![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/ChristmasSpider_p30-31.jpg\")
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This was Christmas. Christmas was here.”<\/em>
(Click to enlarge and see entire spread)<\/center><\/p>\n
Welcome to 7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks, a weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. <\/p>\n
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Well, it’s Christmas Day, so to those of you who celebrate it: Merry Christmas, and I raise my cup of hot cocoa to you. (It may or may not be laced with some Kahl\u00faa.)<\/p>\n
Since it’s a busy, present-filled, head-exploding kind of day for my own daughters (the seven-year-old was particularly fun to shop for, since she wanted “books, art supplies, and journals”), I’m just here to wish you a Merry Christmas and then head on my way — and to share some art, of course.<\/p>\n
Today’s illustration comes from Trinka Hakes Noble’s<\/a><\/strong> A Christmas Spider’s Miracle<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, illustrated by Stephen Costanza<\/a><\/strong> (Sleeping Bear Press, September 2011), which Kirkus<\/em> describes as an “appealing story with a magical aura spun by the shimmering illustrations and memorable story.” Shimmering, indeed. This is a contemporary adaptation of a Ukrainian folktale about one bleak winter, one impoverished mother of three, living in a small cottage in the Ukraine, and one mother spider “who knew nothing of Christmas.” The mother spider had established her home in a small fir tree, as she knew it wasn’t safe to live in a house. When the human mother, late into the night on Christmas Eve, brings that fir in to her “tumbledown cottage”—the only gift she can give her children—the mother spider brings the family her own unique and particularly lovely present, as you can see in the illustration above. <\/p>\n I hope everyone, no matter what you celebrate and where you are, is having a happy day. I’m feeling kicky for the health and happiness of my children and that I’m fortunate enough to give them a present or two on Christmas Day. How about you? <\/p>\n A CHRISTMAS SPIDER’S MIRACLE. \u00a9 2011 by Trinka Hakes Noble. Illustrations \u00a9 2011 by Stephen Costanza. Published by Sleeping Bear Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Image reproduced by permission of the publisher.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “On that long-ago Christmas Day, the morning sun rose strong and bright through the window. With each ray of sunlight the spider’s spinnings and weavings began to shimmer and glimmer like a tapestry of gold and silver. A humble mother and her children stood in silent wonderment at the miraculous sight before them….This was Christmas. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seven-good-things-before-monday","category-picture-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2267\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}