Re-Post: Christmas Remembered by Tomie dePaola

TITLE: Christmas Remembered
AUTHOR + ILLUSTRATOR:Tomie dePaola
PUBLISHED BY: Puffin/Putnam, 2006
ISBN: 978-0142414811


In the first of 10 stories about Christmas in Tomie DePaola's Christmas, Remembered, he tells us of the first Christmas he remembers--the Christmas of the miraculous fireplace. When he was three years old, miraculously, a fireplace appeared in their dining room, complete with a bright ever-burning log and a cardboard Christmas Village on the mantle:

A few days before Christmas Eve, a fireplace miraculously appeared in our small living/dining room. It stood against the wall where, the day before, a china cupboard had stood. ...It's no wonder Christmas became my favorite holiday. It was a time of miracles--fireplaces appearing so Santa could visit, Flossie's famous Christmas village that all the neighbors came to see, and a glittering rotating "fire" in the fireplace that never seemed to consume the logs, although I can still remember the smell of "burning".

"Miracles" mark all of these memories. But for DePaola, miracles are part of everyday life--and no less powerful because they are created or sponsored by real people.

As a young man, dePaola spent a few years in a Benedictine Monastery, and describes his first Christmas there. He captures the sublime peace of the Christmas vigil during the "great silence." He also tells how he prayed earnestly for bells for the monastery. His fellow brother was scandalized that he prayed for such things, rather than for vocations, etc. But, on Christmas Eve Day, bells arrived from a longtime benefactor who had seen them at an auction. God answers all sorts of prayers, and provides miracles through the work of our hands.

Each one of his stories is a delight and a treasure. He is as captivated as a boy by the fireplace, or a working in a candy store, as he is by hosting huge parties for his friends and family with individual Christmas trees. His generous heart, and love for the (goodness, I hate this phrase) "true spirit of Christmas" is apparent on every page. And, he just has so much fun.

I'd gladly re-read this book every Christmas. And, as the intro says, it really is a book "for all ages"--to be read aloud and treasured. And, who knows, maybe it will inspire you to adopt some of his Christmas traditions for your own.


The monks entered the chapel to see my rustic statue of a young woman
sitting next to a pine branch shaped to hold a wooden bowl filled with straw.
Nestled in the straw was a Baby Jesus,
looking like a little wrapped loaf of Italian bread. The vigil began.



Buying 80 trees in San Francisco, in his VW bus.