Welcoming the New Year in 1908 and 1912.

"Auld Lang Syne" was a Scots poem written by Robert Burns in 1788 and set to a folk tune of the day. Similar sentiments have been attributed to other writers of even earlier times.

The tune was made popular by Canadian band leader, Guy Lombardo, starting in 1929. (Wikipedia)

(Postcards from 1908 and 1912)

Smile for Today ~

Put "Eat chocolate" at the top of your list of things to do today.
That way, at least you'll get one thing done!"

Forget love ~ I'd rather fall in chocolate.

My soul's had enough chicken soup. It wants chocolate!

Chocolate is cheaper than therapy, and you don't need an appointment.

Hand over the chocolate
and no one gets hurt!

For the love of chocolate, Hallmark Books, 2005.

Wishing You A Happy New Year

(Postcards from 1907, 09 and 1917.)

Gizmo says, "Dress warmly, get lots of rest, eat and drink real food ~ nutritious fruits, vegetables, whole grains and proteins."

Let us add, "You might want to consider getting your flu shot."

Yours truly is at home with fever, body aches, extreme tiredness and cough. It could be worse but when the flu keeps one down for four days, one needs to examine what we could do better!

The store remains open. Story Hour is cancelled just for today, Wednesday, December, 29.

Photo: Courtesy of Faye Farrance.

A Peaceful CHRISTMAS to You and Yours

Never a Christmas Morning,

Never a New Year Ends,

But someone thinks of someone,

Old Days, Old Times, Old Friends.

Post card sent Dec. 21st, 1930. For larger image, dbl. click on picture.

"Teach us delight in simple things."

~ Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936) Nobel Prize winner for literature in 1907

At this time of year, things can seem complicated, let us keep in mind Kipling's thought: "Teach us delight in simple things."

Snowballs ~ This cookie recipe has been around for a long time. It is easy, quick and unbaked ~ and good.

1 cup unhydrogenated peanut butter
1 cup icing sugar (confectioners)
1 Tablespoon soft butter
1 pinch of salt

Mix well, then add
1 cup Rice Krispies
1/2 cup walnuts

Roll into balls.

Icing ~ if desired.

1 1/2 cup icing sugar
2 Tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
A bit of milk to make thin icing.

Roll balls in icing. (Then in coconut. Optional.) *

Tips: A film of oil on fingers will save sticking.
*This is a lot of icing; you may want to use less.

Familiar Faces Back on Cayuga Street

Sylvia and Ode Back Behind the Bar

Nancy taking time out to sit on Santa's lap.

Welcome Back, Back 40!

New owner, Sylvia, welcomes old and new customers ~ traditional and contemporary.

Local hockey team ~

Even Santa came to town! Friends, neighbours, regulars. The Back 40 reopened today at 11:00 a.m. on Cayuga Street ~ in time for Wednesday-Wing Special ~ 49 Cents.

Bob Logan returned behind the scene. (Acting as consultant, out of habit and consideration for customers, the former owner salted the icy sidewalk. Thanks, Bob.) New owner, Sylvia, welcomed old and new patrons. Nancy, Megan, Ode and Zack served lunch.

Welcome back, Back 40! We join everyone in wishing you great success.

Note:To view larger images, dbl. click on photo. lw

Cheryl MacDonald has written extensively on the history of Haldimand and Norfolk, Ontario. One of her most recent books, Shipwrecks of the Great Lakes ~ Tales of Courage ~ and Cowardice, provides a tantalizing look at a few of the 6,000 ships that have gone to their watery graves on the Great Lakes, Canada.

2010, Amazing Stories, James Lorimer & Company Ltd., http://www.lorimer.ca/

Available at The Neat Little Bookshop $9.95

Also, click on Cheryl MacDonald's blog in The Neat Little Bookshop Followers. (See Colonel in red dress coat.)

Lore & Legends of Long Point, Lake Erie

A Perfect Gift: "An affectionate history by Harry Barrett, a life-long resident of Port Dover, a great grandson of a keeper of the Long Point Light, and an authority on the history of the area.

Even today, although modern ways are encroaching on the Long Point Country, this remains a place where the past is close and the stories of pioneering, murders, mysteries and comic escapades are kept alive in families that have had their roots here for more than a hundred years." *

* Cover excerpt, Lore & Legends of LONG POINT, 1977.

Available at The Neat Little Bookshop, Soft cover 2000, 240 pgs, 9" x 8 3/4" ~ $20

Early Post Card, B. B. London. Series No X72 Printed in Germany.

"Sometimes I think that I just like pretty books!" Some of you have heard me say this.

Aside from its value, I think this is a pretty book.

Surely Hemingway must have felt the same ~ lw

The Old Man and the Sea, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952

For those of you following the Canadaville/Magnaville story, visit http://www.fox8live.com/ Click on Fox 8 Video. Search: Magnaville Update.

Shane Carmichael, Project Manager, recaps the Magnaville story and updates viewers on the five-year project. Magnaville, Louisiana, is a village that was created by a Canadian after hurricane Katrina to provide safe housing for evacuees mostly from Ward 9, New Orleans.

Carmichael divides his time between Lousiana and his lakehouse on the shores of Lake Erie in Haldimand County.

Dedicated to our Friend who is stranded in the Sarnia/Strathroy, Ontario, Snowstorm:

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

The Snow Man, Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955), American.
Won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1955 for a collection.

Christmas Mistletoe


Mistletoe has a long history in folklore and legend going as far back as the Druids who deemed it to have magical healing powers and to be a token of peace. At York Minster during the Middle Ages, a branch of mistletoe was laid on the altar during the Twelve Days of Christmas and a public peace proclaimed in the city for as long as it remained there.

Christmas Ivy

In Oxfordshire, England, a 17th century custom held that if maidservants asked a man to bring ivy for Christmas decoration and he did not, they were allowed to nail a pair of his breeches to the gate and to deny him the "well-known privilege of the mistletoe."

The World Encyclopedia of CHRISTMAS, McClelland & Stewart Ltd., 2000.

Original Post cards: 1912 & 1916.

The Ivy in The Holly and the Ivy:

The World Encyclopedia of CHRISTMAS* seems to have the most entertaining history of ivy. Apparently in ancient Rome, ivy was a symbol of wine and merriment. It was worn as an antidote to drunkenness but was adopted by Christians as a symbol of human weakness and the need to cling to "divine strength."

In England the ivy vine is used along with holly to decorate churches at Christmas time.

In Scotland young women would hold a sprig of holly to their hearts, chanting,
"Ivy, Ivy, I love you;/ In my bosom I put you,/ The first young man who speaks to me/ My future husband shall be." [Amazing the trust placed in a sprig of ivy!]

*McClelland & Stewart Ltd., 2000.
Tomorrow: A fascinating custom determining whether or not a man was extended the well-known privilege of the mistletoe.

Holly's Supernatural Qualities
"May your future hopes come true"

Pick nine berries in silence at Friday midnight, tie the berries with nine knots in a three-cornered handkerchief, and place them under your pillow. If you can remain silent until the next morning, you will dream of your future spouse.

Holly is also used to ward off demons. In Louisiana, U.S.A., berries are said to protect folk from the evil eye and lightning, a belief that applies in Germany as well, as long as the holly has previously been used in decorating a church.

Toss a sprig of holly on the Christmas fire and you are guaranteed an end to all your troubles!

Perhaps best of all, folklore has it that the prickly-leafed holly is considered "male" and the smooth-leafed variety "female." Which type is brought into the house first at Christmas, determines who rules the roost that year, the husband or the wife.

S0-0, toss a piece of holly onto the fire; combine that with the right variety ~ and your year is sure to be a good one!

Source: The World Encyclopedia of CHRISTMAS, McClelland & Stewart Ltd., 2000.

Postcard images from The Old-Fashioned Postcard Book, Sterling Publishing Co., 1993. For larger image, click on picture.

The Holly and The Ivy

"The holly and the ivy,
When they are both full grown,
Of all the trees that are in the wood,
The holly bears the crown."

This six-verse song first appeared in an English broadside* of 1710; later published in a collection in 1861. By 1953 The Holly and the Ivy had been made into a movie.


Holly has long been associated with Christmas. Its image appears on decorations, on wrap and Christmas cards. Sprigs of holly are hung in wreaths, on mantles and over doorways. The red berries and green leaves make the plant an attractive choice in December.

*A broadside was a large single-sheet, printed on one side, often of illustrated ballads.

Tomorrow: In many countries the holly is thought to have supernatural qualities.

Thought for Today:

"One can never pay in gratitude, one can only pay 'in kind' somewhere else in life."

~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh, American author.

The movie, It's a Wonderful Life, is based on a short story, The Greatest Gift. The author could not interest a publisher in his work so he had the story printed on Christmas cards and sent to 200 friends. A Hollywood agent was among the recipients. He convinced RKO studio that it would make a great movie.

Even after its release as a movie in 1946 it was not an instant success. For years after its copyright expired in 1974, television stations broadcast it without charge.

In 1993 Republic Entertainment assumed control of the copyright and broadcast fees are once again in effect.
Starring in this Frank Capra Christmastime film are Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Ward Bond and Frank Faylen.

The World Encyclopedia of Christmas, McClelland & Stewart Ltd., 2000.

Charles Dickens describes a Victorian Christmas tree ~ the centrepiece of the seasons' decorations :

"I have been looking on ,this evening, at a merry company of children assembled round that pretty German toy, a Christmas Tree. The tree was planted in the middle of a great round table, and towered high above their heads. It was brilliantly lighted by a multitude of little tapers; and everywhere sparkled and glittered with bright objects. There were rosy-cheeked dolls, hiding behind the green leaves; and there were real watches (with movable hands, at least, and an endless capacity of being wound up) dangling from innumerable twigs;

"there were French-polished tables, chairs, bedsteads, wardrobes, eight-day clocks, and various other articles of domestic furniture (wonderfully made, in tin, at Wolverhampton), perched among the boughs, as if in preparation for some fairy housekeeping; there were jolly, broad-faced little men, much more agreeable in appearance than many real men -- and no wonder, for their heads took off, and showed them to be full of sugar-plums; there were fiddles and drums; there were tambourines, books, work-boxes, paint-boxes, sweetmeat-boxes, peep-show boxes, and all kinds of boxes;

"there were trinkets for the elder girls, far brighter than any grown-up gold and jewels; there were baskets and pincushions in all devices; there were guns, swords, and banners; there were witches standing in enchanted rings of pasteboard, to tell fortunes; there were teetotums, humming-tops, needle-cases, pen-wipers, smelling bottles, conversation-cards, bouquet-holders; real fruit, made artificially dazzling with goldleaf; imitation apples, pears, and walnuts, crammed with surprises; in short, as a pretty child, before me, delightedly whispered to another pretty child, her bosom friend, "There was everything, and more."

"This motley collection of odd objects, clustering on the tree like magic fruit. . ."

The Victorian Christmas Book, Antony & Peter Miall, J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1978.

For larger image, dbl. click on picture of old post card.

Santa Claus Parade 2010 Cayuga

If you had told Cabernet five years ago that she would shivering in a Santa Claus parade in Canada, she might have covered her ears with her paws. Cabernet is a rescued dog from New Orleans' Katrina.

Cayuga Santa Claus Parade 2010 ~

(For larger image dbl. click on photo.) More parade photos on Lorna's Facebook.

Feel free to tag if identity known. Thanks.

Rebecca is on her way to Friday Light Up Night in Cayuga.

Animal Stories ~

Part chihuahua, part pincher, Uno prefers the classics; however, when pressed he will read Animal Stories.

"It is only with the heart that one can see right;
what is essential is invisible to the eye." *

We pass on to you today the above Daily Quote from
Johnathan Huie. www.dreamthisday.com sent to us by a friend.

* Antoine de Saint Exupery (1900 - 1944) French writer, aviator.

Saint Exupery vanished in a plane over the Mediterranean. For photos of bracelet discovered at the bottom of the sea in 1998 go to Wikepedia; search Antoine de Saint Exupery. Best known for his books The Little Prince and Wind, Sand and Stars.
http://www.wikipedia.org/

Our thoughts and prayers are with Barbara and family, Michael, Ann and Sue in the loss of their husband, father, grandfather and brother, David Harvey Wase. Our sincere condolences to Dave's sister, Mary.

Condolences to the family may be expressed at http://www.cooperfuneralhome.ca/

"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity." ~ Guilda Radner, quotation on website Cooper Funeral Home, Jarvis, Ontario.

Photo: November Sunset on Lake Erie, Ontario ~ Lorna

MURRAY & ME ~ A rare look back at the thirties in rural Ontario.

Author and historian Harry B. Barrett relates the historic installation of the controversial new hydro-electric power lines. He tells the story of travelling in a cutter and upsetting on a hill. "I remember our upsetting in the ditch. . . Suddenly I seemed smothered in snow from beneath and by the fur of my Grandfather's coon-skin coat."
The reader learns the origin and tales connected with such places as "Dog's Nest" and Port Dover. The author reflects on earlier days -- his conversations with old neighbours and friends -- to explain the financing and hardship in building the Hamilton-to-Port Dover Plank Road.
One can imagine Harry Barrett sitting around the kitchen table with his childhood friend, Murray Hammond, sharing the stories that eventually became the book, MURRAY & ME.

The book is dedicated to "the hardy pioneers of the Long Point County, many of whom were ancestors to Murray and Me, who toiled to turn the Carolinian Forests into the smiling farmlands and orderly communities that we enjoy today."

* Harry B. Barrett, MURRAY & ME, 1999, Patterson's Creek Press, Morris Printing, Simcoe, Ontario. Photo: Cutter circa early 1900's. Family photo album, Lorna

CAYUGA LIGHT-UP NIGHT Friday Dec. 3, 6pm. at the Village Green. Followed by a candlelight walk to the Kinsmen Hall where Santa will host dancing and a magic show.
Free hot dogs and hot chocolate provided by the Cayuga & District Chamber of Commerce.

Photo: Santa in the Back 40, Cayuga St., 2009.

"Addressed Christmas cards tonight. There was a time when I used to hunt for the most suitable card for everyone on my list. I chose cards covered with lambs and reindeer for children, snow-scenes for friends who were wintering in Florida, High Church cards for friends of a ritualistic tendency. Low Church cards for evangelicals, Thick Church cards for those whose religion impressed me as a bit thick, cards with coaches and jolly drunken Englishmen on them for my jolly drunken American friends, and so forth. It was a lot of work, and I gave it up long ago. Now I buy cards in large inexpensive bundles, and send them out in whatever order they happen to come. . . . Like everybody else I am sending cards this year to people who sent me cards last year, but whom I forgot last year, and who will not send me cards this year. This desperate game goes on for decades, and there seems to be no way of stopping it. . . . On several cards I put messages such as, "Why don't you write?" or "am writing soon," which is a lie. I have no intention of writing them, but in an excess of Christmas spirit I pretend that serious illness, or the press of affairs, is the only thing which keeps me from sending them a long letter every week."

Robertson Davies, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, a series which appeared in the Peterborough Examiner and later published in book form.

The North Cross Band with Christine Smith, performing this weekend at the Norfolk Arts Co. Authors' Book Fair 2010 at the Lighthouse Festival Theatre, Port Dover.

Authors included Harry B. Barrett, Bob Blakeley, Tim W. Butcher, Jane Collins, Mary M. Cushnie-Mansour, Ron Dennis, George Down/Book Band, Bernard Heydorn, Peter Hurley, Suzanne M. Hurley, Charles Jambor, John Jaques, Doris Kienitz, John B. Lee, Henriette MacArthur, Cheryl MacDonald, Ellen McIntosh Green, Allison Montgomery, Wendy Elaine Nelles, Josie Penny, Don Proctor, Thomas A. Ryerson, Judy Trickett, Lillian Tymchuk, Catherine M. A. Wiebe, Tashene Wolfe and Blair Yager.

Photo: For larger image, dbl. click on photo.

The Cayuga Santa Claus Parade is Saturday, December 4, 11 am. Following is an extract from Robertson Davies' The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks: *

"Passed the day very agreeably laughing, patting myself on the back and drinking toasts to myself. The reason for my satisfaction was that I was comfortably at home, and not in Toronto watching the Santa Claus Parade. As I grow older, and the Christmas Frenzy begins earlier and earlier, my relish for Christmas dwindles.

The spirit of love and friendship which would fill us all at Christmas is very dear to me, but it has to struggle against gifts which I don't want, vulgarized Christmas carols, hysterical appeals from the Post Office for mercy, ill-considered entertainments from which the real spirit of Christmas is painfully absent, and a commercial bombardment which sets my nerves jingling. Santa Claus, now utterly divorced from the St. Nicholas of legend, is a crazed old slob, hounding me to buy things I don't like, and give them to people who don't like them either. So on this balmy Indian Summer day, I worked in my garden, made firm but not excessive demands upon my cellar, and laughed and sang the hours away, precisely as though Santa, the patron of the Chamber of Commerce, were not making triumphal entry into the Ontario Babylon."

* Pseudonym for the distinguished "[man] men of letters," Robertson Davies, Canadian novelist, journalist, critic (1913 - 1995) Born in Orangeville, Ontario.

Photo: by Lorna

Tomorrow: Davies' thoughts on Christmas cards.

Don't forget the Book Fair today ~ and tomorrow ~ November 27 & 28, in Port Dover at the Lighthouse Festival Theatre. Bob Blakeley and Cheryl MacDonald will be among the thirty authors signing books. 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Also, Sunday noon - 4:00. See you there.

Photo: Bob and Cheryl in The Neat Little Bookshop.

Smile for Today:

" I can't understand why I flunked American History. When I was a kid there was so little of it."

~ George Burns (1896 - 1996) American comedian, actor, writer.

Book Fair Lighthouse Festival Theatre ~ Port Dover

Book Fair at the Lighthouse Festival Theatre
Port Dover, Ontario
Norfolk Arts Co's Authors

This weekend: Nov. 27 - 28. Sat -- 10:00 - 5:00; Sun-- 12:00 - 4:00.

About thirty authors will be available to share their stories and to display the best Christmas gifts ever ~ BOOKS.

Local histories, novels, fiction, non-fiction. Engage an author in conversation. Discover the world of writing. See you there.

Christie Blatchford's HELPLESS.

Available at The Neat Little Bookshop while quantities last.