Trapp Family Singers by Maria Augusta Trapp

This book is written by and about the life of the woman whose story became The Sound of Music.  Having never read the story, I was surprised by the first half of the book in which the family life was centered around the church year, but as Maria was starting out to be a nun, I shouldn't have been surprised at all. Here is an excerpt from the chapter of "Feasts in a Family."

"There came a time when we hardly got around to reading and singing together because we were so busy and that was the birthday season.  In a large household there are a number of family holidays which occur yearly: the birthdays and feastdays.  In our particular family we have two distinct seasons:  from the end of January to the beginning of May and again from the end of September to the first of November. My people had only celebrated the birthdays, whereas we in Nonnberg disregarded those and celebrated only the feastdays. These are celebrated on the feast of the Saint in whose honor you are named. Now we put both customs together and, since there were nine of us there were eighteen holidays right away. All great feasts of the Church have a Vigil; they start so to speak the evening before. So our family feasts were celebrated the evening before, too." 

 And another one from the Preface written on Pentecost Sunday 1949:

"While working on this book and writing down the memories of a family, it astonished, amazed and almost overwhelmed me to see how much love -- genuine, real love -- was stored up in one short lifetime: first, God's love for us His children, the leading, guiding, protecting love of a Father; and as ever real love calls forth love in return, it couldn't be any different here. The Story of the Trapp Family Singers wants to be a canticle of love and gratitude to the heavenly Father in his Divine Providence."    

 The Sound of Music celebrated the film's fiftieth anniversary this year.  Check out their site on Facebook.
www.facebook.com/TheSoundOfMusic?fref=ts