Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in the autumn of 1843, a year which saw the publication of a government report which highlighted plight of child labour.  "Dickens was incensed by its findings," says Louisa Price, curator of the Charles Dickens Museum in central London.  During the year, on a visit to his sister in Manchester, he also met charities supporting the working poor.  And he went to see conditions at one of London's Ragged Schools--set up with the aim of educating destitute youngsters.  Price says Dickens was so angered by the government report that he had initially planned to raise the issue by writing a political pamphlet--drawing on his past experience as a political reporter.  But then he changed his mind.  "He wrote to a friend," says Price, "saying that he would instead publish something at Christmas which would have 20 times the force."  Dickens wanted A Christmas Carol to be a high-quality publication.  The initial print run had a cinnamon cloth binding, with gold detail on the front.  Inside there were eight illustrations by the caricaturist John Leech.  Dickens's strategy worked.  Released six days before Christmas 1843, all 6,000 copies were sold by Christmas Eve.  Paul Kerley  Read much more and see many pictures at http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35120471

Lemon and orange slices dry into pretty wheels to use as garnishes for drinks or baked goods, or as ornaments or even gift tags.  Find recipe by Leah Eskin at http://www.chicagotribune.com/dining/recipes/sc-fruit-crisps-eskin-food-1211-20151209-column.html

Pomanders are a natural air freshener, and moth repellent.  Place some in your clothes closets, drawers or simply stack several in a bowl for a beautiful display.  Pomanders are typically made from various citrus fruit, mainly oranges as well as apples.  Find out how to make pomanders at http://pioneerthinking.com/crafts/how-to-make-pomanders

The now-standard melody for "The Twelve Days of Christmas" was published in 1909 by Novello & Co..  English composer Frederic Austin fitted the words to a traditional melody, to which he added his own two-bar motif for "Five gold rings".  Many of the decisions Austin made with regard to the lyrics subsequently became widespread:  The initial "on" at the beginning of each verse; the use of "calling birds"  rather than "colly birds" on the fourth day; and the ordering of the final four verses.  The time signature of this song is not constant, unlike most popular music.  In 1979, a Canadian hymnologist, Hugh D. McKellar, published an article, "How to Decode the Twelve Days of Christmas", claiming that "The Twelve Days of Christmas" lyrics were intended as a catechism song to help young Catholics learn their faith, at a time when practising Catholicism was criminalized in England (1558 until 1829).  McKellar offered no evidence for his claim and subsequently admitted that the purported associations were his own invention.  The idea was further popularized by a Catholic priest, Fr. Hal Stockert, in an article he wrote in 1982.  In 1987 and 1992, Fr. James Gilhooley, chaplain of Mount Saint Mary College of Newburgh, New York, repeated these claims.  Read about other versions, including parodies, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Days_of_Christmas_(song) 

See also https://www.truthorfiction.com/twelvedaysofchristmas/  and http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/music/12days.asp

Rice is a grass, as are maize (corn), wheat, barley, millet, oats, sugar cane, sorghum, rye and bamboo.  Remember that most livestock eat primarily grass or grass products so, indirectly, leather, wool, meat, eggs and milk also come from grass.  The grass family, known scientifically as the Poaceae or Gramineae (both names are correct), is one of the four largest families of flowering plants, with approximately 500 genera and 10,000 species.  Grasses range from tiny inconspicuous herbs less than an inch high to the giant bamboos that grow to 130 feet tall.  The family is undoubtedly the most important flowering plant family to humans, directly or indirectly providing more than 3/4 of our food.  It also is a major producer of our oxygen and provides a large component of the earth's environmental illtering processes due to its enormous geographic range, spatial coverage and biomass.  The economic importance of grasses can hardly be overstated.  The latest edition of Agnes Chase's First Book of Grasses tells us that grasses are the greatest single source of wealth in the world.  They provide much of the starch (rice, cornmeal, bread, cereal, pasta) and much of the protein in most human diets.  Although a few grasses absorb selenium and other harmful substances from the soil and a few others have potentially poisonous cyanogenic compounds in their shoots and leaves, the overwhelming majority are not poisonous.  The grains are naturally low in fat and rich in complex carbohydrates.  Grasses sweeten what you drink and eat with cane sugar, molasses and high fructose corn syrup.  Corn by-products also provide the raw material for many chemicals used in industry.  Grasses provide the raw material for most alcohol products (sake from rice, rum from sugar cane, beer from barley, bourbon from corn, and whiskeys and other spirits from wheat and rye).  Gerald Guala   http://www.virtualherbarium.org/GardenViews/Grasses.html

Trash Never Looked So Stylish by Timothy McKeough   Find descriptions and pictures of modular containers for trash and recycling, some with options for plants on top at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/20/realestate/trash-never-looked-so-stylish.html

Xmas is a common abbreviation of the word Christmas.  Xmas, and variants such as Xtemass, originated as handwriting abbreviations for the typical pronunciation.  The "-mas" part is from the Latin-derived Old English word for Mass, while the "X" comes from the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Χριστός which comes into English as "Christ".  There is a common belief that the word Xmas stems from a secular attempt to remove the religious tradition from Christmas by taking the "Christ" out of "Christmas", but its use dates back to the 16th century.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xmas

Ohio has its first poet laureate.  Amit Majmudar was named to the two-year honorary position December 17, 2015.  Majmudar wants to promote poetry by linking to the Ohio arts community and engaging with high school students, the governor’s office said.  The Cleveland-area native is a diagnostic and nuclear radiologist with Radiology Inc. in Columbus and writes poetry, essays and novels on the side.  Majmudar has published two novels,  "Partitions" (2009) and  "The Abundance" (2011).  His poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books,  The Atlantic Monthly,  Poetry Magazine,  The Antioch Review and "The Best of the Best American Poetry, 1988-2012."  His next collection of poems, "Dothead," will be published in March 2016.  http://www.dispatch.com/content/blogs/the-daily-briefing/2015/12/12-17-15-poet-laureate.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1397  December 23, 2015  On this date in 1823, A Visit from St. Nicholas, also known as The Night Before Christmas, was published anonymously.  On this date in 1893, the opera Hansel and Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck was first performed.  Word of the Day for December 23:  sciolist  noun  One who exhibits only superficial knowledge; a self-proclaimed expert with little real understanding.