Download or read book The Old Magic of Christmas written by Linda Raedisch and published by Llewellyn Worldwide. This book was released on 2013 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Tis the Season for Witches, Elves, and a Legion of Ghosts Not so very long ago, Yuletide was as much a chilling season of ghosts and witches as it was a festival of goodwill. In The Old Magic of Christmas, you'll rub elbows with veiled spirits, learn the true perils of elves, and discover a bestiary of enchanted creatures. Rife with the more frightful characters from folklore and the season's most petulant ghosts, this book takes you on a spooky sleigh ride from the silvered firs of a winter forest to the mirrored halls of the Snow Queen. Along the way, you'll discover how to bring the festivities into your home with cookie recipes and craft instructions, as well as tips for delving more deeply into your relationship with the unseen. Praise: "Steeped in history and adorned with a bit of enchantment, The Old Magic of Christmas is the perfect book to read by a winter's fire with a mug of mulled cider in hand."--Deborah Blake, author of The Witch's Broom "...[A] fascinating journey into the stories behind the tinsel and bows."--Doreen Shababy, author of The Wild & Weedy Apothecary "...[A]n intriguing little tome that explores the darker side of the Yuletide holiday."--Ellen Dugan, author of The Enchanted Cat
Download or read book Pagan Christmas written by Christian Rätsch and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2006-10-24 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of the sacred botany and the pagan origins and rituals of Christmas • Analyzes the symbolism of the many plants associated with Christmas • Reveals the shamanic rituals that are at the heart of the Christmas celebration The day on which many commemorate the birth of Christ has its origins in pagan rituals that center on tree worship, agriculture, magic, and social exchange. But Christmas is no ordinary folk observance. It is an evolving feast that over the centuries has absorbed elements from cultures all over the world--practices that give plants and plant spirits pride of place. In fact, the symbolic use of plants at Christmas effectively transforms the modern-day living room into a place of shamanic ritual. Christian Rätsch and Claudia Müller-Ebeling show how the ancient meaning of the botanical elements of Christmas provides a unique view of the religion that existed in Europe before the introduction of Christianity. The fir tree was originally revered as the sacred World Tree in northern Europe. When the church was unable to drive the tree cult out of people’s consciousness, it incorporated the fir tree by dedicating it to the Christ child. Father Christmas in his red-and-white suit, who flies through the sky in a sleigh drawn by reindeer, has his mythological roots in the shamanic reindeer-herding tribes of arctic Europe and Siberia. These northern shamans used the hallucinogenic fly agaric mushroom, which is red and white, to make their soul flights to the other world. Apples, which figure heavily in Christmas baking, are symbols of the sun god Apollo, so they find a natural place at winter solstice celebrations of the return of the sun. In fact, the authors contend that the emphasis of Christmas on green plants and the promise of the return of life in the dead of winter is just an adaptation of the pagan winter solstice celebration.
Download or read book The Krampus and the Old Dark Christmas written by Al Ridenour and published by Feral House. This book was released on 2016-09-12 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Krampus, a folkloric devil associated with St. Nicholas in Alpine Austria and Germany, has been embraced by the American counterculture and is lately skewing mainstream. The new Christmas he seems to embody is ironically closer to an ancient understanding of the holiday as a perilous, haunted season. In the Krampus' world, witches rule Christmas, and saints can sometimes kill.
Download or read book The Magic of Christmas written by Trisha Ashley and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2011-10-03 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A deliciously seasonal and heart-warming tale from the No.1 bestselling author of The Christmas Invitation
Download or read book Christmas Magic written by Michael Garland and published by Puffin. This book was released on 2003-09-22 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No Marketing Blurb
Download or read book The Book of Christmas Folklore written by Tristram Potter Coffin and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Insights into the culture of pre-Christian Europe are provided as the author seeks out the origins and meanings of songs, food, legends, and other items associated with yuletide.
Download or read book Christmas in America written by Penne L. Restad and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1996-12-05 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The manger or Macy's? Americans might well wonder which is the real shrine of Christmas, as they take part each year in a mix of churchgoing, shopping, and family togetherness. But the history of Christmas cannot be summed up so easily as the commercialization of a sacred day. As Penne Restad reveals in this marvelous new book, it has always been an ambiguous meld of sacred thoughts and worldly actions-- as well as a fascinating reflection of our changing society. In Christmas in America, Restad brilliantly captures the rise and transformation of our most universal national holiday. In colonial times, it was celebrated either as an utterly solemn or a wildly social event--if it was celebrated at all. Virginians hunted, danced, and feasted. City dwellers flooded the streets in raucous demonstrations. Puritan New Englanders denounced the whole affair. Restad shows that as times changed, Christmas changed--and grew in popularity. In the early 1800s, New York served as an epicenter of the newly emerging holiday, drawing on its roots as a Dutch colony (St. Nicholas was particularly popular in the Netherlands, even after the Reformation), and aided by such men as Washington Irving. In 1822, another New Yorker named Clement Clarke Moore penned a poem now known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," virtually inventing the modern Santa Claus. Well-to-do townspeople displayed a German novelty, the decorated fir tree, in their parlors; an enterprising printer discovered the money to be made from Christmas cards; and a hodgepodge of year-end celebrations began to coalesce around December 25 and the figure of Santa. The homecoming significance of the holiday increased with the Civil War, and by the end of the nineteenth century a full- fledged national holiday had materialized, forged out of borrowed and invented custom alike, and driven by a passion for gift-giving. In the twentieth century, Christmas seeped into every niche of our conscious and unconscious lives to become a festival of epic proportions. Indeed, Restad carries the story through to our own time, unwrapping the messages hidden inside countless movies, books, and television shows, revealing the inescapable presence--and ambiguous meaning--of Christmas in contemporary culture. Filled with colorful detail and shining insight, Christmas in America reveals not only much about the emergence of the holiday, but also what our celebrations tell us about ourselves. From drunken revelry along colonial curbstones to family rituals around the tree, from Thomas Nast drawing the semiofficial portrait of St. Nick to the making of the film Home Alone, Restad's sparkling account offers much to amuse and ponder.
Download or read book Christmas Curiosities written by John Grossman and published by Harry N. Abrams. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A colorful assortment of two hundred antique postcards, greeting cards, advertising giveaways, and other ephemera from the Victorian and Edwardian eras offers a unusual study of the darker side of Christmas past, a holiday marked by dissipation, drunkeness, and other rowdy misbehavior.
Download or read book Russell s Christmas Magic written by Rob Scotton and published by . This book was released on 2016-10-01 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Russell's Christmas Magic Storybook Greetings
Download or read book The Magical Christmas Horse written by Mary Higgins Clark and published by Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books. This book was released on 2011-10-25 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling collaborators Mary Higgins Clark and Wendell Minor tell a touching Christmas story of a heartwarming family celebration and the meaning of Christmas. Johnny’s wish had come true. His family would be visiting his grandparents for Christmas. His grandparents lived in an old house in New England where his father had been born. The family together, the smells of the cookies baking, the snowy Christmas tree farm with trees of so many shapes and sizes, and most of all the wooden horse he had told his brother Liam about would make this the best Christmas ever. In his grandparents’ attic Johnny finds many treasures, but the wooden horse he remembered so well is missing. How can Johnny make his brother’s Christmas wish come true? Beloved and internationally bestselling author Mary Higgins Clark’s loving story together with Wendell Minor’s captivating paintings make The Magical Christmas Horse a book that captures the true heart of Christmas and one that families will make part of their Christmas tradition year after year.
Download or read book A Magical Christmas written by Heather Graham and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-11-06 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An enchanting and heartwarming story, A Magical Christmas is a perfect gift for the season.”—RT Book Reviews From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Heather Graham comes a wondrous Christmas romance to be reread and cherished anew each year.... Jon and Julie Radcliff are facing the last Christmas of a marriage in trouble. The love they once shared has been tattered by time and torn apart by divergent goals. Their teenagers, Christie and Jordan, are rebellious, and their youngest child, six-year-old Ashley, is showing the hurt and confusion of her family’s turmoil. Yet somehow the Christmas season must be gotten through, even if it is only for appearance’s sake. The perfect place for this is the Oak River Plantation, where the Radcliffs are promised a traditional Christmas. So imagine their surprise when they are met by the quaint couple in charge, Jesse and Clarissa Wainscott, dressed in costumes dating from before the Civil War. Have they somehow entered a place that spans the gulf between past and present? Before Jon and Julie and their children can uncover the secrets surrounding their mysterious but marvelous hosts, they become aware of some profound truths about themselves—and they discover that love lost can be found, making the bond of marriage and family strong enough to survive—even triumph.
Download or read book Ghosts of Christmas Past written by Neil Gaiman and published by John Murray. This book was released on 2017-10-19 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A present contains a monstrous secret. An uninvited guest haunts a Christmas party. A shadow slips across the floor by firelight. A festive entertainment ends in darkness and screams. Who knows what haunts the night at the dark point of the year? This collection of seasonal chillers looks beneath Christmas cheer to a world of ghosts and horrors, mixing terrifying modern fiction with classic stories by masters of the macabre. From Neil Gaiman and M. R. James to Muriel Spark and E. Nesbit, there are stories here to make the hardiest soul quail - so find a comfy chair, lock the door, ignore the cold breath on your neck and get ready to welcome in the real spirits of Christmas.
Download or read book The Christmas Wish written by Lori Evert and published by Random House Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2013-09-10 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of The Snowman and The Polar Express, this cozy Nordic tale filled with extraordinary photographs will have readers of all ages dreaming of magical places where wintry wishes come true. Long ago, a little girl named Anja wanted to be one of Santa's elves. Since she lives somewhat near the North Pole, she thinks about it quite often. One holiday season, she decides to do something about it. So she tidies up her home, straps on her snowshoes, and heads out into the snowy landscape. Enlisting the help of some woodland friends on her wonder-filled journey, Anja makes her way to Santa to see if he might grant her this special Christmas wish. This Read & Listen edition contains audio narration.
Download or read book The Winter Solstice written by John Matthews and published by Quest Books. This book was released on 2003 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many of us long for an alternative to the commercial industry Christmas has become. This beautifully illustrated, full-color book, brimming with folklore, stories, recipes, games, activities, decorating ideas, songs, and other resources, will help families who are "burned out" on Christmas create alternative celebrations more in keeping with the heartful spirit of the original Winter Solstice festivals.
Download or read book A Bag for Santa written by Kendra Esbrook and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Magic of Friendship Snow written by Andi Cann and published by Mindview Press. This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Jojo looks around and everyone seems to have friends but her. She feels sad and lonely. She wonders, how do you make a friend? How do you BE a friend? Then, Jojo meets Puddles, the snowman made with magic snow. The discovery of a best friend is a precious gift of childhood." -- back cover.
Download or read book The Magic of Christmas written by Claire Freedman and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Little Mouse wants to know what makes Christmas magic. One by one, the other mice tell Little Mouse what they love most about Christmas. The story is told in four-line, rhymed verses.
