{"id":42261,"date":"2025-10-31T09:56:02","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T15:56:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/?p=42261"},"modified":"2025-10-31T09:56:02","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T15:56:02","slug":"delaware-at-christmas-the-first-state-in-a-merry-state-by-dave-tabler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/?p=42261","title":{"rendered":"Delaware at Christmas: The First State in a Merry State by Dave Tabler"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A beautifully told celebration of heritage, hope, and holiday spirit.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChristmas has always been a mirror of who we are,\u201d writes Tabler in his latest, a book that\u2019s less a scholarly study than a fond, finely detailed stroll through the state\u2019s holiday past. A historian by training but a storyteller at heart, Tabler takes readers from the first Swedish settlers lighting candles in Fort Christina to modern multicultural celebrations, showing how one small state made the season distinctly its own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delaware\u2019s Christmas, as he reveals, is no single story. The Swedish Luciafest<\/em> at Old Swedes Church glows beside the Dutch Sinterklaas<\/em> and Anglican evergreens that once brightened Wilmington sanctuaries. He gives moving attention to the Antebellum Black Christmas<\/em>, where joy flickered amid oppression, and to churches like Peter Spencer\u2019s Union Church of Africans, which offered both worship and resistance. His sense of balance (between sacred and secular, celebration and survival) adds quiet gravity to what might have been simple nostalgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tabler\u2019s eye for texture brings history alive: Sussex County\u2019s mistletoe pickers scaling trees with hickory poles, the holly wreath makers who crowned Delaware \u201cThe Land of Holly,\u201d and the canned plum puddings of Dover\u2019s Richardson & Robbins factory that carried Victorian sweetness across America. He doesn\u2019t overlook quirk or invention; lawn trees<\/em>, handbell choirs, even IBM punch-card wreaths, all proof that Christmas continually reinvents itself. With crisp, humane prose and a folklorist\u2019s curiosity, Tabler turns archives into atmosphere and local memory into living tradition. Photographs, archival notes, and historical references enrich the reading experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A heartfelt homage to tradition, community, and the enduring magic of Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Buy now<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pub date July 4, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ASIN B0F4NJ2KTZ<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Price $9.99 (USD) Kindle edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A beautifully told celebration of heritage, hope, and holiday spirit. \u201cChristmas has always been a mirror of who we are,\u201d writes Tabler in his latest, a book that\u2019s less a scholarly study than a fond, finely detailed stroll through the state\u2019s holiday past. A historian by training but a storyteller at heart, Tabler takes readers from the first Swedish settlers lighting candles in Fort Christina to modern multicultural celebrations, showing how one small state made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145610851,"featured_media":42263,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[723770755],"tags":[7223,91,3328,178,723771285,723771286,723771287,723769865,723771283,1136176,3748,1473,1008073,856121,309,723771284,349],"class_list":["post-42261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-non-fiction-non-fiction","tag-author","tag-blogging","tag-book-reviews","tag-books","tag-dave-tabler","tag-delaware-at-christmas-the-first-state-in-a-merry-state","tag-goodreads","tag-history","tag-history-of-mid-atlantic-u-s","tag-indie-books","tag-non-fiction","tag-reading","tag-review-blog","tag-review-website","tag-reviews","tag-u-s-state-local-history","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pajKJn-aZD","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/810rBIP1rgL._SY385_.jpg?fit=299%2C385&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/145610851"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42261"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42265,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42261\/revisions\/42265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}