Of Christmas as long, long ago is my new book arriving for the 2025 Christmas season.

Find out what Christmas was like centuries ago.

Sneak preview, it was weird, and spooky, and rowdy.

Kind of gross sometimes.

Find it wherever books are sold in hardcover from Lions Press and audiobook from recorded books.

It's Christmas as you've never seen it before, and it makes a great gift.

I'm Brian Earle. This is Christmas Past.

Annie's birthday made the papers.

Reporters picked up the story and carried it from Vermont to Texas, from the St. John'sbury Caledonian to the Fort Worth Star Telegram to the Pittsburgh Dispatch.

In Big City Broadsheets, in small-town weeklies, it was the kind of story that editors tucked

into the corner of the front page, something light to break up the headlines about storms and

labor strikes.

They'd heard the story, and they made it news.

It was 1891.

Annie eyed, a teenager from Vermont, was celebrating a birthday.

For most of her young life, Annie hated her birthday.

She was born on December 25th. Christmas Day, a gift to her parents,

but a cruel trick on a girl who longed for a day of her own. She shared her famous birthday

with such figures as Isaac Newton, Clara Barton, and, of course, Jesus. While other children

had a day that belonged entirely to them, a day for laughter and

party dresses and being the center of the world, Annie's day belonged to everybody else. No cake,

just Christmas pudding. No party, just another place at the dinner table. A birthday that came

...