Family Christmas Online^TM - Other Christmas Resources

We plan for this page to contain links to many other resources that may help you and your family plan a Christmas season with less stress and more joy. So far, though, it's been all we could do to get our own ideas online.

We do have several interesting additions that don't really fit anywhere else:

• The Boar's Head Festival - a distinctively English celebration that combines renaissance Christian culture with pre-Christian traditions. This can be produced in concert format with lots of pageantry and no food, or in a "renaissance dinner" format with a lot of food and dialogue and slightly less pageantry. Our expanded page on the subject includes links to scripts and other resources.

• Family Christmas Online Discussion forums - Announcing an interactive discusion forum for folks who want to post photos, ask questions, answer questions, and just hang out with other Christmas-lovers. We have a manual sign-up procedure which slows things down but keeps out the riffraff, so you don't have to worry about nasty people or spam. New for 2014! If you want to jump right to the registration page, click here.

• Ben Jonson's Masque of Christmas - Back in 1616, a predominantly Puritan parliament was threatening to make Christmas an endangered species in England. But King James I asked one of his favorite playwrites, Ben Jonson, to write a Christmas play to entertain the court. Jonson makes fun - not only of Puritan opposition to Christmas, but also of the Elizabethan excesses that got the Puritans riled up in the first place. We chose to publish this largely because some of our later writers refer to it, and it is one of the earliest Christmas plays for which we still have the script. Lots of explanation, in case the King James English "throws you." (Yes it's that King James) New for 2014!

• Mummers - A medieval holiday folk tradition outlawed in 1649, revived in the early 1800s, now being reenacted by troupes throughout the English-speaking world. We try to separate the legend from the history and point you to the most useful web resources. New for 2014!

Also be sure to visit:

• CardboardChristmas.com^TM, a careful cross-reference of the most useful and reliable web resources about cardboard Christmas "putz" houses. We have also added a discussion forum for asking and answering questions, and collecting information about these houses. Several of the country's most respected collectors, restorers, and putz house builders participate, and the tone is always encouraging.

• OldChristmasTreeLights.com^TM, the Internet's largest guide to collecting Christmas tree lighting. Additional features include:
  • Everything you ever wanted to know about bubble lights,
  • Free MP3s of century-old wax cylinder Christmas song recordings - For some truly vintage Christmas cheer. It's amazing how well most of these recordings hold up to the test of time.
  • A discussion forum where members can ask questions, upload photos, and othewise share information. New for 2014

If you've been reading our pages, you know that we are still "chiseling away" at the various topics and collections we hope to "fill out," so keep checking back. And contact us with any questions or suggestions you have in the meantime.

Paul and Shelia Race

www.familychristmasonline.com