How Could I Forget?

Here's one more Christmas book recommendation that slipped my mind – shame on me! In my world, it's not really Christmas unless you're snuggled up in your favourite jammies with a hot drink, a warm blanket and a few fat kitties, and you're reading Christmas At The New Yorker. This was one of my Christmas gifts last year (hugs and kisses, Guido!), and I shall read it every Christmas from now on, as part of my Christmas reading rituals.

The book is a delicious cornucopia of stories, poems, humour and art all about this crazy time of year. Beautiful New Yorker Christmas covers are scattered throughout the book, both old and more contemporary illustrations. I found this one particularly charming, as I've always had a sweet spot for the artwork of Helen Hopkinson:

You will recognize some of the Christmas stories in this collection from Alberto Manguel's Penguin Book of Christmas Stories, but there are many other wonderful contributors, such as: H.L. Mencken, Odgen Nash, Calvin Trillin, E.B. White, Roger Angell, S.J. Perelman, Harold Ross and James Thurber.

At the end of the book is a delightful selection of New Yorker Christmas poems, which may not exactly put you in the traditional Christmas spirit, but will certainly make you laugh and ponder:

Christmas Family Reunion
Peter De Vries – 1949

Since last the tutelary hearth
Has seen this bursting pod of kin,
I've thought how good the family mold,
How solid and how genuine.

Now once again the aunts are here,
The uncles, sisters, brothers,
With candy in the children's hair,
The grownups in each other's.

There's talk of saving room for pie;
Grandma discusses her neuralgia.
I long for time to pass so I
Can think of all this with nostalgia.

One last tidbit from this charming book. Probably my favourite Charles Addams cartoon, ever:

Comments

[slimbolala]

Love the Addams cartoon. I really don't know much of his stuff and clearly must learn more. It is obviously an essential element in the de-whippersnappering of any illustration enthusiast.

[patricia]

Oh yes, slimbolala, do go to the library and check out some of the Addams cartoon collections. His work is witty, engaging, frightening and utterly amazing. I used to go to my local library in Burlington, Ontario as a kid and sign out his books as well as any New Yorker collections I could find.

You do realize that the TV show 'The Addams Family' was inspired by his cartoons?

[bloglily]

Wonderful! I'm going to order that in a second. And the Addams cartoon? Extremely funny, especially since I had to scroll down to see who was about to be on the receiving end of that cauldron of bubbling hot something or other.

[Brandon]

I love the cartoon. It looks like something right out of "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell."

[Bernita]

The cartoons!
Snorksnorksnork!

[Bernita]

Oh, and Merreee Christmas!