Velvety Soft Visit from St. Nick

Only one more Christmas Vintage Thingies Thursday after this week. I wonder what Suzanne and the other participants will be sharing today. Be sure to visit ColoradoLady to see all the goodies!

Those of you who have known me since last Christmas might be surprised with this one. I have ANOTHER vintage Night Before Christmas book. It's getting a little ridiculous how many of these keep popping up in the homes of my immediate family! This one belongs to my sister, Kathleen.

This version actually has a little mystery to it. Last year I shared a 1935 version that my father grew up with, published by Whitman Publishers and illustrated by Keith Ward, famous for creating the Dick & Jane characters. On Christmas Eve we always read Kathleen's vintage Night Before Christmas, that she has had for many years now, that we always were told had been my dad's as a child.

However, upon looking at it carefully last year, it was published in 1954, when he was over 20 years old. So how could that be? The 1954 edition has always been stored carefully with striped red and green gift wrap sort of around it, and part of the family legend has been that it was the paper the book was wrapped in when my dad received it as a child.

Then the questioning began. My poor dad! He couldn't remember either one really, or the story behind which was purchased when. It was finally determined that the 1935 version was his as a child. When he left home during the Korean War, my Aunt Kakee moved all the family things to a smaller apartment and threw tons of stuff out. When my dad returned home, the book couldn't be found and it was assumed that it had been tossed.The 1954 version must have been purchased  as a replacement.

I think the gift wrap is because Kakee bought it for him as a gift. So that's the new story, and I think we'll stick to it.

The book I showed you last year had kind of a creepy looking father, and this one, illustrated by Louise W. Meyers has a child-like father, which is creepy in a different way. The thing both Kathleen and I loved about this book growing up was that all the red is velvet. You can see it really well if you enlarge the pictures.

For those who are interested, here are last year's postings of A Night Before Christmas:
     MY CHILDHOOD BOOK          MY DAD'S CHILDHOOD BOOK
Have a wonderful weekend before Christmas and I hope you will be back next Thursday for a Christmas Eve Vintage Thingies Thursday with our hostess Suzanne @ ColoradoLady. Please stop by and see what she and the other participants are showing off this week.