The Very First Christmas Stocking & the Gifts of the 7 Coins by Terry Paul LaFargue

Bear’s alarm clock, Bertie finds himself awakened in the midst of winter. After devising a plan in which he attempts to sleep as much as possible prior to the change of seasons (much to his unsuspecting mother’s bafflement) and with the aid of Mrs. 4-8)Ī young bear cub, Bertie, decides he wants to stay up for Christmas when his non-hibernating friends regale him with tales of snow, honey cakes, and a white-bearded man with gifts. The mischief-maker may be a brat, but the gingerbread cookie is also the agent of good cheer, and Brett allows that spirit to run free on these pages. It works, too, and Matti is able to spirit the gingerbread baby away from the mob. All the while, Matti is busy back home, building a gingerbread house to entice the nervy cookie to safe harbor. Always he remains just out of reach as he races over the winterscape, beautifully rendered with elegant countryside and architectural details by Brett. When he opens the door, out pops a gingerbread baby, taunting the familiar refrain, “Catch me if you can.” The brash imp races all over the village, teasing animals and tweaking the noses of the citizenry, until there is a fair crowd on his heels intent on giving him a drubbing. He and his mother mix a batch of gingerbread and tuck it in the oven, but Matti is too impatient to wait ten minutes without peeking. In a snowbound Swiss village, Matti figures it’s a good day to make a gingerbread man. The sentimentality is evident but not overwrought in this tale of kindness recompensed. Ibatoulline illustrates Winthrop’s mid-length tale with snowy scenes in appropriate soft-focus, featuring a very small child huddled in a dim, sparsely furnished room knitting brightly decorated stockings as her mother-and later on, her loving father-hover in the background. In the morning, not only is the sock packed with new wool and other gifts, but the fire in the hearth is lit, and stays lit from then on. Expecting to have a cold, cheerless Christmas in consequence, she tearfully turns homeward to hang the remaining stocking over the fireplace. On her weary way to deliver them, though, she passes a freezing, ragged boy, and is moved to give him two for his feet, two more for his hands, and another for his head. Sadly carrying on after her mother’s death, little Claire receives a commission for three pairs of stockings just days before Christmas.

Knitting warm dreams along with wool into her socks, a poor child mysteriously earns a lasting reward with an act of charity on Christmas Eve.

The Very First Christmas Stocking & the Gifts of the 7 Coins by Terry Paul LaFargue