It's funny; I don't remember ever visiting my Arkansas relatives for Christmas, but I know I must have one time, because I distinctly remember my uncle (Southern Baptist preacher) reading this book to my cousins and me. I also remember being kind of excited to learn that it was a book, because I had grown up on the TV-movie version. Also funny--about a week ago I was thinking about that TV special and wishing they would show it again.

And one more thing: Librivox. Volunteers record audio books of public domain works and make them freely available. Anything from novels to plays to short fiction and poetry. There are certain technical standards they require for the final mp3 files, but those are not hard to achieve. I did a few things for them about a year ago, and couldn't continue because I couldn't get enough uninterrupted, background-noise-free time with everything going on with my stepdad. I think I might just order myself the new microphone I wanted and get back into it.