As we were finishing work on this edition, what came to mind was how "Santa" delegated work at our house when I was a child. From about the time my brother, Bill, and I could read, we picked our gifts from a catalogue. He is a little more than a year older than me, and as soon as he could write legibly, around age seven, my father actually let him fill out the order blank. The gifts came from Montgomery Ward or Sears, depending on which had the closest pickup office to where we lived at the time. We had a budget, a generous one even by today's standards. We pored over the "wish book" for months before ordering, always Thanksgiving weekend.
Like other children, we didn't actually see the presents till Christmas morning, and we steadfastly and innocently held to the belief that St. Nick actually delivered them. That is, until the year they didn't arrive in time at our new home in a central Pennsylvania country town, and we had to shop for ourselves. I was about 12.
I think my parents chose this method, one because they both worked, but also because mail order was the way most goods, and certainly special things, were obtained when they grew up in rural West Virginia. To day this day, of course, catalogues fascinate me, and they were our salvation when our four sons were young, although my husband and I filled out the blanks or made the late-night calls to 800 numbers or went on the Internet, once sending off to Canada for that year's coveted game contraption.
What brought all this to mind was thinking that most of the people here at Black Issues Book Review hope to finish our Christmas/Kwanzaa shopping before all of you start clicking the Internet links and jamming the phones. We have seen some of the delightful choices Gwendolyn Osborne has made for you and your bookish relatives and friends. Months ago, we leafed through the books or at least the manuscripts of books like Toni Morrison's Love, Edward P. Jones's The Known World and Austin Clarke's The Polished Hoe, that we have written about in this issue.
Most importantly, for months we have had a chance to pore over the spiritual gifts included in Eric Copage's meditations on Kwanzaa's seven principles, compiled just for BIBR, and are prepared to share them with our family and friends. They are gifts like tolerance, deliberation, economic support and persistence. For those of us who share a Christian faith, we give to remind us of what our God has given us. For African Americans who observe Kwanzaa, we give to underscore values of community and cooperation we hold dear. At our house we celebrate both.
You know how people often ask: "Well, are you ready for Christmas?" I am usually not quite sure what they expect us to say. This year I will have some answers.
[Author Affiliation]
Angela P. Dodson
BIBR Executive Editor
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