Professor Carol
As Christmas Eve draws near, our family friends in Weimar pull out their East-German tinsel from the attic. They gingerly unwrap long bundles of it, packed away the previous Christmas, and then, carefully, press the strands with a cool iron. As you might guess, this … Read more
“When is Christmas?” If you have little ones in your household, this question is floating in the air. A grandchild asked it of me yesterday. She seemed astonished to learn that Christmas Eve would be coming in one week, despite seeing three candles lit in … Read more
The topic of Shepherds has arisen previously in this Advent Calendar. At that time we were knee-deep raising goats and cows. Now we are urban folk, knee-deep in grandchildren and legos. Still, the lessons learned from a decade of raising livestock continue to speak their … Read more
It’s beginning to look a lot like a blizzard, Everywhere you go. . . . A blizzard of confectionary sugar, that is. It’s Heritage Cookie Week—time to haul out the recipe cards penned in beautiful cursive by our ancestors and bring them back to life. … Read more
King Herod is definitely the bad guy of the Christmas Story. His vindictive order to kill all baby boys in the region echoes eerily back to the Old Testament account of Pharoah’s order that sent baby Moses down the river in a reed basket. Anyone … Read more
The scents of the Christmas season account for so much of its specialness. In fact, no other holiday has such delicious odors trumpeting its arrival. Think of cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg wafting from the seasonal cookies and cakes in our ovens. Hot grog and spiced … Read more
Today we celebrate the Third Sunday of Advent, a Sunday associated with the name Gaudete, or Rejoicing Sunday. In the past on this Sunday we have reveled in featuring our favorite setting of the liturgical text for Gaudete. Oh, do we love to sing, hear, … Read more
Sometimes we hear people say, “Is no one writing beautiful music any more?” If you have wondered this as well, here is happy news. The day when “modern music” equated to purely mathematical constructions (twelve-tone system) and acerbic sounds is long over. Particularly in the … Read more
This evening at sunset begins Hanukkah, an eight-day observance starting on what historically was the 25th day of Kislev, the ninth month of the Hebrew ecclesiastical calendar. In recent decades Hanukkah has been marketed to seem like a parallel festivity to Christmas. The only parallel, … Read more
What if you wrote 600 short stories, but posterity remembers you for just one? Would you be pleased? It’s hard to know what American writer O. Henry (1862-1910) would say about our ongoing embrace of his thought-provoking story The Gift of the Magi, first published … Read more