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.

When Mount Ruapaiu erupted in 1945, the people of the central part of New Zealand's North island knew what they were bracing for, mostly.

It had been erupting since long before the first Polynesian voyagers settled there in the

13th century, long before it could be named Ruapuy, or the pit of noise, in the native

Maori language. It was the largest

active volcano in New Zealand, its three peaks towering over the central plateau, 18 glaciers,

a massive crater lake filled between eruptions fed by melting snow and venting steam. That lake

formed the headwaters of the Wanga'ehu River below.

For centuries the stories had passed from generation to generation, of rumblings that shook entire

villages, of sounds like thunderclaps, of lava and steam, of air turning thick with

sulfur, of water poisoned, crops ruined, lives lost.

So when Ru'apeu rumbled to life again in 1945, people thought they knew what to expect.

It was part of the cycle of life on an island in the South Pacific where the Earth was as restless as the sea.

But volcanoes don't keep calendars, and they don't care what people expect.

Eight years later, Ruupayu reminded them of that, and reminded them that some Christmas stories are tragedies.

At 3 p.m. on Christmas Eve in 1953, a limited express train pulled out of the station at Wellington

...