A Christmas Mystery: Corpus Christmas by Margaret Maron

 

I enjoy the Christmas novels of my favorite mystery writers, none more than this 1989 one by Margaret Maron who wrote mysteries from the 1980s to her last one in 2017. Do you know her work? This sentence alone from a speech she once gave should tell you why I'm a fan:

"From the beginning, I loved language, I loved words, I loved the tricks that you could play with them." (Margaret Maron)

Maron's mysteries are the proof of that, especially those of one of her two strong women sleuths, Sigrid Harald of the NYPD.

While Louise Penny's mysteries are top shelf in this bookcase, Margaret Maron's take up the entire second shelf, the hardbacks on the left about Maron's other sleuth, Deborah Knott (Judge Knott--get it?) of North Carolina, and the paperbacks on the left that are about Lieutenant Sigrid Harald.

Corpus Christmas is a beautifully written, complex novel of a mystery that weaves together the fascinating story of a family home of the late 1800s to early 1900s that is currently an art museum of works collected in Europe by the family's son, and site of where the murder takes place, along with the story of Sigrid Harald, the investigating officer, and Oscar Nauman, described as "an artist of his own time and one who isn't afraid to leave the loose ends." 

While Sigrid's art appreciation belongs with pictures that look like what they are--as in the oil painting above that sits on my living room floor during the Christmas season (a story there) that my Aunt Teenie painted for us over 50 years ago--the older man Oscar Nauman is of the persuasion that "the high purpose of art is to remind us that something is always left undone."

Just as all the words in my beautiful old Webster Universal two volume dictionary weave together a language, Corpus Christmas uses beautiful words to weave together the story of the art world of the 1800s and the 1980s and the family life of a comfortably situated New York family from the past with the unfolding modern romance of two very different people.

This murder mystery, the ending of which was a complete surprise to me, is as pretty as the old Polish Fantasia Fish Scale ornaments I've collected for years.

Leaving one only to wonder how the relationship between the very confident self-assured Oscar and the very reticent reserved Sigrid will end.

Ah, only the last book in the series will tell.

Christmas Tree Countdown, 8 & 9

Christmas trees 8 & 9 go up first and are taken down last, too cheerful at night or on dark mornings to do without easily while we sit on the sofa and snuggle with BreeBree and James Mason. 

This skinny champagne colored tree was in my dressing room at Valley View but now is our main indoor tree here at Home Hill. 

The ornaments on them are mostly old pale green, blue and pink ones with tarnished silver glitter fish scale design.

It fits tightly but perfectly in an old green garden plant stand and the rim holds vintage speckled Shiny Brite pink and pale green ornaments. Standing guard among the ornaments are four vintage celluloid deer. 

Right next to the champagne tree, on top of a bookcase holding books of three of my favorite mystery writers--Louise Penny's Armand Gamache series, Alexander McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie series and Margaret Maron's North Carolinian Judge Deborah Knott--is a large old Dept. 56 Christmas tree dressed in fairy lights and old silver ornaments.

It sits on an Old Hall, English tea set, one I never have to polish because it's shiny stainless steel not silver. There's even a cute little mustard pot and minuscule spoon with it.

Maybe waiting for a little honey in his tea is a baby Steiff bear, a gift from my daughter years ago.

This is the end of my Christmas tree countdown, even though there are tiny ones scattered around the house. For some reason, my heart is feeling a little bit tender at the end of this post. 

I imagine because there are so many sweet memories behind the Christmas things I've kept after two downsizing moves. These are objects that bring back memories of decades of RH and I going to yard sales and junk shops and antique stores, with at least two of our four children in tow at a time.

We always promised (bribed) them with cash of their own to spend on their collections--advertising mechanical pencils for our firstborn son, Breyer horses for his little sister, and later with our second batch of kids, sports memorabilia for one son and Native American objects for our youngest, along with minerals and rocks, vintage Christmas items, vintage Star Trek items (and he was able to sell most of those for hefty prices on eBay later on in life!).

And then there was the Christmas decorating that back then began on the day after Thanksgiving Day where there was the fun of hauling barrels out of the attic and decorating the house together.

There was a different tree in those years, loaded down with decorations they made in school and ornaments that were their own with new ones added each year, and taken with them when they left home. 

I had lots of little helpers in those days, lots of little sugar cookie decorating helpers, lots of little ones who even when they were big still wanted Christmas books read to them at night. 

And there were three sons and one daughter to tuck in bed on Christmas Eve and say the final goodnight to:

"Jump in bed and cover your head

'cause Santa Claus comes tonight!"

Hey, little furry squirrel who came all the way from "West Germany" once upon a time and ended up here at Home Hill after traveling with me from Valley View to Florida and back to Tennessee again, you'll understand if you hear some crying in the room along with Christmas music playing, won't you?

Mommas do that sometime.