The Editors of Dappled Things write:

No matter your favorite Christmas theme or tradition, there’s something for you in the Christmas 2008 issue of Dappled Things, now available online.

Do you feel nostalgia for times you never knew when you think of the medieval boar hunt? Delight with feature author John Zmirak over God’s gift of animals in “Nearer My Dogs to Thee.” Meet his hounds Franzi—a “cuddly, pokey Dog Lebowski”—and Susie, a “lean and elegant huntress” who has a talent for, um, caroling:

[W]hen I say, “Sing!” she lets out a long and poignant “A-r-r-r-r-r-r-o-o-o-o-o!” And then goes on doing it, sometimes for 30 minutes. Too bad it never occurred to me, back when she was a puppy, to invent a command for “Quit it!” Likewise, I was just so charmed by the way she’d pounce like Tigger on every visitor’s chest and climb up to lick his face, that I missed the chance to instill the signal for “Down!” Her breath reminds me of that summer in New Orleans when a friend spilled Vietnamese fish sauce in the car. But the look of fanatical love—pure, absolute, and indiscriminate—in those sharp brown eyes makes it hard to push her down: Like the angels gazing on the face of God, in one of Giotto’s frescos. You learn to hold your breath.

Like a little more harmony in your holiday music? Prefer your breathtaking moments unscented? Your heart will be stirred by Rose Polchowne’s hymn, “Christus Natus Est” (subscribers only!):

Silence ‘mid night’s darkness rising,
Starlight falling.
Breathless all creation waiting,
One voice calling
At the crux of earth and heaven:
“Christus natus est!”

Wish you could spend the bleak midwinter basking in warm sun? Let Lauren Schott take you away to the fields of California in “The Strawberry Effect“:

A symphony of color hung in the skies above Nicholas Harris’ head. The sun had exceeded even its own expectations that morning in producing resplendent reds and yellows. Black slated roofs and aluminum, accident-proof car tops obliterated the view for most people—people who rushed to work or golf or home after an extended evening party—but Harris had been awake for several hours already. . .

We could go on, but this issue is so chock-full of delicious treats—sparkling new poetry from a raft of talented authors including Michael Miller, Mike Schorsch, R.S. Mitchell, Gabriel Olearnik, Joseph O’Brien, and Fiorella de Maria; a moving mystery play on the martyrdom of St. Agnes by Grace Andreacchi; and a meaty essay on Tolstoy by Dappled Things president Bernardo Aparicio—that we’d rather let you spend your reading time at www.dappledthings.org or on the printed page. (And if you’re not yet receiving the printed page, wouldn’t a subscription—at only $20 for a full year of 4 issues—be a fun and affordable way to ring in 2009?)

Wishing you a blessed remainder of the Christmas season and a happy, holy New Year