Dear Friends,
I am very excited to have my story, “The Feast of the Seven Quiches” published in this year’s Chicken Soup for the Soul: the Spirit of Christmas! The book is widely available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club and a number of other retailers, large and small.
My story talks about the first time my Brooklyn-born husband celebrated Christmas with my parents in our small town. He was expecting full-on Italian Christmas, and instead got understated WASP/Quaker Christmas with limited food!
I’ve learned from experience how people coming from different backgrounds have cultural expectations for what their partner’s holiday will look like. The reality may be quite different from what they expected. Even in the case of two people celebrating the same holiday growing up, there will be differences. My “Christmas” may be nothing like your “Christmas.”
I’ve also learned that rather than trying to recreate one’s childhood holiday, it’s better to think about those things that are the most important to you. In other words, what can’t your “Christmas” (or Hanukkah or Diwali) do without?
I was excited to find out that some of my friends have already bought the book, and it was a little thrill to have lunch with a friend in Manhattan, and then see “my” book at Barnes & Nobel right afterwards! You’ll probably find it in the “Religion” section if you’re looking at a B&N store. Also note that a small amount of your purchase price goes to Toys for Tots.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the rest of the book. The stories are all so different from each other. Some of them made me cry! A few made me chuckle. In many ways, the stories reminded me of the Golden Christmas Annuals of my youth.
What do you do to celebrate the holidays? Especially if you’re a Quaker? There was very little celebration of Christmas at my daughters’ Quaker schools, maybe in keeping with the Quaker tradition of not celebrating the holiday. They did have some very nice “winter” concerts though, and I treasure my memories and photos of them.
Happy Thanksgiving, Kate