With finals and winter break near, this month's diversity display will take a look at Winter Holidays. Books and videos selected are on the light and informative side, while the e-book selection also contains some children's books and craft ideas. So relax, destress and maybe even learn some basics about a holiday you are unfamiliar with. So take a look!
A physical book display is now available at Hunt Library with the selection rotating weekly. Some of the eBooks listed below also have a physical listing. Please check the availability.
Special thanks to our Materials Processing Coordinator, Leah Zande, for compiling this list. Learn more on the DEI events page.
Hanukkah in America: A History
Ashton, Dianne (2013)
In New Orleans, Hanukkah means decorating your door with a menorah made of hominy grits. Latkes in Texas are seasoned with cilantro and cayenne pepper. Children in Cincinnati sing Hanukkah songs and eat oranges and ice cream. While each tradition springs from its own unique set of cultural references, what ties them together is that they all celebrate a holiday that is different in America than it is any place else. For the past two hundred years, American Jews have been transforming the ancient holiday of Hanukkah from a simple occasion into something grand. Each year, as they retell its story and enact its customs, they bring their ever-changing perspectives and desires to its celebration. Providing an attractive alternative to the Christian dominated December, rabbis and lay people alike have addressed contemporary hopes by fashioning an authentically Jewish festival that blossomed in their American world.
The ways in which Hanukkah was reshaped by American Jews reveals the changing goals and values that emerged among different contingents each December as they confronted the reality of living as a religious minority in the United States. Bringing together clergy and laity, artists and businessmen, teachers, parents, and children, Hanukkah has been a dynamic force for both stability and change in American Jewish life. The holiday’s distinctive transformation from a minor festival to a major occasion that looms large in the American Jewish psyche is a marker of American Jewish life. Drawing on a varied archive of songs, plays, liturgy, sermons, and a range of illustrative material, as well as developing portraits of various communities, congregations, and rabbis, Hanukkah in America reveals how an almost forgotten festival became the most visible of American Jewish holidays. - Publisher's Description
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The Menorah: Evolving into the Most Important Jewish Symbol
Hachlili, Rachel (2018)
The Menorah, the ancient seven-armed candelabrum, was the most important Jewish symbol both in the Land of Israel and the Diaspora. The menorah was the most important of the Temple vessels and it also came to symbolize Judaism, when it was necessary to distinguish synagogues and Jewish tombs from Christian or pagan structures.
This book is a continuation of Hachlili's earlier comprehensive study, The Menorah, the Ancient Seven-armed Candelabrum: Origin, Form and Significance. Brill, 2001. It entails the compilation and study of the material of the past two decades, presenting the theme of the menorah, focusing on its development, form, meaning, significance, and symbolism in antiquity. - Publisher's Description
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A Kosher Christmas: Tis the Season to be Jewish
Plaut, Joshua Eli (2012)
Christmas is not everybody’s favorite holiday. Historically, Jews in America, whether participating in or refraining from recognizing Christmas, have devised a multitude of unique strategies to respond to the holiday season. Their response is a mixed one: do we participate, try to ignore the holiday entirely, or create our own traditions and make the season an enjoyable time? This book, the first on the subject of Jews and Christmas in the United States, portrays how Jews are shaping the public and private character of Christmas by transforming December into a joyous holiday season belonging to all Americans.
Creative and innovative in approaching the holiday season, these responses range from composing America’s most beloved Christmas songs, transforming Hanukkah into the Jewish Christmas, creating a national Jewish tradition of patronizing Chinese restaurants and comedy shows on Christmas Eve, volunteering at shelters and soup kitchens on Christmas Day, dressing up as Santa Claus to spread good cheer, campaigning to institute Hanukkah postal stamps, and blending holiday traditions into an interfaith hybrid celebration called “Chrismukkah” or creating a secularized holiday such as Festivus.
Through these venerated traditions and alternative Christmastime rituals, Jews publicly assert and proudly proclaim their Jewish and American identities to fashion a universally shared message of joy and hope for the holiday season. - Publisher's Description
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The Magic of the Winter Solstice: Seasonal Celebrations to Honour Nature's Ever-turning Wheel
Forest, Danu (2015)
The Celtic seasonal wheel is based on eight festivals – Winter Solstice, Imbolc, Spring Equinox, Beltane, Summer Solstice, Lughnasadh, Autumn Equinox and Samhain. Together, these lead us through the cycle of the year, aligning our awareness with the seasonal pattern of the earth beneath our feet.
In this book on the solstices, equinoxes and other festivals within the sacred cycle, Danu Forest reveals the secrets of each festival in turn and skilfully revives ancient traditions, encouraging us to reconnect with nature, and ourselves, with a host of practical ideas and rituals. Decorate your home with beautiful seasonal crafts and altars to manifest sacred space. Make gifts to give to friends, cast spells for creativity, fertility and blessing, and use the abundance of nature in recipes that can be enjoyed as part of your seasonal celebrations or for self-healing and empowerment. Meditate on the changing heavens throughout the year with Celtic star lore. Deepen your experience of the turning seasons, from the rest and renewal of winter through the revels of spring and summer to the soul or spirit nights of autumn with magical guided visualizations. This cycle of conscious celebration helps us, year on year, to align with nature’s rhythms with greater wonder and insight.
Based on sound extensive research, as well as many years of practical experience through both personal practice and teaching, the book will act as a guide for weaving a new, more soulful way of living into readers’ everyday existence. - Publisher's Description
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Pagan Christmas: Winter Feast of the Kalasha of the Hindu Kush
Cacopardo, Augusto (2016)
This authoritative work sheds light on the religious world of the Kalasha people of the Birir valley in the Chitral district of Pakistan, focusing on their winter feasts, which culminate every year in a great winter solstice festival. The Kalasha are not only the last example of a pre-Islamic culture in the Hindu Kush and Karakorum mountains but also practice the last observable example anywhere in the world of an archaic Indo-European religion. In this book, Augusto S. Cacopardo takes readers inside the world of the Kalasha people.
Cacopardo outlines the history and culture of this ancient but still extant people. Exploring an array of relevant literature, he enriches our understanding of their practices and beliefs through illuminating comparisons with both the Indian religious world and the religious folklore of Europe. Bringing together several disciplinary approaches and drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, this book offers the first extended study of this little-known but fascinating Kalasha community. It will take its place as a standard international reference source on the anthropology, ethnography, and history of religions in Pakistan and Central South Asia. - Publisher's Description
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Chinese New Year Paintings
Tai, Liping (2016)
The Lunar New Year is the most important traditional festival for Chinese. During the holiday, posting New Year Paintings as decorations is an indispensable custom in many regions, especially in the countryside.
One of the most popular folk art genres, the New Year Painting has enjoyed a history of more than 1,000 years. It is characterized by concise lines, bright colors, and auspicious and joyous subjects, depicting Chinese gods, such as the Gate God protecting households from evil, the God of Wealth helping attract wealth and prosperity, and images of happy children representing Chinese beliefs of "happiness lying in having many children." Also, scenes from legends and historical tales are reflected in the New Year Painting. - Publisher's Description
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The Public Work of Christmas: Difference and Belonging in Multicultural Societies
Klassen, Pamela; Scheer, Monique (2019)
Christmas is not a holiday just for Christians anymore, if it ever was. Embedded in calendars around the world and long a lucrative merchandising opportunity, Christmas enters multicultural, multi-religious public spaces, provoking both festivity and controversy, hospitality and hostility.
"The Public Work of Christmas" provides a comparative historical and ethnographic perspective on the politics of Christmas in multicultural contexts ranging from a Jewish museum in Berlin to a shopping boulevard in Singapore. A seasonal celebration that is at once inclusive and assimilatory, Christmas offers a clarifying lens for considering the historical and ongoing intersections of multiculturalism, Christianity, and the nationalizing and racializing of religion. The essays gathered here examine how cathedrals, banquets, and carols serve as infrastructures of memory that hold up Christmas as a civic, yet unavoidably Christian holiday. At the same time, the authors show how the public work of Christmas depends on cultural forms that mark, mask, and resist the ongoing power of Christianity in the lives of Christians and non-Christians alike. Legislated into paid holidays and commodified into marketplaces, Christmas has arguably become more cultural than religious, making ever wider both its audience and the pool of workers who make it happen every year.
"The Public Work of Christmas" articulates a fresh reading of Christmas – as fantasy, ethos, consumable product, site of memory, and terrain for the revival of exclusionary visions of nation and whiteness – at a time of renewed attention to the fragility of belonging in diverse societies. - Publisher's Description
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Christmas: A Very Peculiar History
Macdonald, Fiona; Salariya, David (2019)
We all know about mistletoe and stockings hung up by the chimney with care. But have you heard about Santa’s evil sidekick and the Scandinavian celebration of Saint Lucy? Merry very peculiar Christmas, with this sideways look at bizarre yuletide customs from around the world. So leave the mince pies on the mantelpiece if you’ve been good, block up your chimneys if you’ve been bad, and put this delightful little book under the tree! - Publisher's Description
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Nutcracker Nation: How an Old World Ballet Became a Christmas Tradition in the New World
Fisher, Jennifer (2003)
"The Nutcracker" is the most popular ballet in the world, adopted and adapted by hundreds of communities across the United States and Canada every Christmas season. In this entertainingly informative book, Jennifer Fisher offers new insights into the Nutcracker phenomenon, examining it as a dance scholar and critic, a former participant, an observer of popular culture, and an interviewer of those who dance, present, and watch the beloved ballet.
Fisher traces "The Nutcracker"’s history from its St. Petersburg premiere in 1892 through its emigration to North America in the mid-twentieth century to the many productions of recent years. She notes that after it was choreographed by another Russian immigrant to the New World, George Balanchine, the ballet began to thrive and variegate: Hawaiians added hula, Canadians added hockey, Mark Morris set it in the swinging sixties, and Donald Byrd placed it in Harlem. The dance world underestimates "The Nutcracker" at its peril, Fisher suggests, because the ballet is one of its most powerfully resonant traditions. After starting life as a Russian ballet based on a German tale about a little girl’s imagination, "The Nutcracker" has become a way for Americans to tell a story about their communal values and themselves. - Publisher's Description
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Santa Claus Worldwide: A History of St. Nicholas and other Holiday Gift-bringers
Jerman, Tom (2020)
This is a comprehensive history of the world's midwinter gift-givers, showcasing the extreme diversity in their depictions as well as the many traits and functions these characters share. It tracks the evolution of these figures from the tribal priests who presided over winter solstice celebrations thousands of years before the birth of Christ, to Christian notables like St. Martin and St. Nicholas, to a variety of secular figures who emerged throughout Europe following the Protestant Reformation. Finally, it explains how the popularity of a poem about a "miniature sleigh" and "eight tiny reindeer" helped consolidate the diverse European gift-givers into an enduring tradition in which American children awake early on Christmas morning to see what Santa brought.
Although the names, appearance, attire and gift-giving practices of the world's winter solstice gift-givers differ greatly, they are all recognizable as Santa, the personification of the Christmas and Midwinter festivals. Despite efforts to eliminate him by groups as diverse as the Puritans of seventeenth century New England, the Communist Party of the twentieth century Soviet Union and the government of Nazi Germany, Santa has survived and prospered, becoming one of the best known and most beloved figures in the world. - Publisher's Description
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Happy Holidays--Animated: A Worldwide Encyclopedia of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Year's Cartoons on Television and Film
Crump, William (2019)
Since the early 20th century, animated Christmas cartoons have brightened the holiday season around the world--first in theaters, then on television. From devotional portrayals of the Nativity to Santa battling villains and monsters, this encyclopedia catalogs more than 1,800 international Christmas-themed cartoons and others with year-end themes of Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and the New Year.
Explore beloved television specials such as A Charlie Brown Christmas, theatrical shorts such as Santa's Workshop, holiday episodes from animated television series like "American Dad!" and "The Simpsons," feature films like "The Nutcracker Prince" and obscure productions such as "The Insects' Christmas," along with numerous adaptations and parodies of such classics as "A Christmas Carol" and "Twas the Night before Christmas." - Publisher's Description
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Christmas with Kim-Joy: A Festive Collection of Edible Cuteness
Kim-Joy (2020)
Kim-Joy's baked creations have charmed fans since she was in the final of the Great British Bake Off 2018. Following on from her bestselling debut book, Baking with Kim-Joy, she's turning to everyone's favourite time of year – Christmas!
Sharing her simple decorating techniques and her delicious flavour combinations, Kim-Joy will delight novice and seasoned bakers with – amongst many others – her melted snowman cake pops, white chocolate igloos with marshmallow seals, penguin bao buns and incredible inspiration for designing your own magical gingerbread village.
Whether you're after ideas for edible Christmas gifts or bigger bakes to feed friends and family, you'll find a treasure trove of adorable recipes here that will melt everyone's heart. - Publisher's Description
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Hanukkah Around the World
Lehman-Wilzig, Tami; Wehrman, Vicki (2020)
Take a trip to Italy, Uzbekistan, Tunisia, and beyond to see how Hanukkah is celebrated around the world. Join the torch relay in Modi’in, Israel; the Ladino concert in Istanbul, Turkey; and the candle lighting on the beach in Sydney, Australia. Try the delicious and unusual recipes for fried burmelos, latkes, and precipizi that recall the miracle of the little jug of oil in the Hanukkah story. - Publisher's Description
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Crafts for Hanukkah
Ross, Kathy (1996)
Offers twenty simple projects that kids can make with everyday objects to celebrate the holiday season, including step-by-step instructions and lists of materials. - Publisher's Description
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Kwanzaa (Celebrations in My World)
Aloian, Molly (2009)
Kwanzaa is an African American festival that celebrates family, community and culture. It began in 1966 and based on various African harvest festivals in an attempt to bring African Americans together and remind them of their roots. On this day, African American families light the Kinara, a special candleholder, and discuss the seven principles that form the basis of the festival. - Publisher's Description
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All New Crafts for Kwanzaa
Ross, Kathy (2007)
Similar in format and theme to Ross and Holm's "Crafts for Kwanzaa" (1994), their new books offers more craft ideas for this African American celebration. From decorations to gifts, from bookmarks to coasters, the projects involve relatively inexpensive materials, though a trip to the craft store may be necessary to stock up on items such as "pony beads," pipe cleaners, and sticky-back magnets. Each simple craft idea is laid out in one, two, or three fully illustrated pages and includes a list of materials, step-by-step directions, and a look at the finished product. Colorful drawings and decorative borders brighten the pages. - Publisher's Description
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Chinese New Year (Celebrations in My World)
Gleason, Carrie (2007)
Kung hay fat Choy means ‘may you prosper’ and is a greeting heard often during Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year, sometimes called Lunar New Year, is celebrated in Chinese communities throughout the world. The festival lasts up to fifteen days and includes feasting, fireworks, and family celebrations. Children will love this colorful and easy-to-understand introduction to this famous holiday. - Publisher's Description
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Super Simple Christmas Activities: Fun and Easy Holiday Projects for Kids
Borgert-Spaniol, Megan (2017)
Get ready for holly, jolly, festive fun! Kids will learn all about Christmas and its traditions with Super Simple Christmas Activities. Then, explore ways they can celebrate the Christmas season by making Santa-themed snacks, glittering ornaments, and more. Colorful photos and step-by-step instructions make each project super easy and super fun. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Super Sandcastle is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO. - Publisher's Description
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Christmas Origami
Belinda Webster; Rita Storey (2020)
Start with a simple square of paper and fold your way to a collection of magical Christmas creations. With clear step-by-step guides for every project, this is a book that's got Christmas wrapped up! - Publisher's Description
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