Tasha, Giovanni, and Me

Growing up, my parents proudly displayed their first edition Take Joy! The Tasha Tudor Christmas Book on the living room coffee table

First published in 1966, I can’t tell you the hours I spent pouring over every page of that book around Christmas.

What can I say?

It was the 70’s and 80’s. Cable was nascent and limited. Three t.v. channels otherwise, four if one counted PBS, which was really only good for Sesame Street, The Electric Company, and Mr. Rogers.

We had a lot more free time on our hands than the youth of today

Boredom? What’s that

I would open the book every year it was out and read it from cover to cover

More than once

Like every day

Poems, carols, receipts, Fra Giovanni’s prayer in letter form telling a discouraged friend to “Take Joy!” from whence came the title of her tome

The Nativity According to St. Luke, “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed”

Which, led me to win an entire week of no homework in math class in the 6th grade around this time of year

Our math teacher, a retired Marine Corps Colonel, one Colonel Piper, would have row races to see which row could complete math problems fastest and with the most mastery. The prize: no homework

Upon the blackboard in his class in the upper left corner, the Colonel had written the letters “PSRTQ” in bold print

Piper Says Read The Question

Good advice, Marine

For most of that fall in his class, my row consisted of me and four other over achievers

Finally, around Christmas a classmate complained that we had been exempt from homework for almost two months

Colonel Piper shifted the rows

Well, one December, before exams, which we had starting in the 5th grade at our school, he did one of those coded word problems connected with math wherein words are revealed by correctly solving the math problem

I have no idea what the math problem was, but I started and came up with “And it came to pass….”

Having read the KJV of Luke 2 time and time again that season, I raced through the problem from “And it came to pass” straight on through “Peace on earth; good will toward men”

We won thanks in large part to Mrs. Tudor’s inclusion of that Gospel passage in her book

When St. Linus the Evangelist recites St. Luke’s Gospel to Charlie Brown and the other Peanuts gang, I mouth the words with him, because of Mrs. Tudor

What else did she include?

Excerpts from Dickens of the Cratchits’ humble Christmas dinner as seen by Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present along with their overflowing gratitude for even their meager meal

The young couple, each of whom puts their new spouse’s wants and desires before their own interests in that tale of grace and irony, in O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi

Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas in Wales in which the postman rat a tat tatted all the time

The Reverend Doctor Clement C. Moore’s telling of a visit from St. Nicholas

Carols and carols and more carols

When I arrived at boarding school in 1987, that December I attended my first wonderful Christmas carol sing and concert in the Chapel right before exams

Who needs a program when you already know all the verses to Hark! The Heard Angels Sing or It Came Upon the Midnight Clear or I Saw Three Ships on Christmas Day or O Little Town of Bethlehem? Not me

I can tell Jennette and Isabella to bring a torch

One of my classmates said “How do you know all of these verses?”

My reply, “Tasha Tudor’s Take Joy!”

His reply, “We have that book. I’ve never read it”

Guess his being from New York City and all meant he had a lot more options for entertainment than we did in Beaufort

Unlike my New York classmate, I do have a dear pal from the Eastern Shore of Maryland who is a huge fan. In fact, she has given additional Tasha Tudor books to our girls for Christmas. You know who you are.

Having never traveled to Sweden, I still knew about the Santa Lucia Queen wearing a crown of candles and handing out goodies to all assembled

Having never been to the Tudor family farm, I still knew about their traditions, including putting a creche in the bread oven. Wouldn’t it burn up?

For years and years, I begged my parents to give me their copy of Take Joy!

No chance

And, well, thanks to the silliness that is social media, a lovely book seller at Pease Porridge Press whom I follow posted a picture of a first edition Take Joy! with a reasonable asking price. (@myoldbooks if anyone wants to follow along)

I immediately slid into some DMs and have proudly displayed my first edition Take Joy! for years now

At least once during Advent, I sit quietly and read Mrs. Tudor’s book from cover to cover with her watercolor illustrations

Sometimes tears flow from my eyes. Sometimes gut busting laughter erupts.

But, mainly, the emotion is the one on her cover

Joy

I pray you all find Joy this Christmas, especially any of you experiencing losses, bad news, upsetting events. It’s a tough time of year for so many

I pray that you, too, remember the words of the Angel, “Fear not!”

As there is no peace in that Little Town of Bethlehem this Christmas, I pray that that the Angel’s further message of Peace on Earth, Goodwill Toward Men will once again be heard by both sides in that ages old conflict

So, Take Joy!

Merry Christmas, kids

I leave you with this prayer in letter form from a Sixteenth Century Franciscan friar, architect, scholar

Fra Giovanni’s Christmas Prayer

I salute you! There is nothing I can give you which you have not; but there is much that, while I cannot give, you can take.

No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take Heaven.

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in the present. Take Peace.

The gloom of the world is but a shadow; behind it, yet within our reach is joy. Take Joy!

And so, at this Christmas time, I greet you, with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away

Fra Giovanni Giocondo to his friend Contessa Allagia Aldobrandeschi, Christmas Eve. 1513.