Holiday cheer continues at libraries with Muppets, dogs, cooking

Happy hol­i­days from the Board of Trustees and the staff of the Delaware County Dis­trict Library. This time of year is cer­tainly filled with fam­ily and friends, and to allow the library staff to enjoy time with their fam­i­lies, we will be closed on Christ­mas Eve and Christ­mas Day. All branches will resume their reg­u­lar hours on Wednes­day with sev­eral ter­rific pro­grams scheduled.

The “Mup­pet Movie Marathon” begins Wednes­day with the screen­ing of “The Mup­pet Christ­mas Carol.” On Thurs­day, you are invited to watch “Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christ­mas,” and on Fri­day, “Fol­low That Bird!” will com­plete the marathon. All movies begin at 2 p.m. and will be shown in the Youth Ser­vices activ­ity room at the Orange Branch.

At the Ostran­der Branch, you can enjoy activ­i­ties all day long on Dec. 27th, begin­ning at 11 a.m. with the Kids’ Cook Club. At 12:30 p.m., join in the fun of “Book Bingo,” fol­lowed by “LEGOs” at 1:30 p.m., Wii and gam­ing at 2:30 p.m., a craft pro­gram at 4 p.m., and the show­ing of a spe­cial movie at 6 p.m.

“Paws for Read­ing” will be at the Ostran­der Branch at 11:30 a.m. Dec. 29. You can reg­is­ter your child at the Ostran­der Branch Library to have a trained ther­apy dog lis­ten to him or her read a favorite story. Call 740–666-1410 or stop in to register.

For the adult crowd, the “Cook Book Club” will meet at 7 p.m. Thurs­day at the Delaware Main Library. If you love to cook and try new recipes, this club is for you. Check out Soup by Michael Ful­lalove — try a few recipes at home, then make and bring your favorite dish to the library for shar­ing. The Cook Book Club is led by one of the library’s best cooks (her con­tri­bu­tions to library potlucks attest to that!), Sara Kennedy. Join her and oth­ers, and come hungry!

Not sur­pris­ingly, the ques­tions we answered at the library were focused on Christ­mas. It was great fun to research these answers.

Are poin­set­tias poisonous?

Accord­ing to Mayo Clinic Fam­ily Health Book, and con­trary to pop­u­lar belief, poin­set­tia plants are not poi­so­nous. Con­tact with the sap of a poin­set­tia plant may cause a mild, itchy rash. Eat­ing the leaves or stems of a poin­set­tia plant may cause a mild stom­achache, vom­it­ing or diar­rhea — but severe signs and symp­toms are unlikely. Reac­tions to poin­set­tia plants are more com­mon among peo­ple who have latex aller­gies since latex and poin­set­tia plants share sev­eral pro­teins. Of course, you should always check with your health care provider if you have any ques­tions at all about poin­set­tia poisoning.

Why does Santa Claus put coal in the stock­ings of naughty kids?

The tra­di­tion of giv­ing mis­be­hav­ing chil­dren lumps of coal is asso­ci­ated with Santa Claus, St. Nicholas, Sin­terk­laas and la Befana. Noth­ing that I can find in the leg­ends or his­tory about any of these fig­ures gives a con­crete rea­son for giv­ing coal, but Christ­mas Mis­cel­lany points out the com­mon theme of con­ve­nience. Santa and la Befana both get into people’s homes by the fire­place chim­ney and leave gifts in stock­ings hung from the man­tel. Sin­terk­laas’ assis­tant, Black Pete, also comes down the chim­ney and places gifts in shoes left out near the fire­place. When fill­ing the stock­ings or the shoes, if the hol­i­day gift givers had a child who did not deserve a present, they could con­ve­niently grab a lump of coal. Coal is not the only “gift” for naughty kids. La Befana and Sin­terk­laas also leave bun­dles of twigs, bags of salt, gar­lic and onions.

What is the leg­end of the Christ­mas spider?

This story has its roots in Ger­many, and as the story was recounted in Christ­mas Around the World, a fam­ily liv­ing in a small home worked together one Christ­mas Eve day to clean the house. All the spi­ders liv­ing in the house escaped to the attic as the clean­ing took place. Later that evening, after all had gone to bed, the spi­ders were delighted to see that at least one place in the home remained that would be suit­able for a spi­der — the Christ­mas tree! Hav­ing nowhere else to go to spin their webs, they dashed up the trunk of the tree and leaped from branch to branch, mak­ing for them­selves a new place in which to live. When Santa Claus arrived he encoun­tered the web-covered tree and some­what of a dif­fi­cult dilemma: did he keep the tree wrapped in spi­der webs and dis­ap­point the fam­ily? Or should he remove the webs and destroy the spi­ders’ new home? Santa’s solu­tion was to turn the spi­der webs into shim­mer­ing sil­ver strands that turned the tree into a bril­liant dec­o­ra­tion. His action thrilled the fam­ily and saved the spi­ders. That is why today many peo­ple dec­o­rate their tree with tin­sel — in honor of the Christ­mas Spider.

If you have a ques­tion that you would like to see answered in this col­umn, mail it to Mary Jane San­tos, Delaware County Dis­trict Library, 84 E. Win­ter St., Delaware, OH 43015, or call 740–362-3861. You can also email your ques­tions by vis­it­ing delawarelibrary.org or directly to Mary Jane at mjsantos@delawarelibrary.org. No mat­ter how you con­tact us, we’re always glad you asked!

Posted by Mary Santos on Dec 21 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.