Halloween, Valentine's Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year's Day - these are but a handful of modern holidays descended from the red-letter days, seasonal celebrations we have invented and reinvented over more than five millennia to meet our changing human needs. When we explore their origins, the holidays begin to reflect not only who we are but also why, through oppressed by time and thwarted by the forces of nature, we never seem to lose the will to control the future.

Celebrate all year long with recipes that your family & friends will love! Filled with tasty and easy-to-fix recipes for every holiday to help you celebrate every memorable season. The book is divided by the seasons: Fall (Family get-togethers & game-day, Halloween and, of course, Thanksgiving), Winter Celebrations (Christmas to Valentine's Day and best-loved winter recipes), Spring (Easter, Mother's Day and more) and Summer (Memorial Day to Labor Day and County fairs in between). 245 Recipes.

Paula Deen meets Erma Bombeck in The Pioneer Woman Cooks, Ree Drummond’s spirited, homespun cookbook. Drummond colorfully traces her transition from city life to ranch wife through recipes, photos, and pithy commentary based on her popular, award-winning blog, Confessions of a Pioneer Woman, and whips up delicious, satisfying meals for cowboys and cowgirls alike made from simple, widely available ingredients. The Pioneer Woman Cooks—and with these “Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl,” she pleases the palate and tickles the funny bone at the same time.

Whether they're decorating Easter trees or celebrating Wagner's birthday by playing recordings of his Ring cycle operas and incinerating a model of Valhalla on an outdoor barbecue to the closing strains of "Gotterdämerung," Americans know both how to create and how to celebrate holidays. Jack Santino's guide to such frivolity is a wonderfully readable exploration of holidays, periods of festivity, and life-cycle rituals and celebrations. Santino draws on history, anthropology, popular culture, and folklore to show the intricate relationships between holidays and the roles that celebrations and rituals play in people's lives.

The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays by Ree Drummond has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.

This book is the follow-up to the successful Perfect Party Food. Happy Holidays from the Diva-of Do-Ahead brings the same how-to and do-ahead approach to creating menus for 12 holidays-with special emphasis on Thanksgiving and Christmas-as well as tips on recipe variations, decorating, and serving. Featuring a beautiful 16-page color photo insert, this is the perfect book for anyone who wants to take the stress out of entertaining and enjoy the holidays with family and friends.

In the tradition of The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs and Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses by Bruce Feiler comes Abigail Pogrebin’s My Jewish Year, a lively chronicle of the author’s journey into the spiritual heart of Judaism. Although she grew up following some holiday rituals, Pogrebin realized how little she knew about their foundational purpose and contemporary relevance; she wanted to understand what had kept these holidays alive and vibrant, some for thousands of years. Her curiosity led her to embark on an entire year of intensive research, observation, and writing about the milestones on the religious calendar. Whether in search of a roadmap for Jewish life or a challenging probe into the architecture of Jewish tradition, readers will be captivated, educated and inspired by Abigail Pogrebin’s My Jewish Year.

Contains activities, read-aloud fast facts, book links, and other resources to teach students in grades one through six about different holidays.

Celebrate the Jewish holidays all year round in this acclaimed picture book! Here is the world, ever changing and new, Spinning with joy at the wonder of you! Here Is the World is a joyous celebration of the Jewish holidays throughout the year for young children. Beginning with the weekly observance of Shabbat, readers join a family through the holidays and the corresponding seasons. From sounding the shofar on Rosh Hashanah to lighting the menorah for Chanukah to rattling a grogger for Purim, and on through the Jewish year, the joy and significance of each holiday beautifully come to life. Back matter includes a description of each holiday and easy crafts and recipes for every season!

In Days to Celebrate Lee Bennett Hopkins has collected an astounding array of information to show us that each day of the year gives us a reason to celebrate. For every month he has compiled a calendar of birthdays, holidays, historic events, inventions, world records, thrilling firsts, and more. And for every month he has selected surprising poems in honor of some of the people and events commemorated in the calendar. There are poems about the seasons and holidays, of course, but there are also poems about a "Flying-Man" (for February 4, Charles Lindbergh's birthday), birds (for April 26, John James Audubon's birthday), windshield wipers (patented November 10), and earmuffs (patented December 21). Beloved poets, such as Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Christina Rossetti, are joined by new voices in sixty poems that take us on a remarkable journey through a year -- and through the years. Stephen Alcorn's illustrations, based on the style of art found in old almanacs, are airy, whimsical, and thought provoking. They perfectly match the breadth and depth of this volume. Brilliantly conceived and elegantly illustrated, Days to Celebrate is a book that pays tribute to the people, events, and poetry that make up our past and will inspire our future.