Oh, no! The Big Christmas Let Down has arrived!

For one special night RH and I had all four children together at one time! And their spouses, minus one daughter-in-law. 

And two of our four grandsons--only one in the picture above as the other took his wife and their two toddlers home before the picture was taken.

And our two granddaughters, front and center.

But the whole holiday period was filled with special family activities and lots of laughter and late night talks and days of cooking and dish washing.

It was so much fun!

And then the out of towners went home and the in towners went back to work today.

Guess who's left with the Big Christmas Let Down? 

That's right, I am. And yes, I know this picture is out of focus but then, so am I.

Anyone else out there feeling the Big Christmas Let Down?

What helps you get over it?

Do you take down all your Christmas decor rapidly?

I'm not that person, can't bear to say goodbye to it yet. I'm too much of a little girl playing house to pack it away yet.

 

RH and I just have to keep watching Christmas movies until we see all we missed. That is, when I can get him away from the Military Channel--what is it with that? Anyone else out there have a guy who's addicted to that channel?

I'm going to keep using the Christmas china at least through New Year's Eve.

[See how a platter lover stores platters in a small house? She doesn't!]

And there are at least a dozen holiday recipes I never got around to that I want to make between now and Twelfth Night. 

And as soon as I rest up I want to get out with my sister for some retail-on-sale therapy. We tried to the other day but only got as far as lunch out--don't worry, sis, I'll never tell why!

And there's always housework, which for some strange reason is unusually appealing to me now. Do you find that true after Christmas, too?

And then there is the siren call of early bedtimes and good books to read. So appealing!

It's not that Christmas itself was a let down, unlike Marcy in the quote below from Nelia Gardner White's The Thorn Tree.

Marcy sat alone with the tree, all the sound gone, everything gone but the tree. When David came in much later she still sat there, alone, quiet. David sat down with his coat still on. "Christmas," he said flatly. "I don't know what we expected of it," Marcy said.

I remember experiencing a couple of Christmases like Marcy has and I'm so grateful my let down is of a different kind. To anyone who did experience that, I'm so sorry. My piddling complaint must seem ridiculous to you. I hope that things get better soon for you.

To those of you who leave the holidays behind with a big smile on your face, what is your secret, you lucky dog, you?

But for anyone else just not ready to say goodbye to the wonderful cozy happy festive season of goodwill, what do you do to cheer yourself up? I am so very interested in your ideas!

 

Nelia Gardner White

I'm going to do my best to sell at least one of you dear readers on Nelia Gardner White's books. If I can't, that's okay, but if even one of you enjoys novels written in the 1950s and is intrigued enough to search them out, it will be worth it.

Nelia Gardner White was compared in her day to Katherine Mansfield. I have eight of her novels and would buy the others if they weren't so rare and expensive.

Let's get right down to it with excerpts from four of my favorite White books:

Woman at the Window (1951)

It was peaceful there in the bright room. Everything shone there, the silver tea things, the knobs on the fenders, the old gold clock with cherubs on the mantel, the sapphire ring on Mrs. Suydam's hand, the arms of the deep leather chair where the doctor sat. But the light was brightest on Anna Suydam, sitting there in the wheel chair. She had on a jacket of blue brocade that Mrs. Suydam had made from an old party dress. The blue was grayed down to warmness and the silver thread that ran through it was a companion to the silver of the tea things. But in her face the light concentrated, in that thin triangular face with the golden-brown eyes looking around at them all with such love, such an effect of saying, These are my very best people. this is what I like, sitting here talking with my own people.

"The Doctor's Wife" novela from The Merry Month of May (1952)

Soon they were in the dining room eating supper. The doctor's wife sat where she could look at the tall, homely old Dutch cupboard. It always pleased her senses, though she didn't quite know why. It was not elegant, but there was something about it and the treasured dishes that was warm and satisfying. Micah and Nell Peel were going after supper. They were not even staying the night. The doctor's wife felt she must hold herself together for this last hour. There was just this meal to get through.


The Thorn Tree (1955)

In the chill of the late November afternoon Marcy and David Doorn stood beside their sister's house. They had come in frantic haste, in their hearts identical sensations of fear, incredulity, horror. They had walked up and down, up and down, in some village, waiting for a car repair, unable to talk, desperately anxious to have the repairs done, to be on their way again. Now they were here, but for a moment they stood, thrust out by some curious silence that surrounded the house, took in the whole landscape. Across the road rose a slope where once sheep had grazed. There were no sheep now, no leaves, no sign of life anywhere. All that the hill pasture held was thorn trees, with their innumerable gray and ghostly branches.

If I had a favorite Nelia Gardner White book, this next one would be it:

The Spare Room (1954)

      It was early November when the young man came. It was a somber morning with the trees stripped bare and the leaves dead brown in all the ditches. In the curving garden border behind the old Pilchard house on Sassafras Road, five miles from the village, even the chrysanthemums had blackened stalks and there was not one last red leaf in the woodbine on the stone walls beyond the garden.
     Miss Ann Pilchard, town nurse for old Wickham, moved about the kitchen getting her hearty breakfast. She was not depressed by the autumnal grays and blacks of the morning. She liked autumn. On the kitchen table was a brown pitcher filled with milkweed. Miss Pilchard had a secret life wherein she wrote a weekly column called "Nature Notes from Stub Hill" for the Penfield County Register, and this week she planned to write on the milkweed.
     Compact, round as a bird, tight-pressed into the blue gingham which was her uniform till the snows came, Miss Pilchard pushed forward the oatmeal on the black stove, filled the two-cup coffee pot. And as she bustled about she sang a morning hymn to the milkweed. It was a habit of hers, to hymn her way through breakfast. She had a big voice which she liked to let out to the full when she was alone.

And here is a review I wrote at my former blog, Across the Way, of The Pink House,  (1950) for any reader I haven't already lost in my attempt to spread the word about this forgotten author, Nelia Gardner White.

[McCall's August 1937]

Thank you for letting me have a chance to introduce a beloved author from the past. 

Is there a particular author that you wish more people knew about? One that you would like for more people to discover? 

Happy reading to you!