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Rating: 
Summary: These are the "Major" Feasts?
Review: After having read her other book, Celebrate the Feasts, I assumed that this volume would contain similar personal, though somewhat helpful, advise for enhancing the familial celebration of the traditional Christian holidays. I will state that I didn't expect much, and boy did I get it.
Though the subtitle proclaims the volume is about the "major Christian Holidays," I was stunned to see that, indeed, it contained only a very few of the Feasts of Our Lord (Christmas, Epiphany, Palm Sunday, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost) and relied mostly on lesser "commemorations," including Saints' Days of Nicholas, Lucia, Valentine, Patrick, and All Saints (though she erroneously combines this one with secular Halloween) the drawing out of one fast (in three chapters, she covers Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, and Lent, all of which could and should have been treated together as they all start (or occur) within two days of each other), and other either national or nature "holidays" such as First Day of Spring, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. So, of eighteen chapters that are devoted to the "major Christian" holidays, she has only seven of twelve Feasts of Our Lord (in addition to those above, the others are The Presentation of Our L-rd, The Annunciation, Transfiguration, Dormition of the Theotokos, Nativity of the Theotokos, Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and the Presentation of the Theotokos, which makes thirteen, as Easter is a feast beyond all others), two devoted to the preparatory fasts of Advent and Lent (with Lent being overly drawn out) and approximately eleven other chapters devoted to holidays that are not that "major" (St. Patrick's Day, outside the US, is only a "major" holiday in Ireland) or are not even Christian.
Of further complaint, she makes several crucial errors. The first is that, according to her, Easter is a festival lasting a day. However, all but the Reformed and Free traditions of Christianity, Easter is a fifty day festival, culminating in Pentecost. Further, she makes the somewhat dubious claim that hot cross buns are holdovers of cakes baked for the pagan god Tammuz and his mother (mentioned in Jer. ) which seems more of a desperate attempt to disparage some traditional celebrations of Easter rather than understand them. The suggestion she makes that Lent as a forty-day fast was borrowed from a fast for Astarte (who's cult was long gone by the Christian era). Had she known her liturgical history, she would easily have seen that the Lenten fast was a holdover from the baptismal fast imposed on those seeking Baptism, the proper time of which was the Vigil of Easter. Hence, the true origin of Lent. The chapter on Lent is so derogatory, in fact, I myself am left wondering why she included anything at all about the fast in the first place.
While I was less than impressed with her previous offering, this one is simply abysmal. The poor scholarship, the over inclusion of commemorations (even over the lesser festivals), the didactic tone, and derogatory remarks about some traditions all make this work almost too off-putting. I would give it less than one star, but I can't, so I'll have to live with that. I'm just glad I found this at a library and didn't have to actually buy it.
Rating:
Summary: These are the "Major" Feasts?
Review: After having read her other book, Celebrate the Feasts, I assumed that this volume would contain similar personal, though somewhat helpful, advise for enhancing the familial celebration of the traditional Christian holidays. I will state that I didn't expect much, and boy did I get it.
Though the subtitle proclaims the volume is about the "major Christian Holidays," I was stunned to see that, indeed, it contained only a very few of the Feasts of Our Lord (Christmas, Epiphany, Palm Sunday, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost) and relied mostly on lesser "commemorations," including Saints' Days of Nicholas, Lucia, Valentine, Patrick, and All Saints (though she erroneously combines this one with secular Halloween) the drawing out of one fast (in three chapters, she covers Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, and Lent, all of which could and should have been treated together as they all start (or occur) within two days of each other), and other either national or nature "holidays" such as First Day of Spring, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. So, of eighteen chapters that are devoted to the "major Christian" holidays, she has only seven of twelve Feasts of Our Lord (in addition to those above, the others are The Presentation of Our L-rd, The Annunciation, Transfiguration, Dormition of the Theotokos, Nativity of the Theotokos, Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and the Presentation of the Theotokos, which makes thirteen, as Easter is a feast beyond all others), two devoted to the preparatory fasts of Advent and Lent (with Lent being overly drawn out) and approximately eleven other chapters devoted to holidays that are not that "major" (St. Patrick's Day, outside the US, is only a "major" holiday in Ireland) or are not even Christian.
Of further complaint, she makes several crucial errors. The first is that, according to her, Easter is a festival lasting a day. However, all but the Reformed and Free traditions of Christianity, Easter is a fifty day festival, culminating in Pentecost. Further, she makes the somewhat dubious claim that hot cross buns are holdovers of cakes baked for the pagan god Tammuz and his mother (mentioned in Jer. 7.18) which seems more of a desperate attempt to disparage some traditional celebrations of Easter rather than understand them. The suggestion she makes that Lent as a forty-day fast was borrowed from a fast for Astarte (who's cult was long gone by the Christian era) only hints at the volume's scholastic ineptitude. Had she known her liturgical history, she would easily have seen that the Lenten fast was a holdover from the baptismal fast imposed on those seeking Baptism, the proper time of which was the Vigil of Easter. Hence, the true origin of Lent. The chapter on Lent is so derogatory, in fact, I myself am left wondering why she included anything at all about the fast in the first place. If it really is as evil as she makes it out to be, then she should have ignored or glossed it, not overly inundated us with how to celebrate it!
While I was less than impressed with her previous offering, this one is simply abysmal. The poor scholarship, the over inclusion of commemorations (even over the lesser festivals), the didactic tone, and derogatory remarks about some traditions all make this work almost too off-putting. I would give it less than one star, but I can't, so I'll have to live with that. I'm just glad I found this at a library and didn't have to actually buy it.
Rating: 
Summary: A good resource
Review: This book is filled with solid advice and interesting ideas for celebrating the holidays of the Christian year. I was especially impressed that Ms. Zimmerman didn't shy away from advising Christians to celebrate such holidays as Halloween, which is currently pooh-poohed in some Evangelical, Fundamentalist, and even some Catholic circles as "demonic". She would explain how Christians could reclaim the holiday from the crackpots and neo-pagans and I found that refreshing.Which was why I was puzzled at her undue scrupulosity in insisting that Easter should not be called by its traditional English name because that name "Easter" was supposedly derived from pagan goddess worship. It was used in connection to a pagan spring festival but words in and of themselves are neutral and cannot be "pagan." Only the meanings we assign to them can. According to Catholic apologist James Akin, the word actually comes from the prehistoric West Germanic word akin to the Old English term for "east," the direction of the rising sun. It makes sense that early Christians claimed it as their own because they had a reverence for the direction, east, having their houses built facing east and being buried facing east because it was thought that the Second Coming of the Lord would be from the east. As previously mentioned, it is also the direction of the rising sun, recalling the images of Jesus as the Light of the World and the prophesy of the Resurrection in Malachi 3:20 about the Sun of Justice. With that rich history, why would anyone balk that a simple word had once been used in connection to a pagan spring festival and not rejoice that Christians claimed it, emptied it of any former pagan meaning, and used it to express Christian truth? In comparison to that, I can only roll my eyes at Ms. Zimmerman's suggestion to rename Easter "Resurrection Day". Overall, the book was very good. I only wish that Ms. Zimmerman had been more consistent. At the same time she denounced the term "Easter" she recommended families go to sunrise services, which of course face the east in order to watch the rising sun.
Rating: 
Summary: A Must Have For You and Your Family
Review: This book takes a Christian approach to the major holidays and tells us a history behind each one. Learn about the well-known holidays such as St. Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas and learn about the other Christian holidays such as St. Lucia Day, Shrove Tuesday, Lent, Ascension Day, and many others. This book also features recipes and crafts that you and your family can partake in. Also featured are great suggestions how to celebrate each holiday so that you and your family can better understand their meaning and purpose. A Lectionary can be found at the back of the book, giving you Scripture readings for the Sundays and the special days of the Christian year. A must have book for you and your family. Make the holidays more special and meaningful--read this book.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Have For You and Your Family
Review: This book takes a Christian approach to the major holidays and tells us a history behind each one. Learn about the well-known holidays such as St. Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas and learn about the other Christian holidays such as St. Lucia Day, Shrove Tuesday, Lent, Ascension Day, and many others. This book also features recipes and crafts that you and your family can partake in. Also featured are great suggestions how to celebrate each holiday so that you and your family can better understand their meaning and purpose. A Lectionary can be found at the back of the book, giving you Scripture readings for the Sundays and the special days of the Christian year. A must have book for you and your family. Make the holidays more special and meaningful--read this book.
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