December Days

A cat asleep on the rug, a candy dish full of peppermints, and a question you already know the answer to. December Days is twenty-four large print Christmas coloring pages, and facing every single one is a memory prompt — not a caption, a question. Who came knocking at Christmas, and did they come in? Who did the baking, and were you allowed to help or just to watch? There was always a candy dish out at Christmas — what was in yours? The designs are drawn the way all our books are drawn: thick outlines, wide open shapes, nothing fussy, nothing that needs sharp eyes or a steady hand. Twenty-four of them, one to a page, printed single-sided on 8.5 by 11 inch paper so markers stay where you put them. What makes this one different is what sits opposite. Coloring alone is quiet. Coloring next to somebody who is asking you about the Christmases you remember is something else entirely. It was made for nursing homes, adult day centers, and kitchen tables where two people have sat down together — and at the back, all twenty-four questions are collected onto two pages, so anybody can pick it up and have somewhere to start.