The book dialog game

[Daithi]

Yeah, this looks like another Christmas book I haven't read. Dickens and children's books are pretty much the gamut of Christmas book knowledge.



<-- this is me ashamed

Originally Posted by issybird

Buddy pretty much does it, just like Mrs. Prothero.

I would have thought that the reference to kites would have been what gave it away. So here are a couple more for others:

"Oh my," she exclaims, her breath smoking the windowpane, "it's fruitcake weather!"

The person to whom she is speaking is myself. I am seven; she is sixty-something, We are cousins, very distant ones, and we have lived together—well, as long as I can remember. Other people inhabit the house, relatives; and though they have power over us, and frequently make us cry, we are not, on the whole, too much aware of them. We are each other's best friend. She calls me Buddy, in memory of a boy who was formerly her best friend. The other Buddy died in the 1880's, when she was still a child. She is still a child.

But gradually in her letters she tends to confuse me with her other friend, the Buddy who died in the 1880's; more and more, thirteenths are not the only days she stays in bed: a morning arrives in November, a leafless birdless coming of winter morning, when she cannot rouse herself to exclaim: "Oh my, it's fruitcake weather! "

And when that happens, I know it. A message saying so merely confirms a piece of news some secret vein had already received, severing from me an irreplaceable part of myself, letting it loose like a kite on a broken string. That is why, walking across a school campus on this particular December morning, I keep searching the sky. As if I expected to see, rather like hearts, a lost pair of kites hurrying toward heaven.

That ending always makes my eyes water.

I believe that I could probably quote the entire short story without any better results. Therefore it is up to Issybird.

Spoiler:

There is a nice for television adaption of this that is a must see for me each holiday season. I have it on DVD, but it is available in pieces up on Youtube;

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

I believe that I could probably quote the entire short story without any better results. Therefore it is up to Issybird.

Spoiler:

There is a nice for television adaption of this that is a must see for me each holiday season. I have it on DVD, but it is available in pieces up on Youtube;

It is, as your spoiler shows, A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote.

From another (very) short story, so I may well end up quoting the entire thing:

She had a splendid Christmas all day. She ate so much candy that she did not want any breakfast, and the whole forenoon the presents kept pouring in that had not been delivered the night before, and she went round giving the presents she had got for other people, and came home and ate turkey and cranberry for dinner, and plum pudding and nuts and raisins and oranges, and then went out and coasted, and came in with a stomachache crying, and her papa said he would see if his house was turned into that sort of fool's paradise another year, and they had a light supper, and pretty early everybody went to bed cross.

[HomeInMyShoes]

I don't usually read seasonal material and haven't read many short stories over the years. This will be a bust for me.

[Daithi]

Hey! I know this one, but I can't remember the author's name. I'll wait to see if anybody knows the title and author before I say anything.

[issybird]

She was dreadfully sleepy, but she sprang up and darted into the library. There it was again! Books, and boxes of stationery, and dolls, and so on.

There was the Christmas tree blazing away, and the family picking out their presents, and her father looking perfectly puzzled, and her mother ready to cry. "I'm sure I don't see how I'm to dispose of all these things," said her mother, and her father said it seemed to him they had had something just like it the day before, but he supposed he must have dreamed it. This struck the little girl as the best kind of a joke, and so she ate so much candy she didn't want any breakfast, and went round carrying presents, and had turkey and cranberry for dinner, and then went out and coasted, and came in with a stomachache, crying.

Now, the next day, it was the same thing over again, but everybody getting crosser, and at the end of a week's time so many people had lost their tempers that you could pick up lost tempers anywhere, they perfectly strewed the ground. Even when people tried to recover their tempers they usually got somebody else's, and it made the most dreadful mix.

[issybird]

Here's two more quotes. The story was written in 1892 by someone who was well-known but is no longer in favor, best known to those of a certain age as the author of a quite dull novel on some high school reading lists. Don't be shy, Daithi!

After a while turkeys got to be awfully scarce, selling for about a thousand dollars apiece. They got to passing off almost anything for turkeys--even half-grown hummingbirds. And cranberries--well they asked a diamond apiece for cranberries. All the woods and orchards were cut down for Christmas trees. After a while they had to make Christmas trees out of rags. But there were plenty of rags, because people got so poor, buying presents for one another, that they couldn't get any new clothes, and they just wore their old ones to tatters. They got so poor that everybody had to go to the poorhouse, except the confectioners, and the storekeepers, and the book-sellers, and they all got so rich and proud that they would hardly wait upon a person when he came to buy. It was perfectly shameful!

and


Well, with no Christmas ever again, there was the greatest rejoicing all over the country. People met together everywhere and kissed and cried for joy. Carts went around and gathered up all the candy and raisins and nuts, and dumped them into the river, and it made the fish perfectly sick. And the whole United States, as far out as Alaska, was one blaze of bonfires, where the children were burning up their presents of all kinds. They had the greatest time!

[Daithi]

I read it way back in junior high, and still remember it. I think it is called Christmas Everyday or something pretty close to that. I have no idea what the author's name is. I like the way the story starts. The dad starts to tell his daughter a story and begins "Once upon a time there was a little pig..." The daughter interrupts him and says something to the effect of, "Dad, the little pig stories are played out."

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Daithi

I read it way back in junior high, and still remember it. I think it is called Christmas Everyday or something pretty close to that. I have no idea what the author's name is. I like the way the story starts. The dad starts to tell his daughter a story and begins "Once upon a time there was a little pig..." The daughter interrupts him and says something to the effect of, "Dad, the little pig stories are played out."

Yes! I wasn't sure that anyone would get this one. The author is William Dean Howells (full disclosure: I didn't remember his name either). For anyone who wants this very quick read, here's a link:
http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/wdh/xmaseday.html

What's next, Daithi?

[Daithi]

Ok, because I just can't help myself--

They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds.

All minds, <snip>, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

[Daithi]

Here's another quote--

Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders that are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, or even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernatural beauty and glory beyond.

Is it all real? Ah, <snip>, in all this world there is nothing else as real and abiding.

[issybird]

Nice one! Another classic.

[Daithi]

It looks like Issybird knows what it is, and she is certainly welcome to spill the beans, but here is one more clue that will probably give it away.

Spoiler:

Dear Editor,

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say that there is no Santa Claus. Papa says "If you see it in the Sun, it is so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Late to the party, but I also recall this classic defense of a childhood Christmas icon. I'll also keep quiet in hopes this show will expand beyond the recent view.