t be a problem and that they will enjoy their stay at the lighthouse, so they agree to go.
When they arrive at the lighthouse, Ronnie is awed by rugged environment of Tern Rock and daunted by the isolation of the lighthouse. His Aunt Martha says that she understands how he feels, that he wonders if they’re up to the task, but she assures them that they are. The job they will do is a necessary one because, without the light, the rocks in this area are a danger to ships.
As they settle in, Ronnie becomes fascinated with the lighthouse. The interior is comfortable and designed to be compact, almost like the interior of a ship. His Aunt Martha establishes their schedule, teaching Ronnie what they need to do. She turns off the light at sunrise and lets it cool down while they have breakfast. Then, they clean the lamp, polish its lens, and do other chores to keep the light in working order. Ronnie does his schoolwork in the afternoon, and they turn on the light when the sun goes down. They spend their evenings doing quiet activities, like reading and playing games. Although Aunt Martha wasn’t sure that the quietness and monotony would appeal to an active boy like Ronnie, Ronnie finds the newness of the environment and the change in his usual routine fascinating.
Ronnie’s feelings change when December 15th arrives, and Mr. Flagg doesn’t. The weather is good, so there’s no reason why a boat shouldn’t approach Tern Rock, but Aunt Martha says that there may have been some other problem that delayed him. She doesn’t think an extra day or two at the lighthouse will hurt them, but the days go by, and still, Mr. Flagg doesn’t come. They are still comfortable in the lighthouse and there haven’t been any problems with the light, but Ronnie is angry because he realizes that Mr. Flagg lied to them. Christmas is approaching, and it becomes clear that Mr. Flagg never had any intention of being back at the lighthouse in time for Christmas.
Ronnie has trouble understanding and excepting Mr. Flagg’s lies and broken promises. Ronnie and Aunt Martha discuss the importance of honesty and the meaning of broken promises. Ronnie thinks that Mr. Flagg has been wicked. He has certainly been unfair, but Aunt Martha says that there are worse kinds of wickedness, and before they jump to conclusions about what has happened, they need to know the reasons for it.
Aunt Martha says that the Christ Child visits every home on Christmas, and no place is too distant for Him to reach, so they should make the lighthouse ready and prepare for Christmas. Ronnie doesn’t see how they can because they didn’t bring any decorations or anything for Christmas. Ronnie considers firing the cannon that would signal an emergency to bring someone out to the lighthouse, but Aunt Martha firmly tells him no. The cannon is only for serious emergencies, when there are lives in danger, not for mere disappointment and self-pity. However, Mr. Flagg has left some special surprises for them.
It is true that he intentionally deceived them about being back in time for Christmas. When Ronnie finds a sea chest with a Christmas message, he knows for certain that Mr. Flagg was lying to them the entire time, which makes him angrier. However, a letter that Mr. Flagg left explains his reasons, which earns their sympathy. To soften the blow of his deception, he has also left them some special presents and treats gathered from exotic places. This still isn’t the Christmas that Ronnie and Aunt Martha had originally planned, and being lied to doesn’t feel good. Still, in the end, this Christmas is pretty special and memorable, and they both realize that they are exactly where they need to be.
The book is a Newbery Honor book. It is recommended for ages 8 to 12 years old. It is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive. The author, Julia L. Sauer, also wrote Fog Magic.
My Reaction
I wasn’t familiar with this story when the Coronavirus Pandemic started, which is a pity because this would have been a great book for the type of Christmas we had in 2020. Still, this is a lovely Christmas story, and the pandemic isn’t quite over yet. Things have improved considerably since 2020 because people have been vaccinated, but for those who still need to be cautious and are disappointed that things aren’t completely back to normal or anyone who has hard feelings toward someone or is having a rough Christmas for any other reason, this story is a useful reminder that disappointments are still temporary, and sometimes, the place where you find yourself is exactly where you need to be. Also, disappointments and inconveniences can come with compensations, if you’re open to experiencing them.
Mr. Flagg shouldn’t have lied to Mrs. Morse and Ronnie. He acknowledges in his letter that this was a hurtful thing to do, and he explains his reasons. Basically, he was lonely and desperate. As a lighthouse keeper, he is what we might call an “essential worker”, someone who can’t easily take time off from his work because he does a necessary job that can only be done in a particular place. People’s lives depend on the light from the lighthouse, so Mr. Flagg can’t leave his job for any length of time unless he finds someone qualified who is willing to take his place. This story is set during a time before lighthouses became automated, so there must be a human in this role.
Mr. Flagg is in his 60s, and he explains in his letter that he has spent most of his Christmases either alone or with other adults because of his life as a sailor and lighthouse keeper. He has a niece who has several children and who would be happy to have him for Christmas, but he has never managed to find anyone who was willing to relieve him from his duties during Christmas before. He was desperate to spend at least one Christmas with his family, so he resorted this deception out of desperation, but he left all the presents and special treats for Aunt Martha and Ronnie because he didn’t want them to be miserable.
Aunt Martha is getting older herself, and she understands how Mr. Flagg feels, having lived a similar sort of life. When she lived at the lighthouse, she and her husband were together, but Mr. Flagg has never married, and he was desperately lonely. Ronnie has more trouble understanding the feeling because he is younger and hasn’t experienced this type of loneliness before. Aunt Martha points out that Ronnie will have many more Christmases before him, more than either she or Mr. Flagg have left. One disappointing or just bizarre Christmas won’t mean that much to him in the long term. With maybe 50 or more future Christmases to come as well as the ones he’s already experienced, this strange Christmas in the lighthouse is just one more memory or story to tell other people in Christmases to come.
Part of this story is about forgiveness, but they don’t use that word at all in the story. People have different views about what forgiveness entails, but I think it’s important that Aunt Martha and Ronnie don’t excuse Mr. Flagg’s actions. They come to understand his motives, and they feel pity or sympathy for him for the kind of rough and lonely life he’s lived, but that doesn’t make lies to them good or right. He did something hurtful by betraying their trust, and there will probably be some kind of reckoning between them when Mr. Flagg eventually shows up. Mr. Flagg acknowledges that in his letter, that the knowledge that he betrayed their trust will keep him from fully enjoying Christmas with his family, even when he’s finally getting the kind of Christmas he has wanted, and he can’t blame them for whatever they’re feeling as they read his letter. So, the story never says that what Mr. Flagg did was okay or that it didn’t hurt that he lied to the people who were helping him. Lying was wrong, and it was hurtful, and the characters are honest about that. They don’t try to pretend that they’re not hurt, which I think would have made their feelings worse in the long run. Instead, it’s about looking past that hurt to something better and finding things to be happy about even in a situation where they didn’t want to be.
Aunt Martha sees that what’s really preventing Ronnie from enjoying Christmas as they happen to have it is his anger, disappointment, and bitter feelings and the way he broods about them. Brooding about the angry things he wants to say to Mr. Flagg when he sees him isn’t making his Christmas any better. Aunt Martha compares cleaning out negative emotions to cleaning house before the holiday. You have to clear out all the dust and negativity to let in something better. They will eventually see Mr. Flagg, and there will probably be words between them, but those words can wait while they enjoy themselves as best they can for this Christmas. By then, each of them will probably have a better sense of just how they really feel about the situation and what they want to say about it anyway.
Once Ronnie works through his feelings and is able to put aside his anger, he realizes that this Christmas is something special. He does miss the class Christmas party the rest of his school is having, but in return for that sacrifice, he is experiencing something truly unique that his school friends will probably never experience. He doesn’t fully consider how unique this experience actually is at first, but he senses that there is a unique feel to Christmas in the lighthouse, with its giant light. Ronnie considers the tradition of putting candles in windows at Christmas, to guide the Christ Child or other travelers. (They emphasize candles as welcoming the Christ Child in the story, but when I first heard of the tradition, it was to welcome travelers or absent family members.) He realizes that, by tending the lighthouse, he and his aunt are doing the same thing, but they’ve got the biggest candle of anyone!
Whatever your Christmas happens to be this year, wherever you’re spending it, and whoever you’re spending it with (even if it’s just yourself), don’t forget to do the little things to make it special and enjoy it for whatever it is! Merry Christmas!
Jestress's Forgotten Books and Stories 