An Irish Country Christmas
Taylor (To School Through the Fields) has written a memoir of a County Kerry Christmas as seen through her own nine-year-old eyes. First there is the fattening of the pet-like geese. Their execution and plucking follows. Then the countdown to Christmas begins: waiting for the "master" to let the children know when the school holiday is to begin; the letters to Santa; the preparation of the Christmas chimney for Santa by the sweep, Black Ned; the hunt for holly; the housing of the farm animals for the winter; and the house cleanup in readiness for the big day. Finally, Christmas arrives with mass and a "Happy Birthday" to the infant Jesus. The holiday ends with the hunt for the wren-bird one day later on St. Stephen's Day. With liberal sprinkling of the Irish language, neighbor Mrs. Casey's tales of supernatural Christmases past and the family's thought of soft barm bracks, Taylor has written a tender remembrance of a simpler, yet harder, time past.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.