Hello Darklings,
Well the frost is on the rooftops and the cars only to be
melted by the sun.
The house is now decorated for Christmas and I know we’ll be
finding the needles from the trees well into July, we had fun selecting the trees at this tree
lot run by one of our local churches for their school programs so it works out
very well.
My brother and sister in law decided to go with a smaller
tree to sit on top of a table, Melissa
my sister in law said that with two very active boys in the house it was wiser
to go that way. Coralline and
Christopher were helping with the selecting,
I bought two trees, a larger one for the formal parlor and a smaller one
for the family parlor. Later that
evening I had a tree decorating party with family and friends, with nibbles and refreshments it was good
fun. And now they stand in all their
glory for the Holidays, we also got
wreathes for our front doors as well.
And afterwards everyone relaxed and I could let the dogs out
of their holding place in the kitchen so they would not be underfoot, but I did
see Mr. Rodgers giving them treats (doggie treats) every so often.
It was a very good and happy evening.
This last weekend we went back to the Dickens Faire to keep
us in the Christmas Spirit, but I have
to admit both my brother, sister in law and I got very tired but the children
had fun looking at one exhibit or display or performance to another. My brother got into the swing of it having
cobbled together a Dickens type outfit but I wasn’t too sure about the cloth
hat (newsboy style), that was remedied when we stepped into one of the men’s
clothiers and he bought a proper top hat and spats, then it was perfect. The
food, the entertainment, the pretties, such an assault to the senses, but like
memories of sugar plums leave a lovely lasting impression.
The family was over the other night for a simple
dinner, afterwards Chris asked if we
could watch a PBS program about Sherlock Holmes and how this fictional
character helped create or inspire modern forensic science,
Christopher is very strong in science and is thinking of majoring in it
at college but he wasn’t sure what classes he’d need to take. I think I’ll introduce him to a friend of
mine to help give him an idea.
Coralline
was writing down the book titles that some of the interviewees’ had written,
but what made such an impression on them was the film recording of Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle, hearing his voice and comments on Sherlock, both of them said they’d like to go to London
just to go to the Sherlock Holmes museum,
my brother said there’s more to London than that and they said “Of
Course!” and Christopher immediately ran off a list of sights to see and tours
to take. I was pleased.
One remark that impressed me was the idea that Sherlock
Holmes is very gothic in style, and outlook, I had not thought of that only
that I enjoyed the stories, I had only
thought of “the Hound of the Baskerville’s” as being gothic but when one takes
it in they all are.
We have other Christmas events planned, and we all agreed to
not exchange presents, what with the price of goods going up, but I think I’ll surprise
the children with a few gifts on New Year’s.
I’ve come across a
wonderfully delightful program on PBS and I believe the series is available on
DVD, it’s call “Dickensian” these
writers managed to put together some of the characters in the different Charles
Dickens stories such as A Christmas Carol, Bleak House, Great Expectations,
Oliver Twist, The Old Curiosity Shop etc. into what appears to be a Prequel to
the individual stories using the death of Jacob Marley as the event to start
it---he gets murdered, the time line
seems to go from one Christmas to the next.
And in some way the characters have a connection to Jacob Marley so they
come under suspicion. I love it so
far, and want to see how it develops.
In it’s own way it’s dark and Gothic.
But I’ve found a perfect gift that is also Gothic and morbid,
it’s Chris Woodyard’s book “The Victorian Book of the Dead”
This is how the description of the Book goes:
Chris Woodyard, author
of the The Ghosts of the Past series, digs through long-buried newspapers and
journals, for this fascinating look at the 19th-century obsession with the
culture of death. The Victorian Book of the Dead unearths extraordinary tales of
Victorian funeral fads and fancies, ghost stories, bizarre deaths, mourning
novelties, gallows humor, premature burial, post-mortem photographs, death
omens, and funeral disasters. Resurrected from original sources, these accounts
reveal the oddities and eccentricities of Victorian mourning. Packed with
macabre anecdotes, this diverting, yet gruesome collection presents tales
ranging from the paranormal and shocking to the heartbreaking. Some of the
stories in The Victorian Book of the Dead *mourning bicycles, black boudoirs,
and sable cigarettes for the up-to-date widow *a child ghost who beckoned for
her father to follow her into death *black dogs and shrieking banshee who
foretold death and disaster *the widow who fired the undertaker who would not
give her trading stamps. *a corpse that spontaneously combusted in the coffin
*the fiendish parrot who murdered his mistress *The petrified corpse furniture
created by Professor Segato *visions of the Grim Reaper and the Angel of Death
*the man who lived in the tomb of his wife *A mourning wreath made from the
hair of a murdered family *interviews with undertakers, post-mortem
photographers and morgue attendants And many more tales from the crypts
Well I am certainly going to get my own copy, and look into
the other books that Mr. Woodyard has in this series, Ahhh the beauty of
ordering on-line.
In the meantime My Darklings, you enjoy the Holidays with
all the joys and headaches it offers.
Later Darklings
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