"John Meagher had to engage a horse and wagon yesterday to deliver the mails in the city," so announced the Halifax Herald on December 27, 1898. Apparently the custom of sending Christmas cards began in the Victorian era in England in the 1840s around the time when Prince Albert introduced the Christmas tree, and Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol. The first cards were handmade but by the end of the 1840s they were being marketed publicly. The scenes generally featured mistletoe and yule logs.
Canadians started making their own Christmas cards around the 1870's and often the illustrations had nothing to do with Christmas such as outdoor scenes by artists Cornelius Krieghoff and William Barlett. Religious themes and Santa Claus seldom appeared. Sleigh scenes, winter sports, children in the snow, and above all snowshoeing were popular themes and Canada by name was commonly included for folks corresponding with the old country.
By the 1880s cards were popular enough to start overloading the post office. In December 1881, the Toronto letter-carriers were often toting forty pounds of mail at a time, and extra men had to be hired to handle the Christmas rush.
Source: Canadian Christmas Book by Caroline Carver
Tundra Books of Montreal/Collins Publishers, Toronto 1975
Friday, December 18, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Good News Toronto ~ Our Everyday Heroes
We meet a lot of fascinating people in the Neat Little Bookshop. Kirk Mathieson, a Toronto-based freelance writer, came in one day in the summer and was kind enough to later send us two issues of Good News Toronto ~ Our Everyday Heroes. Stories of acts of kindness, generosity, hope and bravery fill this inspiring little newspaper.
Perhaps one letter to editor, Eva Karpati, says it best, "I was on the bus when I saw someone reading Good News Toronto. It looked very interesting. I asked her if I could have it when she finished. She passed it on to me and I read it cover to cover. This is exactly what we need because we hear too much negative news."
First of all, it is difficult to imagine strangers on a city bus chatting over a newspaper. Or perhaps this is exactly the reaction that good news can foster.
To read some of Kirk's articles and others, visit "the little paper with the big heart." Website: http://www.goodnewstoronto.ca/
Perhaps one letter to editor, Eva Karpati, says it best, "I was on the bus when I saw someone reading Good News Toronto. It looked very interesting. I asked her if I could have it when she finished. She passed it on to me and I read it cover to cover. This is exactly what we need because we hear too much negative news."
First of all, it is difficult to imagine strangers on a city bus chatting over a newspaper. Or perhaps this is exactly the reaction that good news can foster.
To read some of Kirk's articles and others, visit "the little paper with the big heart." Website: http://www.goodnewstoronto.ca/
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Suspense Writing
In her wonderful autobiography, Kitchen Privileges, Mary Higgins Clark describes one approach to writing Suspense.
She refers to the old Hansel and Gretal tale in which Hansel dropped smooth stones and Gretel dropped breadcrumbs. The birds, of course, ate the breadcrumbs.
"The mystery/suspense writer is dropping both smooth stones and breadcrumbs. The smooth stones are ambiguous statements, never cheating the reader, but sometimes leading them astray. The breadcrumbs are the real clues to the perpetrator of the crime and the solution of the plot." Clark claims that this method of writing has never let her down.
Kitchen Privileges A Memoir by Mary Higgins Clark, Simon & Schuster, 2002.
She refers to the old Hansel and Gretal tale in which Hansel dropped smooth stones and Gretel dropped breadcrumbs. The birds, of course, ate the breadcrumbs.
"The mystery/suspense writer is dropping both smooth stones and breadcrumbs. The smooth stones are ambiguous statements, never cheating the reader, but sometimes leading them astray. The breadcrumbs are the real clues to the perpetrator of the crime and the solution of the plot." Clark claims that this method of writing has never let her down.
Kitchen Privileges A Memoir by Mary Higgins Clark, Simon & Schuster, 2002.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Tiger Woods
I sincerely hope that there are at least a few more women on Tiger's list of indiscretions that we have not heard from, and won't.
How can I say that, you ask? I would like to believe that somewhere, someone is not compelled to hit the media ~ some individual who could resist the payoff and publicity that comes with the thrill of jumping into bed with a celebrity and announcing it.
It is unfathomable to me that there are self-serving females ~ nine and counting ~ who put their own self-love and narcissism before the pain and suffering of someone elses' children. Unbelievable. Is there such a thing as human decency?
No, that is not Tiger in the photo. It is my own loving family. Photo used without permission. Thanks and apologies, guys.
And let's not fire off comments about the philandering male. We are talking about the women here.
McMaster University Newspaper ~ theSil
Opportunities for writing or journalism are everywhere around us if we take a look. Most successful writers began at an early age to keep a journal or try their hand - or pen - at short stories, essays or poetry. Today, the Internet has opened up a whole new world for would-be writers. Think Twitter, Blog or YouTube!
Newspapers everywhere are in transition. Articles appear on-line as soon as they are in the paper. Freelance writers are welcome where full-time reporters are disappearing.
Check out a university newspaper. theSil, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario ~ and one young author, Grace Evans. http://thesil.ca/blog/author/grace-evans/
Newspapers everywhere are in transition. Articles appear on-line as soon as they are in the paper. Freelance writers are welcome where full-time reporters are disappearing.
Check out a university newspaper. theSil, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario ~ and one young author, Grace Evans. http://thesil.ca/blog/author/grace-evans/
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
Dear Editor: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, 'If you see it in the Sun it's so.' Please tell me the truth: is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon.
The wise editor's thoughtful reply to eight year old Virginia led to one of the most famous editorial articles ever written:
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. 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, Virginia, 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.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance, to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there 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, nor 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 supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virgina, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! He lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
~ Francis Pharcellus Church, The Sun, 1897. New York, U.S.A.
Virginia O'Hanlon.
The wise editor's thoughtful reply to eight year old Virginia led to one of the most famous editorial articles ever written:
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. 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, Virginia, 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.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance, to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there 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, nor 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 supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virgina, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! He lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
~ Francis Pharcellus Church, The Sun, 1897. New York, U.S.A.
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