Celebrate the beauty and charm of the holidays with recipes for traditional food and drink, decorating ideas, and heartwarming stories With its trademark snow, piney forests, sleigh rides and woodsmoke curling out of village chimneys, New England was practically invented for the Christmas postcard. It’s got your Christmas goose and the maple syrup with which to glaze it. It’s most of the reason author Ellen Stimson made Vermont her home. Here she shares recipes that have been in her family for generations, mixes up a cocktail or two, and invites readers to make their own traditions.

Bring country magic to your home this holiday! Packed with easy-to-follow suggestions for furnishings, decorations, gifts, and cards, this tribute to an old-fashioned rural Noel sets a beautiful mood with four distinctive themes. Fire and Frost features the festive elegance of sparkling silver and gold. Comfort and Joy showcases bold and joyful Victoriana--including keepsake albums. Modern-day warmth suffuses Calm & Bright, with all the trimmings for a 21st-century Christmas. And, The Holly & the Ivy celebrates the season's natural pleasures. Plus: a directory with classic motifs!

Living the dream of the endless vacation “Anyone who has ever dreamed of leaving the city and taking their lives back to nature (and who hasn't?) will find much to contemplate in this warm and hilarious tale of rural misadventure and small town quirk, even if they have never chased a goat in a bathing suit or called 911 because there were cows in the road. Stimson's voice is endearing: both in its self-deprecation and its rapture, as she sings an only slightly conflicted love song to Vermont.” —Pam Houston, author of Contents May Have Shifted “Taking a plunge that wimpier sorts (i.e. most of us) only fantasize about, Ellen Stimson and her family packed up their house in St. Louis and threw themselves into a wildly different life in small-town Vermont. Armed with the passion-and haplessness-of wide-eyed newcomers they rescue goats and adopt chickens, do battle with skunks and bats and falling ice, and, most disastrously, buy a black hole of a general store. Through it all they manage to retain their love for their adopted home as well as one another. This is a tale to which all the cliché words absolutely apply: hilarious, heartwarming, rollicking, and, most of all, rich in the real stuff of life.” —Julia Reed, author of But Mama Always Put Vodka in Her Sangria!

Sally Ryder Brady's A Yankee Christmas Featuring Nantucket Noel captures all the special qualities of Christmas in New England. Here you'll find a cornucopia of delicious recipes and traditional crafts, along with many hints for decorating, gift giving, and festive celebrations. An abundance of mouth-watering holiday recipes, fun and easy-to-do Christmas crafts, charming gift ideas, and plenty of welcome advice put the spirit into the Christmas season.

Home for Christmas -- Christmas almanac -- Collector's Christmas -- Festive feasting -- Holiday folk art -- Christmas traveler.

Originally published: Woodstock, Vermont: The Countryman Press, 2013.

Ever wonder where some of our unique and meaningful Christmas traditions come from? Why are red and green popular colors of the season? Why is exchanging gifts a family tradition? Stories Behind the Great Traditions of Christmas reveals the people, places, and events that shaped the best-loved customs of this merriest of holidays and how they all point to Christ. Stories Behind the Great Traditions of Christmas includes insights about: Gift giving Christmas trees Caroling Nativity scenes Yule logs Stockings Advent wreaths Mistletoe Holly, and more! This is the perfect gift to infuse your celebration with spiritual insights, true-life tales, and captivating legends to intrigue you and your family. Bring new luster and depth to your modern traditions while you celebrate Jesus' birth. The traditions of Christmas lend beauty, awe, and hope to the holiday, causing people all over the world to anticipate it with joy. Warm your heart as you rediscover the true and eternal significance of Christmas.

Some of our most cherished memories are of visits to Grandma's house...and the wonderful meals she cooked for us. When she called us down for breakfast, we knew there would be homemade caramel rolls and hot cocoa waiting, just for us. In chilly weather, there was always a hearty kettle of vegetable soup or chili simmering on her stove. At dinnertime, the table overflowed with tender chicken and noodles or slow-baked pot roast, buttery mashed potatoes, brown sugar carrots (because she knew we wouldn't eat them, otherwise!) and salads, fresh-picked from her garden. Her cookie jar was filled with our favorite snickerdoodles or chocolate chip cookies, and there was always a frosted layer cake in the cake stand. So many delicious memories! From Grandma's Recipe Box is chock-full of all these recipes and more, shared by cooks like you, handed down through generations and still enjoyed today. We've included easy tips for adding down-home flavor to meals, and for making get-togethers with family & friends special. If you enjoy old-fashioned comfort food, you'll love the recipes in this cookbook! 225 Recipes

Written for everyone who loves and is simultaneously driven crazy by the holiday season, Christmas: A Candid History provides an enlightening, entertaining perspective on how the annual Yuletide celebration got to be what it is today. In a fascinating, concise tour through history, the book tells the story of Christmas—from its pre-Christian roots, through the birth of Jesus, to the holiday's spread across Europe into the Americas and beyond, and to its mind-boggling transformation through modern consumerism. Packed with intriguing stories, based on research into myriad sources, full of insights, the book explores the historical origins of traditions including Santa, the reindeer, gift giving, the Christmas tree, Christmas songs and movies, and more. The book also offers some provocative ideas for reclaiming the joy and meaning of this beloved, yet often frustrating, season amid the pressures of our fast-paced consumer culture. DID YOU KNOW For three centuries Christians did not celebrate Christmas? Puritans in England and New England made Christmas observances illegal? St. Nicholas is an elf in the famous poem "The Night Before Christmas"? President Franklin Roosevelt changed the dateof Thanksgiving in order to lengthen the Christmas shopping season? Coca-Cola helped fashion Santa Claus's look in an advertising campaign?

A celebration of the colonial Christmas shows the many faces of the season.