Holiday


Thanksgiving Poems: Entertain Grandma At Dinner

Family Reunion by Maxine Kumin

The week in August you come home,
adult, professional, aloof,
we roast and carve the fatted calf
—in our case home-grown pig, the chine
garlicked and crisped, the applesauce
hand-pressed. Hand-pressed the greengage wine.

 

Nothing is cost-effective here.
The peas, the beets, the lettuces
hand sown, are raised to stand apart.
The electric fence ticks like the slow heart
of something we fed and bedded for a year,
then killed with kindness’s one bullet
and paid Jake Mott to do the butchering.

 

In winter we lure the birds with suet,
thaw lungs and kidneys for the cat.
Darlings, it’s all a circle from the ring
of wire that keeps the raccoons from the corn
to the gouged pine table that we lounge around,
distressed before any of you was born.

 

Benign and dozy from our gluttonies,
the candles down to stubs, defenses down,
love leaking out unguarded the way
juice dribbles from the fence when grounded
by grass stalks or a forgotten hoe,
how eloquent, how beautiful you seem!

 

Wearing our gestures, how wise you grow,
ballooning to overfill our space,
the almost-parents of your parents now.
So briefly having you back to measure us
is harder than having let you go.
Click here to view a list of some other great thanksgiving poems that are great entertainment for the family at dinner this year. Click the name of the poems to see the full poem on the Poetry Foundations website.
Happy Thanksgiving!

“24 Insanely Clever Gifts for Book Lovers”

1 month until Christmas! Time to start planning!!

BuzzFeed came up with some great gifts for book lovers.

Some are a little silly while others are really smart! I love the first one. Especially if you’re reading a really long book with small print!

May have to get some of these for the book lovers in my life!

 


Christmas is coming…so time to start ordering!

With Christmas only being about one month and 4 days away, it is time to start planning your gifts.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe in buying them now but if you want a good book, or good book gifts, it does take time to find them as well as get them delivered to your house, but never fear…I shall try to help. ^.^

Slightly Foxed, an independent book store in the UK, has a great list of books for 0-8 year old children and the books look absolutely adorable. There are also some cute toys too!

If you find something adorable there, most books can be purchased in America as well so have a look around and maybe you’ll find something cute and useful for that young passionate reader in your life.

Slightly Foxed image


How To Give A Book

 

Every year at the holidays MotherReader, a very noteworthy book blog,  gives suggestions for the gifting of books and this year she has once again come up with a ton of suggestions. The list includes books for all ages and lovely additional things that go with the book to make the gift extra special. With wonderful bloggers like MotherReader around no one should be stuck for suggestions – holidays or birthday! So hop on over there and peruse the list!