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Although it’s been said many times, many ways…

BURNED-OVER DISTRICT, NY---Merry Christmas to all friends (and enemies, too) of Front Porch Republic! Don't you worry 'bout that quaffer-scoffer in the Quad Cities. Come December 24 he'll be reading Clement Moore…
Bill Kauffman
December 16, 2009

BURNED-OVER DISTRICT, NY—Merry Christmas to all friends (and enemies, too) of Front Porch Republic! Don’t you worry ’bout that quaffer-scoffer in the Quad Cities. Come December 24 he’ll be reading Clement Moore (or is it Henry Livingston Jr.?) to his fambly and then on the morning after he’ll be up in the predawn watching his kiddies eagerly tear the wrapping paper from that homebrewing kit Santa is bringing.

Two suggested short stories to supplement the usual: Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory,” a lovely tribute to Miss Sook Faulk and the best thing the troubled Dill ever wrote, and “Christmas Jenny” by Mary Wilkins Freeman, painter par excellence of the stubborn New England eccentric.

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A stack of three Local Culture journals and the book 'Localism in the Mass Age'

Bill Kauffman

Bill Kauffman is the author of eleven books, among them Dispatches from the Muckdog Gazette (Henry Holt), Ain’t My America (Metropolitan), Look Homeward, America (ISI), and Poetry Night at the Ballpark (FPR Books). His next book, Upstaters, is due from SUNY Press in 2026. He is a columnist for The American Conservative and The Spectator World. Bill wrote the screenplay for the 2013 feature film Copperhead. He is a founding editor of Front Porch Republic and has served as a legislative assistant to Senator Pat Moynihan, editor for various magazines and publishers, and vice president of the Batavia Muckdogs, a professional baseball team that was euthanized by Major League Baseball. He lives with his wife Lucine in his native Genesee County, New York.

3 comments

  • Jason Peters
    15 years ago

    If Dylan Thomas’s “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” be your preference, I recommend less scoffing than quaffing. DT himself obviously preferred the latter.

  • Rob G
    15 years ago

    Try one of Dickens’ lesser-known “Christmas Books” — ‘The Cricket on the Hearth’ or ‘The Chimes.’

    Also the 19th century German writer Adalbert Stifter’s disquieting but lovely novella ‘Rock Crystal,’ about two children who get lost in a snowstorm on Christmas eve.

  • Jeremy Beer
    15 years ago

    Also recommended: Booth Tarkington’s “Beasley’s Christmas Party,” an early work, melodramatic but touching.

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