Children’s Holiday Games of Long Ago

Holidays, especially Christmas, have always been most exciting for children. In the old days they didn’t have iPhones, iPads or any of the modern “toys” we provide to keep them busy while we cook Christmas dinner, set our tables and greet guests. Instead, they played games. Here are a few of their favorites.

A treat-filled paper bag is hung from from the ceiling or possibly a tree branch in warm climates. One child is blindfolded and spun around. Using a stick he or she is given several chances to hit the bag. Everyone takes turns until the bag breaks, spilling out its contents. The kids rush to snatch up as many treats as they can. Sounds like the piñata game, doesn’t it? Probably not a coincidence.

Kind of appropriate for romance authors! This game was popular at Valentine’s Day. A heart is attached (pinned, I imagine) to each child’s back with a name on it of one half of a famous couple. The players ask each other questions to learn their identity, such as “Am I a woman?” or “Am I alive now?” Once the player knows his or her name, they must find their partner in romance.

This game was often played at Christmas parties. A big, pretty spider (if a spider can be called pretty) made of wire and decorated, is hung from on high. Long strings or ribbons, one per player, were attached to the spider and wound around the room, under furniture, through doorways, maybe up and down stairs. They formed a complicated web. Each child chose one “thread” of the web and followed it to the end, where a Christmas gift waited.

There were also outdoor games, weather permitting. I describe one called Ring Taw in a short story titled A Texas Devlins Christmas, posted on Alison Bruce’s site today. I hope you’ll join the Devlins’ Christmas gathering. http://alisonebruce.blogspot.com/ 

 

Now here’s a snippet from my short story, Christmas Cookies for Tristan

Blurb:

Tristan Jameson isn't happy to attend a stuffy New York Christmas party, but when Charlotte Dixon walks in, the evening promises excitement. A tin of homemade Christmas cookies helps bring the two of them together. Recipe included!

Excerpt:

Tristan tensed when he saw a striking auburn-haired woman hand her coat to a butler in the penthouse foyer and walk into the crowded living room. He’d never met her, he was certain, yet he felt instantly drawn to her. Despite his avoidance of female companionship over the past two years, his pulse quickened and the chatter of partygoers faded away as he watched her.

She wore a cranberry red dress with tiny cap sleeves that went surprisingly well with her mahogany hair. Smiling brightly, she exchanged air kisses with Johanna Cantrell, their hostess and Tristan’s distant cousin, who had opened up her lavish Park Avenue suite for this early Christmas party. So gracious of her, everyone agreed. Of course they all knew tonight’s party was aimed at garnering backers for the lady’s upcoming mayoral campaign.

The redhead had arrived unescorted. Was she a personal friend of Johanna’s or some high-placed business executive who might be convinced to throw her support behind the candidate? Tristan doubted it was the latter. She didn’t look old enough to fill such a role.

Curious to discover her identity, he edged his way through the crowd and followed the woman down a hall toward the kitchen, admiring the slender curves revealed by her subtly flowing skirt. Members of the catering staff buzzed past like worker bees, carrying empty food trays to be refilled and filled ones back out to the buffet table in the spacious living room, or salon as Cousin Johanna called it.

Pausing in the kitchen’s open doorway, Tristan leaned against the door jam and observed the redhead as she held out a large Christmas tin to a portly, bearded man in a white chef’s uniform. 

“Please arrange these cookies on a tray and set them out with the other desserts,” she said in a low, smoky voice reminiscent of actress Kathleen Turner’s.

The man scowled. “Madame, I personally prepare all food for every event I cater, including the desserts.”

“Oh, but I baked these especially for tonight as a gift for Jo . . . I mean Mrs. Cantrell. She told me to bring them back here for you to serve.”

“I doubt that, young woman,” the pompous ass sneered. “That good woman knows I never allow anything prepared by another hand to be served at one of my events.”

“Are you calling me a liar?” The redhead’s voice shook slightly, either with distress or anger.

Read more: http://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Cookies-Tristan-Lyn-Horner-ebook/dp/B00GHP4PXU

Source: Games from long ago (Historic Communities) by Bobbie Kalman http://www.amazon.com/Games-Long-Ago-Historic-Communities/dp/0865055211/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1386374486&sr=1-1&keywords=games+from+long+ago

Coffee: Home, home on the range

"There is nothing like being left alone again, to walk peacefully with oneself in the woods. To boil one's coffee and fill one's pipe, and to think idly and slowly as one does it." --Knut Hamsun

A Norwegian author who was described as "the soul of Norway" and "the father of modern literature," Knut Hamsun was probably talking of the wild places of his homeland. Yet, his words could have as easily spoken by a cowboy.

Only one image is more vivid than the lone cowboy with his tin cup. That's the image of a group of cowboys around the campfire with a large pot sitting close by, ready to supply refills. The free-range cafe, where stories are swapped, politics argued and weather discussed.

Americans weren't always big coffee drinkers. The colonists were primarily tea drinkers until the Boston Tea Party. Boycotting tea because of unfair taxes and the monopoly of the East India Company, Americans turned to coffee as their preferred drink.

Not that there hadn't been coffeehouses before that. The intelligentsia of Boston, New York and Philadelphia had been hanging out drinking coffee since 1668. Just like their European and British counterparts, these coffeehouses were hubs where stories are swapped, politics argued, weather discussed and business transacted.*

Until 1773, coffee was considered too expensive to be consumed in most households. After the Boston Tea Party, coffee became the patriotic beverage of choice. It also helped that Central and South American growers were producing enough coffee to bring the price of beans down.

Coffee represented independence, democracy and free thinking. It's no wonder it traveled well with the western expansion. That is, the tradition of coffee traveled well. The beans were another story.

"If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee." --Abraham Lincoln

Until 1865, when Arbuckles introduced their ground coffee in one pound paper bags, consumers bought green coffee beans in cloth sacks. The beans picked up odors in transit and were often stale by the time they were used. Cook, wife, or lone cowboy would then have to roast the beans in a pan, being careful not to burn them. Then the beans had to be ground before you could start to boil the coffee.

Even with Arbuckles', brewing a good cup of coffee was iffy. (How to make Cowboy Coffee - Canadian style.) At it's best it was never "Good to the last drop" because the last drops contained a sludge of coffee grounds.

Of course, a dark, bitter-sweet brew with a smooth finish wasn't in the cowboy phrase book. When you had to wake up before dawn, or stay awake long after dusk, all you needed was something hot, strong and caffeinated. However, if the coffee was weak, instead of swapping stories, arguing politics and discussing weather, the cowboys might be looking for a new camp cook.



References:
International Coffee Organization
Arbuckles Coffee History
Coffee Traditions

* Coffee trivia: Edward Lloyd opened a coffeehouse in London in 1688. It was frequented by shipping merchants and became known as a place for obtaining marine insurance. The business became Lloyd's of London.

Alison Bruce is the author of Under A Texas Star (western romance) and Deadly Legacy (mystery). Find her at:
www.alisonbruce.ca
www.alisonebruce.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/alisonbruce.books
twitter.com/alisonebruce

The Trail to El Paso

  The working title for Under A Texas Star was El Paso Trail. My son still prefers the old name, but you can’t argue that the new name isn’t sexier.

Marly Landers and Ranger Jase Strachan are both headed for El Paso when they meet. Marly is after the man who cheated the people of her home town of Cherryville, Kansas. Jase is after a con man who cheated the wrong people in his home state of Texas. Of course, their quarries are one and the same man. The destination isn’t nearly important as how they get there, but they do get to El Paso eventually and I had to get a mental picture of the town before I wrote about it.

In 1581 Spanish conquistadores found their way across the Rio Bravo del Norte (aka the Rio Grande) from what would become Estados Únidos Mexicanos into what is now the United States of America. They named the passage El Paso del Rio del Norte (the pass through the river of the north). Of course, the Europeans were “discovering” an area that had already been home to native cultures. Archeological evidence supports thousands of years of human settlement within the El Paso region.

The first European settlement that would be called El Paso was south of the river – present day Ciudad Juárez. Apaches discouraged European invasion north of the river for as long as they could, but eventually farms and missions migrated north. In 1682, the Tigua Indians, fleeing the Pueblo Revolt in New Mexico, together with their Spanish masters, built the mission Nuestra Señora del Carmen, in what is now a suburb of El Paso. In Under A Texas Star, Marly skips town and goes to a village surrounded by farms and vineyards that had, up to the year before, been Tigua land. In 1874, the State of Texas passed a law that turned over 500 parcels of Tigua-owned land to American settlers.

One of the key aspects for my book is that El Paso served as a major stop for the famous Butterfield Overland Mail Coach. That, and its easy access to Mexico via the Camino Real, made it an ideal destination for Charlie Meese, the fugitive Marly and Jase are tracking. At the time the story takes place, El Paso has only just been incorporated as a city. Jase notes that it has grown a lot since he was last there. To get a sense of that for myself, I looked up old maps of El Paso so I'd know where my fictional landmarks would fit among the historical ones - or at least which way was what.

  After breakfast, Jase arranged for them to have baths at one of the more reasonably priced hotels. Jase took the privilege of having the first bath, giving her the chore of taking their trail clothes to the Chinese laundry. Since he trusted her to go out on her own, Marly deduced that El Paso wasn't as dangerous as she thought―at least not by daylight.

  It might as well have been a foreign country. El Paso was nothing like anywhere Marly had been before. There were at least as many people speaking Spanish as English, and a fair number speaking other languages like German, French and Chinese. The railway was coming and the city was already showing signs of things to come.

  The El Hombre was just off the Camino Real that had linked Santa Fe and Mexico City since the first Spanish colonists settled in the area. Just down the street and across the river lay Mexico. Marly put a visit to the border on her to-do list, along with finding the post office, dealing with Meese and settling her account with Jase. However, first she had to find the laundry.

Some day I’ll have to take Marly and Jase back there when the railway comes through. That’s when El Paso really exploded - in population and lawlessness. In fact, that’s the El Paso I was originally headed to until research set me right. Ah well, it gives me something to play with later.

www.elpasohistory.com/history.html
www.desertusa.com/Cities/tx/tx_elpaso.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paso,_Texas

Alison Bruce is the author of Under A Texas Star (western romance) and Deadly Legacy (mystery). Find her at:
www.alisonbruce.ca
www.alisonebruce.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/alisonbruce.books
twitter.com/alisonebruce

If The Pants Fit by Alison Bruce

A few years ago I entered the book that would become Under A Texas Star in a literary contest. I was prepared for criticism of my characterization, plot, and/or pace. After all, the chief reason I entered the contest was to get feedback I could use to improve my story.
I was dumbfounded that the judges’ chief complaint was that it wasn’t believable that a young woman could pass as a young man. Now that Under A Texas Star is published, I feel I can indulge in a little rant on the topic.

The dramatic device of a woman masquerading as a man has been around forever. It’s as accepted in historical romance as fast-than-light travel is in science fiction. Let’s set that aside, however. The fact is, women have been successfully posing as men throughout history.

I belong to Minerva, a history list devoted to women in the military. Thanks to the academics and enthusiasts, I learned that at least 400 women fought in the American Civil War. They cut their hair, bound their breasts and learn to behave like men. They were only ever discovered if wounded or killed or, as in the case of Sarah Emma Edmonds, they wrote about it afterwards.

I’ve picked Sarah Emma Edmonds, aka Frank Thompson, as an example because, like me, she’s Canadian. Edmonds escaped an abusive father in Nova Scotia to live in the United States. When her adopted country went to war, she was determined to serve.

Sarah could have been the heroine of her own romance. She served as a “male” nurse in an army hospital, then as a Union spy - disguising herself as a black man, an Irish peddler, and black mammy. In a ploy straight out of Victor-Victoria, she masqueraded as a man masquerading as a woman. Her story includes horse chases, gun play and near escapes - not unlike the adventures of Marly Landers in Under A Texas Star.

Unfortunately Sarah contracted malaria and had to desert or be found out. She returned to Canada, fell in love and returned to the States with her husband. They had three sons who, like their mama, served in the US Army.

To find out more about Sarah, check out her biography or read the Civil War Women Blog.

To find out more about Marly Landers, read Under A Texas Star, available in Kindle, Nook, Kobo, other formats on Smashwords and in paperback on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Disguised as a boy, Marly joins a handsome Texas Ranger in the hunt for a con man and they must bring the fugitive to justice before giving up the masquerade and giving in to their passion.

When Marly Landers is fooled by con man Charlie Meese, she's determined to bring him to justice--even if it means dressing up as a boy and setting off across the plains to find him.

“This is a rollicking adventure and Marly Landers is a girl with True Grit.”
Phyllis Smallman, Arthur Ellis Award winning author of Champagne for Buzzards

Alison Bruce has an honours degree in history and philosophy, which has nothing to do with any regular job she’s held since. A liberal arts education did prepare her to be a writer, however. She penned her first novel during lectures while pretending to take notes.
Alison grew up surrounded by the great dames of golden age mysteries - Christie, Sayer, Marsh - Georgette Heyer’s historical romances and the classic westerns of Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey. Naturally enough her debut novel, Under A Texas Star, is a mystery-romance set in the old west. 

www.alisonbruce.ca, alisonebruce.blogspot.com, twitter.com/alisonebruce,  www.facebook.com/alisonbruce.books