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We at The Laughing Elephant believe that Christmas, like other celebrations and holidays, is – in addition to its other roles - a complex set of feelings built on our memories of a shared cultural heritage. Few of us in the 21st century have seen a flaming Christmas pudding or Yule log or ridden in a one horse open sleigh, and yet these, and other holiday icons, have become embedded in our collective ideal of Christmas through culture and tradition. In The Laughing Elephant’s Book of Christmas we attempt to bring to vivid life – through a montage of vintage images and appropriate words – the most treasured ideals of Christmases past.
This book presents more than a hundred wonderful images celebrating various aspects of Christmas. Themes includes: Santa’s workshop, Letters to Santa, gift shopping and wrapping, decorating the house and tree, Christmas Eve, carol singing, the nativity and animals at Christmas. Though principally visual, The Laughing Elephant's Book of Christmas includes poems and quotations celebrating the Yuletide including “The Night Before Christmas,” “The Twelve Days of Christmas” and some less well-known, but no less wonderful, Christmas verse.
Each of us holds, in our minds and hearts, a different Christmas, for our individual experiences of it are varied, but there is a core essence, and here, in this book we attempt a synthesis that will capture something of that essence. As in almost all of our publications, the visual is primary. It is our belief that images help us to find meaning. Artists select moments from the ever-shifting flow of reality and freeze them. We offer 100 such moments - reinforcing them with quotations that hopefully explain, and deepen - our carefully selected series of Christmas images. . . We draw our pictures from our library that contains more than 20,000 illustrated books and countless pieces of paper ephemera. Our focus is childhood, and Christmas is supreme in the childish imagination. The Big Book of Christmas is roughly arranged to show a Christmas as it unfolds in time. We begin with dreams of Christmas and letters to Santa and end with the Nativity. We hope this collection deepens your experience of this most beloved holiday. Merry Christmas!
Excerpted from The Laughing Elephant's Book of Christmas by Welleran Poltarnees Copyright © 2012 by Welleran Poltarnees. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Preface Dreaming of Christmas Letters to Santa Claus Santa at Work Shopping Wrapping Gifts Gathering Greenery House Decoration Getting a Tree Decorating the Tree Around the Christmas Tree Christmas Eve Santa’s Arrival Down the Chimney Santa at Work Christmas Morning Christmas Carols At Church Christmas Eccentricities The Twelve Days of Christmas Animals at Christmas ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas Santa With the Children Santa in All His Variety The Nativity Christmas Cards
Overview
We at The Laughing Elephant believe that Christmas, like other celebrations and holidays, is – in addition to its other roles - a complex set of feelings built on our memories of a shared cultural heritage. Few of us in the 21st century have seen a flaming Christmas pudding or Yule log or ridden in a one horse open sleigh, and yet these, and other holiday icons, have become embedded in our collective ideal of Christmas through culture and tradition. In The Laughing Elephant’s Book of Christmas we attempt to...