'Tis the Season

... to be reading!  When I was a kid, one of the best parts of any holiday was the seasonal books that Mom would pull out of storage for us.  Some of them I just remember the cover for, like Santa Mouse.

And then, there are others, like Cajun Night Before Christmas, that starts so memorably:

'Twas the night before Christmas
An' all t'ru de house
Dey don't a t'ing pass
Not even a mouse.

But our very favorite book, the one that we still snuggle up on the couch on Christmas Eve to read together, is Christmas in America by Beverly A. Scott.

Christmas in America was a gift from my Pop-Pop for my first Christmas.  It's out of print, probably never had more than that one printing, and is hideously expensive on the second-hand market.  Amazon has copies for around $40.  Fortunately, I still have that original copy (signed by the author even!  I started early), and I was able to get copies a few years ago for my parents and brother, so none of us have to be without it, even if we can't all be together for the holiday.

The great thing about Christmas in America is that there is so much to see and learn.  Unlike many picture books, Christmas is text-heavy.  And the family in the story is German American, with corresponding foods and traditions, so not always easy to pronounce, either.  But being German American myself, some of those foods and traditions were familiar from our own celebrations, even if the story takes place almost 100 years ago.

Moving into the present, I'm looking forward to reading a few grown-up Christmas books this year, too.  My parents are seriously addicted to Hallmark movies.  There have to be at least 30 hours of Hallmark Christmas movies on the dvr in the living room right now.  They've watched Mrs. Miracle and Call Me Mrs. Miracle (Kaylee!) at least twice since Saturday.  That got me interested in the books, even though I'm generally indifferent to Debbie Macomber.  I was able to download Mrs. Miracle from the library, and I'm on the waiting list for Call Me Mrs. Miracle.  I haven't had a chance to start reading yet, but I'd better get on it soon, or I may find myself wrestling my mother for possession of the ereader.

The other seasonal read I'm looking forward to is A Christmas to Die For by Marta Perry.  I'm not normally an Inspie reader, but the first book in this series, Hide in Plain Sight, was one of the first books I read when I bought my Kindle summer of 2009.  Harlequin had it available as a promotional freebie (and as far as I know it still is), so I decided to give it a try.  Plus, the setting is Amish country, which sounded interesting, although the hero and heroine are not Amish themselves.  When I saw that the second book in the series was Christmas themed, I decided to read it on Christmas Eve.  Well, circumstances conspired against me, and A Christmas to Die For is still sitting, unread, on my Pocket a year later.  This time I'm not banking on getting to read it on Christmas Eve, but I do plan to get to it sometime this month.

So, do you have any special books for the holidays?  Any holiday-themed books you plan to read this season?