Other editions of book Old Christmas

Five incomparable essays preserve Irving's delightful impressions of Yuletide events when he was a guest at an English estate. Heartwarming descriptions of a Christmas Eve trip by stagecoach, holiday games, services at the village church, and a sumptuous dinner are enhanced with more than 100 charming sketches by noted illustrator Randolph Caldecott.

There is something in the very season of the year that gives a charm to the festivity of Christmas. At other times we derive a great portion of our pleasures from the mere beauties of nature. Our feelings sally forth and dissipate themselves over the sunny landscape, and we "live abroad and everywhere." The dreariness and desolation of the landscape, the short gloomy days and darksome nights, while they circumscribe our wanderings, shut in our feelings also from rambling abroad, and make us more keenly disposed for the pleasures of the social circle. . . .The pitchy gloom without makes the heart dilate on entering the room filled with the glow and warmth of the evening fire. The ruddy blaze diffuses an artificial summer and sunshine through the room, and lights up each countenance into a kindlier welcome. Where does the honest face of hospitality expand into a broader and more cordial smile -- where is the shy glance of love more sweetly eloquent -- than by the winter fireside?

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Five incomparable essays preserve Irving's delightful impressions of Yuletide events when he was a guest at an English estate. Heartwarming descriptions of a Christmas Eve trip by stagecoach, holiday games, services at the village church, and a sumptuous dinner are enhanced with more than 100 charming sketches by noted illustrator Randolph Caldecott.

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""There is nothing in England that exercises a more delightful spell over my imagination than the lingerings of the holiday customs and rural games of former times."" So begins Irving's classic recital of Christmas traditions in 19th-century England. Originally part of The Sketch Books of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., which also included Irving's most famous stories, Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Old Christmas depicts Irving's Christmas Eve trip by stagecoach to Yorkshire and the delightful holiday games and rituals he shared with his hosts at their home, Bracebridge Hall. Famed illustrator Randolph Caldecott's sketches provide a perfect complement to Irving's descriptions of holiday cheer.