Here’s a piece from Rilla of Ingleside:

“Where are you wandering, Anne o’ mine?” asked the doctor, who even yet, after twenty-four years of marriage, occasionally addressed his wife thus when nobody was about. Anne was sitting on the veranda steps, gazing absently over the wonderful bridal world of spring blossom. Beyond the white orchard was a copse of dark young firs and creamy wild cherries, where the robins were whistling madly; for it was evening and the fire of early stars was burning over the maple grove.

Anne came back with a little sigh.

“I was just taking relief from intolerable realities in a dream, Gilbert – a dream that all our children were home again – and all small again – playing in rainbow Valley. It is always so silent now – but I was imagining I heard clear voices and gay, childish sounds coming up as I used to.”

[...]

The doctor did not answer. Sometimes his work tricked him into forgetting for a few moments the western front, but not often. There was a good deal of grey now in his still thick curls that had not been there two years ago. Yet he smiled down into the starry eyes he loved – the eyes that had once been so full of laughter, and now seemed always so full of unshed tears.

This ranks second:

I suppose I should link to a YouTube video of the King’s College Choir, Cambridge, UK, singing some glorious, ethereal Christmas song (the Wee One and I have been watching a few everyday this past week). But I think I’ll leave you with a fun, little nugget and wish all five of you who visit this blog, a VERY, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Now that it’s after Thanksgiving, I am listening to those 24/7 all “Holiday” song radio stations. Like everyone else, I secretly tap my feet to Dominick the Christmas Donkey (Come on! Admit it!) and, though I am no fan of hers, Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas is You gets me going everytime with that Spector-Wall-of-Sound track.

But there are two holiday songs which make me turn the station or shut off the radio altogether. I will refuse to listen to them even if you offer me ONE MILLION DOLLARS.

Runner-up for the Tripe Award for Worst Holiday Song is…

Where Are You Christmas? by Faith Hill

Where are you Christmas
Why can’t I find you
Why have you gone away
Where is the laughter
You used to bring me
Why can’t I hear music play

Christmas is a day, NOT A PERSON. (I could get into the whole Jesus thing but that’s besides the point.) If you can’t find the friggin’ day, Christmas is listed on most calendars. (Hint: look under DECEMBER.) The pure insipidness of this song boggles the mind.

First Place for the Tripe Award for Worst Holiday Song…

Prestigious Tripe Award

Christmas Shoes by Bob Carlisle

Sir I wanna buy these shoes for my Momma please
It’s Christmas Eve and these shoes are just her size
Could you hurry Sir?
Daddy says there’s not much time
You see, she’s been sick for quite a while
And I know these shoes will make her smile
And I want her to look beautiful
If Momma meets Jesus, tonight.

I don’t even know where to begin?!? A poor waif wants to buy shoes for his dying mother. What? So she can wear them in her coffin? How thoughtful. Momma’s dyin’…I’m waitin’ in line at Sears to buy these crappy, made in China shoes. I’m not surprised that a christian group spent FOUR years writing this monstrosity. It reeks of mediocre spiritual…tripe.

HAPPY “HOLIDAYS”!!!

Irish Brigade Flag

Today is the anniversary of the Union attack on Confederate-held Marye’s Heights, Fredericksburg, VA. At the homestead, we are flying the Irish Brigade flag, a Union brigade involved in the battle. Check out this scene from Gods and Generals about the action between the Irish Brigade’s and the Georgia Irish Brigade during the battle. It breaks your heart.

Here’s my highlight from Rainbow Valley:

John Meredith was startled by her loveliness and Rosemary was startled by his presence. She had never thought she would find anyone by that remote spring, least of all the recluse of Glen St. Mary manse.

[...]

“I – I came for a drink,” she said, stammering a little in answer to Mr. Meredith’s grave “good evening, Miss West.” She felt that she was an unpardonable goose and she longed to shake herself. [...] Her confusion put him at ease and he forgot to be shy; besides, even the shyest of men can sometimes be quite audacious in moonlight.

“Let me get you a cup,” he said smiling. There was a cup near by, if he had only known it, a cracked, handleless blue cup secreted under the maple by the Rainbow Valley children; but he did not know it, so he stepped out to one of the birch-trees and stripped a bit of its white skin away. Deftly he fashioned this into a three-cornered cup, filled it from the spring, and handed it to Rosemary.

Rosemary took it and drank every drop to punish herself for her fib, for she was not in the least thirsty, and to drink a fairly large cupful of water when you are not thirsty is somewhat of an ordeal. Yet the memory of that draught was to be very pleasant to Rosemary. In later years it seemed to her that there was something sacremental about it.

I run upstairs and wake up law enforcement Hubby with my breathless, “Gun fire…close by…limping deer…” Peeking over the bed covers, eyes half open, he mutters, “As long as they aren’t firing from the roadside, they’re not doing anything wrong.”

It was Day One of New York’s rifle hunting season and I was the first victim. I’m not anti-hunting. I’m just not used to hunting ACROSS THE STREET.

I’m a suburban girl who is used to this kind of hunting:

From Anne of Ingleside:

April came tiptoeing in beautifully that year with sunshine and soft winds for a few days; and then a driving northeast snowstorm dropped a white blanket over the world again. “Snow in April is abominable,” said Anne. “Like a slap in the face when you expected a kiss.” Ingleside was fringed with icicles and for two long weeks the days were raw and the nights hardbitten. The the snow grudgingly disappeared and when the news went round that the first robin had been seen in the Hollow Ingleside plucked up heart and ventured to believe that the miracle of spring was really going to happen.

[...]

Spring was trying out her paces that day . . . like an adorable baby just learning to walk. The winter pattern of trees and fields was beginning to be overlaid with hints of green and Jem has again brought in the first mayflowers. But an enormously fat lady, sinking puffingly into one of the Ingleside easy-chairs, sighed and said sadly that the springs weren’t so nice as they were when she was young.

“Don’t you think perhaps the change is in us . . . not in the springs, Mrs. Mitchell?” smiled Anne.

Do yourself a favor. Put it on full screen.

H/T: Small Dead Animals