Article Archives: What’s in the Attic?

It’s Question and Answer Time!

January 7, 2016 | by Linda Hamer Kennett

The best part of writing this column for the past 18 years has been the e-mails, phone calls and one-on-one conversations I have with my readers. You arouse my curiosity, challenge my memory and send me scurrying to the computer for research on a regular basis. It was my greatest … Read More

This is the Year We Get Organized

December 24, 2015 | by Linda Hamer Kennett

The gifts are gone from under the tree, there is scarcely enough ham left to make a pot of soup, and you now realize that you should have asked Santa for a new bathroom scale because the old one is weighing five pounds heavier that it did last month. Yes, … Read More

A Right Jolly Old Elf — Santa Collectibles

December 17, 2015 | by Linda Hamer Kennett

Santa Claus, as we know him today, first appeared in the 1823 Clement C. Moore poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” where he is described as “chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf.” This figure was popularized in 1863 with a series of illustrations by Thomas Nast that appeared … Read More

Christmas Yard Art

December 10, 2015 | by Linda Hamer Kennett

There are things that simply must be in place for it to be Christmas in my mind: the living Nativity at church, cookie baking with my grandsons, a “good” cup of eggnog and my neighbor’s yard full of blow mold holiday figures. Blow mold lawn ornaments have been with us … Read More

A Professor, A Spruce Tree and a Small Boy

December 3, 2015 | by Linda Hamer Kennett

The Christmas of 1835 found Harvard professor Charles Follen yearning for his German homeland. Although his life’s work as an educator and political activist would earn him many distinctions, he is most fondly remembered for his actions that Christmas Eve. Keeping with a 200 year old German tradition, he brought … Read More