Christmas Past

My best friend growing up was born a hundred years before I was. I was with her in covered wagons and through hungry winters. I played with her in the chill autumn air. We spent some of just about every day together and no time reminds me more of her than Christmas. Every doll I ever got on Christmas morning reminded me of the rag doll, Charlotte, her mother made for her when all she had was a corn cob wrapped in a handkerchief for playing house, and that she rescued from a mud puddle years later when she was thrown away by mistake. As I work on sewing or crocheting projects for Christmas presents, I think of the winter she and her family took turns working with their backs to each other so they could finish surprise gifts in a tiny cabin. As I fill stockings, I think of Mr. Edwards carrying treats on his head while fording a freezing river so that Santa could come to the prairie. When I anxiously wait for loved ones traveling in bad Christmas weather, I think of the days Pa spent under the snow eating oyster crackers and candy to survive. And when unexpected Christmas visitors show up, I think of Almanzo appearing almost magically on Christmas Eve to see the beloved girl he waited years to marry open her presents. I want Scarlett to know her, too, so we read A Little Prairie House so they could get acquainted. Merry Christmas, Laura.

http://www.amazon.com/Little-Prairie-House/dp/0064435261

http://www.lauraingallswilder.com/

Long, Beautiful Hair

I come from lushly-maned people. Both sides of the family have plenty of heads with thick, healthy locks cascading over their shoulders or swept up for somber family portraits. And how many times have I heard the story of my poor mother, the girl who couldn’t wear ponytails for the searing headaches the bunches of blonde hair would cause? I do not experience any of these things because my hair is what can best be described as spindly. It is thin, fine and a bit wispy with a cowlick smack in the middle just for fun. My brothers all got good hair, which figures since we come from boys-wear-short-hair stock and it all went to barbershop waste while mine took forever to grow and then didn’t really live up to expectations once it arrived. My mother, used to flowing tresses, had no idea what to do with the two tiny twigs sticking straight out from my head. Then someone gave her some advice--braid my hair. Every day. So, until I was in sixth grade and flatly refused to participate in the daily braiding ritual anymore, my mother braided my mousey, brown hair like Laura Ingalls. The only day I didn’t wear braids was picture day, so it seems like I’m lying when people look at my braidless school pictures. But braids I wore. In Rita Williams-Garcia’s Catching The Wild Waiyuzee, girl gets caught by Shemama and the tresses are tamed. Hey, no complaining--she could have been born with my hair.

http://www.amazon.com/Catching-Wild-Waiyuuzee-Rita-Williams-Garcia/dp/068982601X

http://www.ritawg.com/

Prairie Girl

My very favorite literary character and author is Laura Ingalls Wilder. I have read every book many times and, if I believed in reincarnation, would think I once roamed the prairie in a covered wagon. We’re practically the same person. She was a brown-haired braid-wearer in a blonde-curls-are-better world. She was short, a bit round, willful, and tended toward a wild streak. She was a teacher, a writer, and spoke her mind (sometimes to her detriment). It all feels familiar for me, until we get to family composition. The Ingalls family had four children, like my family, but Laura’s three siblings were all girls and that doesn’t jive with my experience at all. But I feel like I understand a little of the sister bond from reading Laura’s books so often. Her dedication to and sacrifice for her sisters, particularly older sister Mary, are central themes in the series. In fact, Mary’s early and tragic loss of sight due to scarlet fever was the impetus for Laura’s writing career. When the sad diagnosis first came, Laura vowed to see the world for Mary, to be her eyes, and describe all that she saw in vivid detail. She wrote everything down on lined school tablets, and the rest is history. And literature. In Charlotte Zolotow’s Do You Know What I’ll Do?, a sister lists all the loving things she can think of to do for her beloved brother. We never again have any friends like the ones who share our parents.

http://www.amazon.com/Do-You-Know-What-Ill/dp/006027879X

http://www.charlottezolotow.com/