The antidote to post-Christmas blues & New Year's resolutions!

Join me on a Little Women read along - and "Should I read my child scary fairy tales?" in Plough Mag, also the best $4 Christmas gift.

Hello friends!

Welcome to Just Beautiful, a newsletter with a monthly essay about places where beauty and justice meet. Right now, that is often in children’s literature and the liturgical year - but it shows up many places! The monthly essays are free, but if you’d like access to the list of Just Beautiful Links to essays, articles, music and books I’m reading (or reading to my kids), become a paid subscriber. Thank you!

So that it doesn’t get buried at the end of this newsletter, I was lucky enough to have another essay published in Plough Mag, this time in the print edition about my quandaries of reading scary stories to my kids and my own upbringing in South Africa in the 90’s. You can read it online here: Good Dragons? Should I read Scary Fairy stories to my children? The entire issue is worth a read!

Alright- onwards! x Steph

“There never was such a cross family!” cried Jo, losing her temper when she had upset an inkstand, broken both boot lacings, and sat down upon her hat.

- Jo March, the day after New Years, summarizing how we all feel after a week of holidays.

“Burdens” Chapter Four, Little Women

Yes, yes, I know that it is not even officially Epiphany, and we can/should be enjoying a bit more merry-making in the days to come. But also, no matter how hard I try, once the New Year begins, things begin to take on that New Year Sense of Importance/Dread. You can hide from the start of the school year before Christmas, but after New Year’s Day it just seems like a count-down until Normal Life resumes, even though we have about three weeks of holiday left in South Africa.

Is there a Little Women quote for this feeling? YES THERE IS, because there is a Little Women quote for any life circumstance. I give you: Chapter Four —

“Oh, dear, how hard it does seem to take up our packs and go on,” sighed Meg the morning after the party, for now the holidays were over, the week of merrymaking did not fit her for going on easily with the task she never liked.

“I wish it was Christmas or New Year’s all the time. Wouldn’t it be fun?” answered Jo, yawning dismally.

“We shouldn’t enjoy ourselves half so much as we do now. But it does seem so nice to have little suppers and bouquets, and go to parties, and drive home, and read and rest, and not work. It’s like other people, you know, and I always envy girls who do such things, I’m so fond of luxury,” said Meg, trying to decide which of two shabby gowns was the least shabby.

“Well, we can’t have it, so don’t let us grumble but shoulder our bundles and trudge along as cheerfully as Marmee does. I’m sure Aunt March is a regular Old Man of the Sea to me, but I suppose when I’ve learned to carry her without complaining, she will tumble off, or get so light that I shan’t mind her.”

This idea tickled Jo’s fancy and put her in good spirits, but Meg didn’t brighten, for her burden, consisting of four spoiled children, seemed heavier than ever.

Scene from 1994 Little Women movie… hard to image you can go from *this* to being the crossest family in the world. Except that it’s not.

I mean, it goes on, describing domestic scenes which could have come from my own home this morning:

So Meg went down, wearing an injured look, and wasn’t at all agreeable at breakfast time. Everyone seemed rather out of sorts and inclined to croak.

Beth had a headache and lay on the sofa, trying to comfort herself with the cat and three kittens. Amy was fretting because her lessons were not learned, and she couldn’t find her rubbers. Jo would whistle and make a great racket getting ready.

Mrs. March was very busy trying to finish a letter, which must go at once, and Hannah had the grumps, for being up late didn’t suit her.

HANNAH HAS THE GRUMPS FROM STAYING UP TOO LATE. This is too real.

It’s interesting that right around the time we are all feeling stirred up with New Year’s resolutions and ideas for self-improvement we also have to deal with the deflating feeling of returning to real life after the holidays. As I was thinking about this, I realized the perfect antidote to my post-Christmas blues and New Year duties:

Little Women.

Surprise, surprise. But really! I’m serious. Little Women was written as a kind of riff on the book Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, which is an entire book about the journey and burden of striving for virtue in the Christian life. What better novel is there to be my companion as I walk into a new year of duty and normal life and ordinary challenges?? A book that will make me laugh and sympathize with me and make me want to be a better person¹?

So, I’d like to invite you to join me in starting off our new year by reading Little Women together! Whether you’ve already read it, or have never read it, I really think reading Little Women at the start of the year is perfect timing. It’s such a friendly book, and will give us a little boost over the post-Christmas blues, a little encouragement as we try figure out how to live our resolutions for a better life and how to lift up our burdens and take on our Very Normal duties.

Here’s how it will work:

• Get a copy of Little Women. You can get it for free on Project Gutenberg on your kindle, but hey, in case you’ve been sleeping for the past three months, I also wrote an annotated edition of Little Women that’s great for teen and middle-grade readers but also for anyone! Example: Did you understand what Jo meant about The Old Man and the Sea in the quote above? The annotated edition explains that reference (and why it makes Jo laugh). 😁 But seriously, just get yourself any edition of Little Women.

• We’ll do a Slow Read: Just 5 chapters a week. This will take us about 2 months, right up to Lent, actually! This book is really engaging, and even though it’s long, you could read it in a weekend. But I think the benefit of a slow read is that we will have time to talk about it/ share what we think and really pay attention to details. And if you get behind, you’ll have time to catch up.

• I’m creating a specific Little Women Read Along section of this newsletter. I’ll send out weekly reminder emails on what we are reading. If you’re a subscriber to Just Beautiful, you’ll automatically be subscribed to the Read Along emails. You can UNSUBSCRIBE from these, and it won’t affect your normal Just Beautiful newsletter subscription.

• Every three weeks or so, I’ll share a summary of what we’ve read and some main themes, and we can share our thoughts/ comments/ favorite quotes and questions. I’ll be in the comments to answer questions!

• Paid subscribers to Just Beautiful will also have access to a little 15 minute audio guide for those chapters with background content on Alcott’s life and literary references.

Friends, thank you for reading my writing over the past year, especially to the paid subscribers who support my writing, and to everyone who has sent little comments or notes of encouragement! Writing is a very solitary activity, and getting to “meet” people through the internet who are interested in similar ideas has been a really great joy this year. I don’t always know what to say to your kind comments sometimes, but know I read every one of them!

Joy, hope, and peace for your New Year! (Even if you don’t read Little Women with me😉). — Steph