In fifth or sixth and seventh grade -- and maybe fourth and eighth -- I had a Christmas tradition that was just for me. I didn't think anyone else would appreciate it. A few days before December 25th, I would set aside time to read Christmas chapters in books.
Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
Practically Seventeen, by Rosamond du Jardin
I think there were a couple other books with Christmas-time sequences in them that I liked, but cannot remember them now.
------------------ [excerpt from Practically Seventeen] -------------------------------- Besides wonderful food, Joe's Grill has a juke box with the newest records in town, so naturally there is always a mob of people we know there. It's lots of fun dancing in the little open space around the juke box and the men cut in just as they do at the regular dances and it is all very gay and informal.
After Brose and I had been there a little while I noticed Adam and Alicia dancing 'way over in the corner, but they didn't see us, at least I didn't think so.
Maybe they just pretended not to so Adam wouldn't have to dance with me, although as far as I, personally, am concerned, he is doing me a favor not to, because I think most older men are terrible dancers.
And Adam is certainly no exception. Alicia kept her eyes shut all the time because it is a standing rule in Edgewood that when a girl is dancing with her eyes shut she is perfectly contented and doesn't want to be cut in on. Now I am very fond of Brose and love to dance with him, but I make it a point never to keep my eyes shut more than five minutes, because I think it is bad form. And anyway, life is too short.
They left before we did and I guess Alicia can see with her eyes shut, because when Brose and I got home Janet came out of the library with a pen in her hand (she had obviously been writing to Jimmy) and fire in her eye.
She said, "It was my lipstick! Alicia saw you running around with your mouth all over your face. Give it to me this minute!"
I gave it to her silently and Brose squeezed my elbow in admiration for such patient forbearance and Janet went back into the library with her darned old lipstick. It was still quite early, not yet ten, so Brose and I thought we would find some private spot and talk awhile. Although hoping to find a private spot in our home is really nothing more than wishful thinking.
Since Janet was using the library, we looked into the living-room. The fireplace was very inviting with its blazing logs and cheerfully crackling flames, but Alicia and Adam were sitting on a loveseat which was pulled up to face the hearth. Although we had scarcely made a sound, Alicia said, without taking her eyes from Adam, "Go away, you two. We got here first."
Next we tried the dining-room, but Mom and Dad were wrapping gifts in there. The dining table was stacked with intriguing boxes and there was a drift of holly paper and silver ribbon everywhere. ------------------------------- [end, excerpt]
* * * *
The name of the book's author, du Jardin, was an object of fascination and mystery to me. A last name that was two separate words, the first one not capitalized.
doo JAR din
My mother said it was
doo zhar DAHN
with the last syllable ending in a nasal, swallowed "n" - French style.
This kind of captured my imagination.
Practically Seventeen was originally published in 1949.
Amazon has it in a Kindle edition for $6.99, and in hardcover for $768.57.
(Eyebrows raised so high, they sail off into the air above my head. Yikes.)
The copy I had as a grade schooler was paperback -- I think it was handed down to me by a cousin in Orwell, Ohio.
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Rosamond du Jardin wrote a bunch of novels featuring teenaged girls and their crushes and romances--class rings, etc. The heroines of the books -- Tobey Heydon; Marcy Rhodes; Penny and Pam Howard -- were always sixteen or so. But I believe most of the readers were younger girls, as I was. In grade school and junior high, you want to read about kids in high school.
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And speaking of kids in high school, one more cover of this week's Chuck Berry song is a Christmas present to the world!
On you tube (adblock) type in
Chuck Berry - 30 Days (Skeleton Dolls Cover)
uploader: Skeleton Dolls
First they talk about Chuck Berry and his music - the singing begins at 2:17. Their enthusiasm is so inspiring!
PLAY
-30-
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