“Christmas Is Coming, the goose is getting fat…..” The holiday decorating season is upon us, Friends. Welcome to the Blog today for a little bookshelf Christmas fun. Don’t you just love the traditional stories told at Christmas. “A Christmas Carol” has been beloved since it was originally written by Charles Dickens in December of 1843 during the Victorian Era in England. It resulted in a huge increase in charitable giving and has become a staple for the holiday season…… rightfully so. If you have never seen, “A Muppet Christmas Carol” you should watch it this year.
How many of you can recite, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” or sing the song. Children love the repetition and we all struggle to keep the dancing ladies and leaping lords in their proper order.
How can you have holiday story telling without “T’was the Night Before Christmas…”?
These books are part of our lives and those of our children and grandchildren because they are read and enjoyed every year. I decided to group some of these favorite stories with thrifted Christmas treasures in a display for the bookcase.
At the tip top of the bookcase is a very fat Santa from Department 56. He was found a couple of years ago for a modest $2.50. He is quite jolly and his belly would shake when he laughs, if it could. He is paired with “The Christmas Alphabet”, a pop-up book by the very talented Robert Sabuda. Children and adults love to page through this delightful book marveling at the three-dimensional Christmas icons representing each letter of the alphabet. Truly a joy.
The next shelf houses a Radko Cookie Jar with Santa depicted driving a train engine piled high with presents. The wheels are made of peppermint candy and Santa leans against a Candy Cane seat. Like most of Radko’s pieces, this is shiny and rather fragile. Last year Hubby and I found several of these larger Radko pieces in original boxes at our local Thrift Store. They are quite expensive to buy and these were selling for Thrift Store cookie Jar prices with 50% off for a Christmas sale. Lucky us.
The cookie jar is paired with “The Night Before Christmas” and has great Victorian illustrations. It was written in December of 1823.
Another Radko treasure is this four-piece train set. The picture above shows the engine driven by Santa and a middle car filled with toys for good little girls and boys. The attention to detail is quite beautiful. “A Charlie Brown Christmas” shown with a picture of Charlie Brown and the iconic tree sits behind the train on the shelf.
The two additional cars are another loaded toy car and the caboose bring up the rear of the train. These great cars are paired with another standard, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”. This rhyming Christmas classic is much beloved. How many of us watch this every year and read the story to our children and grandchildren?
A Radko music box sits on a shelf with, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” illustrated by Jan Brett a very talented writer and illustrator of children’s literature. The music box plays “Toyland” and the train turns in a circle around the tree as it plays. This was another great Thrift Store find.
Two Fitz & Floyd Reindeer are anxious to read the story of how they came to fly in, “The Flight of the Reindeer”. This is a story older children will enjoy and is fun for adults as well.
Two more reindeer are on the next shelf getting ready for their big trip on Christmas Eve.
Two carved, wooden, Canadian Geese with bright red and white bows adorning their necks are visiting with versions of, “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. The geese were also Thrift Store finds and quite nice examples of carved geese. I love the attention to detail in the goose on the left above and the more primitive quality of the one on the right. I was thrilled when I found them.
The shelves wouldn’t be complete without Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim. I’m still looking for a really nice copy of the book to have on hand for Christmas Eve.
Hope you’ve enjoyed this bookcase christmas story time. These stories touch our hearts and our funny bones and might even bring a little peace and calm to the season.