Hold on to the

   I love my work. I have the privilege and pleasure of sharing my love of literature and composition with home educated high school students. Weekly the students gather in my front dining room to learn about writing and discuss literature. They learn the basics of inserting their stylistic dress-ups and sentence openers. They practice the art of crafting clever decorations. They try out various dual adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. One of the techniques they practice regularly is the art of inserting five-senses words. When the final class time arrives before the much-anticipated Christmas break, I like to take part of that time to share a treat and a story in front of the fireplace. In recent years I have shared one of my favorites—Dylan Thomas’ â€Å"A Child’s Christmas in Wales.† It’s a wonderful example of skillful, poetic writing that puts all of these techniques on beautiful display. Filled to overflowing with sensory descriptions, the story calls to mind a simpler time that hearts still harken back to. When I read the story, the students grow quiet and still, mesmerized by Thomas’ youthful recollections of that Christmas day in Wales so many years ago. The only sounds are the fire in my hearth spitting and sparking and my elderly tabby cat snoring on her mat. In that setting I begin: One Christmas was so much like the other, in those years around the sea-town corner now, out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve, or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six. The story takes approximately twenty minutes to read aloud, and during that entire time not a sound is made by any of the students. When I at last conclude, â€Å"I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept,† the silence stretches out a few moments longer. The spell finally breaks when someone sighs and and says, â€Å"I wish it was still like that today.† And in that moment, we all feel that way. We sit and stare at the fire a moment longer and then shake ourselves out of our reverie and reach for a Christmas treat, but we are changed. That’s the power that reading aloud has. It pulls reader and audience out of their normal environment and plunges them into a cacophony of Mrs. Prothero’s â€Å"bombilating† dinner gong as she cries out for the fire brigade. It chills them, even in balmy Florida, as they join Thomas as he â€Å"plunge[s his] hands into the snow.† It paints for them in their mind snow that comes â€Å"shawling out of the ground.† The words captivate! If you have not yet shared this charming story with your family, maybe this is the year. When you do, be sure to glance at your listeners as you read. I’ll bet you, too, will have an enchanted audience. And when you finish, linger a little afterwards. Hold on to the moment. Soon enough it will be time to return to lessons, chores, and tasks. But sharing a story together is sacred time and deserves to be savored at Christmas and throughout the year.    Jennifer Mauser  has always loved reading and writing and received a B.A. in English from the University of Kansas in 1991. Once she and her husband had children, they decided to homeschool, and she put all her training to use in the home. In addition to homeschooling her children, Jennifer teaches IEW classes out of her home, coaches budding writers via  email,  and tutors students who struggle with dyslexia.