Customer Reviews

The Everything Family Christmas Book: Stories, Songs, Recipes, Crafts, Traditions, and More (Everything (Reference))

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

this is packed with tons of information, poems, stories, recipes, and even fun quizzes. It is easy to read and well organized. There is an exaustive list of holiday movies, that is most helpful. Cant imagine anything that is not in here!

This is just what I was looking for this year. It contains a wealth on knowledge. And yes it has a table of contents which makes it very easy to scroll to the chapter I want. I found a few ideas that I plan on starting with my family!

"The Everything Christmas Book" is a trip down memory lane and a good place to pick up some holiday traditions. This book reminded me of Christmas hymns we sung as children and also reminded me of Christmas traditions I've participated in over the years. We used to play Secret Santa and it was always fun. I also remember pulling crackers when I lived in Africa. We had some English traditions.

Some of the most interesting sections of this book are the chapters on the history of Christmas and how Christmas is celebrated around the world. You may be surprised by the many pagan origins of your favorite Christmas traditions. You may be surprised that the Yule Log Cake you love was actually inspired by real logs that were burned in celebration of the sun. I was also surprised that Christmas was outlawed in some countries in the past. Other things I found interesting was the story about why we hang up stockings on the fireplace.

Christmas is the main theme of this book but the author also briefly discusses the eight days of Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Diwali and Ramadan.

There are also several stories and poems that can be read at Christmas time. I especially enjoyed reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas" which is perfect to read to kids.

Some of the fun things about this book are the craft projects. And let's not forget all the lovely recipes! If you have never made a fruitcake this book has three recipes. There is also a recipe for Fudge, Wassail and Gingerbread Men.

A special section explains how to prepare for guests to make their visit comfortable. There are also some safety tips and decorating tips to make the holiday season safe.

This book is especially well researched and perfect to read a few weeks before Christmas, preferably while Christmas music is playing.

~The Rebecca Review

Are these reviews all about the same book?

One says that it has a table of contents, another says it doesn't, and one compares it to a book about pasta!?!

I've seen similar issues with reviews of other items as well. It's hard to get any idea about a book or other product from the reviews if they don't all refer to the item you're looking at.

I also don't put much stock in the stars rating system, as I've seen a number of comments, similar to mine, written by people who have not actually checked out the product yet but have some other type of comment. Maybe there could be another area for these comments?

Lo descargue para ojearlo nada más. mucho texto y pocos dibujos. que por cierto no están nada bonitos. Es algo para la temporada navideña y nada más.

The first sections of this book describing the history of holiday and its various traditions were the most interesting parts. It starts to feel like it's merely skimming the surface though, and that problem becomes more prevalent the deeper you get into the book. For instance, a chapter on "Christmas on the Silver Screen" only covers one movie (a very in-depth essay on the history of "It's a Wonderful Life"), then switches to Christmas TV specials, which it covers by giving a one or two sentence description of three randomly selected Christmas-themed programs that aired on TV each Christmas Eve from 1962 to 2006. No analysis, no commentary, no data like what network a show aired on or when it was made. For example, the famous Charlie Brown Christmas special debuted in 1965, but not on Christmas Eve, so this section of the book lists that show under 1999 because that year it aired on some channel on Christmas Eve. I would have loved it if they gave some of the staples (Grinch, Miracle on 34th Street, Rankin/Bass, Elf, etc.) the same treatment they gave "It's a Wonderful Life." The way it came out, I'm not really sure what the point of this list is. Similarly there's a chapter that describes what Christmas was like in each decade starting from 1900 to present, but again the information included seems random and lacks a strong sense of context.

A chapter on non-Christian holiday celebrations during the same season gives a lot of interesting details I'd never heard before about Hanukkah, but then slips back into just thumbnails on Kwanzaa, Diwali, Ramadan, and others. The whole book could have been a fantastic resource if it had applied a more consistent level of thoroughness throughout.

Also, a lot of the book's length is padded with the inclusion of numerous Christmas-related public domain works, such as The Little Match Girl, Dickens' A Christmas Carol, O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi, poems and traditional Christmas carols. It's nice to have them all in one bundle, but the initial chapters of the book that delved so deep into the roots of the holiday led me to expect the chapter on "The Stories of Christmas" would equally explore the background of the famous Christmas material rather than just dump the material itself, in its entirety, into the middle of the book.

Lo v e it twas a free download so couldn't beat that. What more can I say? Another book added to my kindle app on my iPhone I love free books...

-Read on Kindle-

I got this for free at Christmas time. I wouldn't pay for it though. It's info and ideas you can find online easy enough. It's handy to have it all in one place, so if that's important for you, go for it. It's your usual format for an "Everything" book. They do a good job. I just wouldn't pay for it myself. I think I would prefer it as a normal book so I could flip through it more since it's not a novel and not always ready straight through.

This book was free, so I won't complain to much. But I did think this book would have ideas about what to do during Christmas, but it is more of a history of Christmas....the discription was not very well written.

Didn't try any of the uses.. But were good ideas. Didn't download until after christmas, but plan to user ideas next year