Around the Year with the Trapp Family: Keeping the Feasts and Seasons of the Christian Year

Maria Augusta Trapp here takes us through the year as it is celebrated by her family, the famous Trapp family portrayed in Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music and in the motion picture based on that musical play.When the Trapps came to America from Austria, they brought with them the custom of carrying into daily life the teachings, the beliefs, the feasts and observations of their religion. Life in their home is a continuous response to the cycle and rhythm of the Church year. How this is done, how old-world customs continue to flourish in Stowe, Vermont, is related with charm, candor, and verve by the mother of the family.As so much of the Trapp family life is expressed in music, Monsignor Franz Wasner, musical director of the Trapp Family Singers, has contributed his arrangements, for voice, of some fifty songs for various seasons and occasions, secular as well as religious. Drawings help show how to carry out the many projects that mark the progress of the year: the construction of an Advent wreath, of a crib and Christmas decorations; the painting of Easter eggs; the decoration of a home altar. And scores of family recipes are shared.The key word to life with the Trapp family is "celebrating," and this extends even beyond religious feasts. Mrs. Trapp takes us into the intimate circle of her home and shows how the spirit of celebration, first roused and fostered by the Church, spreads to all events, major and minor.