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 (4.5 / 5.0) From the foremost authority, the definitive guide to your career as an event leader!
Today's special events have their roots in the universal, ancient human need to celebrate with ceremony and ritual. Twenty-first-century event leaders acknowledge these roots while moving the event management profession toward the new possibilities presented by our globalizing world. Special Events: The Roots and Wings of Celebration, Fifth Edition provides experienced as well as aspiring event leaders with a comprehensive guide to understanding, planning, funding, promoting, and producing special events. Filled with helpful resources and illustrative examples, this Fifth Edition covers such areas as marketing, sponsorship, human resource management, financial administration, risk management, safety and security, global event leadership models, media use, legal and ethical considerations, technology, career development, and more. New and revised materials in this edition include:
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$45.00 |
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 (4.0 / 5.0) In Tinsel, Hank Stuever searches out the most outlandish cultural excesses as well as the secret beauties of modern America s half-trillion-dollar Christmas holiday. When Stuever s narrative begins, he s standing in line with the people waiting to purchase flat-screen TVs at Best Buy on Black Friday. From there he follows Tammy Parnell, the proprietor of 'Two Elves with a Twist,' a company that decorates other people s houses for Christmas; Jeff and Bridgett Trykoski, owners of that one house every town has with Christmas decorations visible from space; and single mother Caroll Cavazos, who hopes that the life-affirming moments of Christmas might overcome the struggles of the rest of the year. Steuver s portraits are at once humane, heartfelt, revealing and very, very funny.
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$16.29 |
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(4.5 / 5.0) In only 200 words, author Skarmeas tells the story of how Valentine's Day came into being. In simple words that every child can understand, here is the story of the kindly Valentine who cared for the children of Rome, who prayed for a miracle for a blind child, and who is remembered each February 14. Artist Pickett has painted the scenes in bright colors from the schoolroom scenes to those of ancient Rome. This book is unusual in that it briefly explains the history of a holiday to toddlers.
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$2.94 |
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 (5.0 / 5.0) Oh, those Christmas memories. We all have them, locked away in our hearts. But what about the Christmases we weren’t there for? The one our favorite heirloom ornament came from, or the one we know only from a picture of our newlywed parents smiling under the mistletoe? In Christmas Memories, Susan Waggoner, author of STC’s It’s a Wonderful Christmas and Under the Tree, looks at bygone holidays from the perspective of those who lived them. Beginning with “Christmas in the Melting Pot,” which depicts yuletide in the early 1920s, the author presents detailed snapshots that re-create holiday seasons past. She chronicles the gifts, activities, fads, and fancies that made each Christmas unique; indulges in fantasy shopping at yesterday’s prices; shares thoughts from letters, diaries, and magazines of the era; and makes the past pop to life with vibrantperiod art. Readers will revel in the irresistible nostalgia of Christmas Memories.
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$10.37 |
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(5.0 / 5.0) Even now that we're all grown up, we can't help but look back on our childhood holidays and hope to recapture that elusive spirit of joyful anticipation. Celebrating Christmas is so often about nostalgia. With a nod and a wink to the days of Christmas past, It's a Wonderful Christmas presents classic images of the Yuletide icons of mid-20th-century America.
Bubbler lights and glow-in-the-dark icicles. Catalogues crammed with toys. Norad bulletins tracking Rudolph's red nose through the nighttime sky. Along with hundreds of such quintessentially American illustrations, author Susan Waggoner stocking-stuffs her lively text with fascinating bits of information, lore, and lists. Wonder what the all-time most popular Christmas song is? How the tradition of the department store Santa got started? The answers are here. Loaded with images of vintage Christmas cards, wrapping paper, magazine ads, Lionel toy trains, and more, all in full color, this charming book will appeal to anyone who associates Christmas with home movies, "The Chipmunk Song," and Santa relaxing with an ice-cold bottle of Coca-Cola. AUTHOR BIO: SUSAN WAGGONER is the author of several illustrated books, including Vintage Cocktails (STC). A native of Minnesota, she currently lives in New York City.
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$10.70 |
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 (3.5 / 5.0) Christmas is a time of seasonal cheer, family get-togethers, holiday parties, and-gift giving. Lots and lots--and lots--of gift giving. It's hard to imagine any Christmas without this time-honored custom. But let's stop to consider the gifts we receive--the rooster sweater from Grandma or the singing fish from Uncle Mike. How many of us get gifts we like? How many of us give gifts not knowing what recipients want? Did your cousin really look excited about that jumping alarm clock? Lively and informed, Scroogenomics illustrates how our consumer spending generates vast amounts of economic waste--to the shocking tune of eighty-five billion dollars each winter. Economist Joel Waldfogel provides solid explanations to show us why it's time to stop the madness and think twice before buying gifts for the holidays. When we buy for ourselves, every dollar we spend produces at least a dollar in satisfaction, because we shop carefully and purchase items that are worth more than they cost. Gift giving is different. We make less-informed choices, max out on credit to buy gifts worth less than the money spent, and leave recipients less than satisfied, creating what Waldfogel calls "deadweight loss." Waldfogel indicates that this waste isn't confined to Americans--most major economies share in this orgy of wealth destruction. While recognizing the difficulties of altering current trends, Waldfogel offers viable gift-giving alternatives. By reprioritizing our gift-giving habits, Scroogenomics proves that we can still maintain the economy without gouging our wallets, and reclaim the true spirit of the holiday season.
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$4.99 |
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(5.0 / 5.0) Oh, by gosh, by golly. It’s time for . . . rowdy bands of drunkards roaming the streets, lighting firecrackers, and firing off guns? Gangs of masked youths invading people’s houses, demanding food, drink, and money—and threatening to break the windows (or worse) unless they’re given what they want?
Welcome to Christmas, circa 1800. Yes, the season of light, joy, and gift-giving was once regarded as a time of darkness, danger, and dissipation—and celebrated with all-too-public displays of noisemaking, inebriation, and gluttonous overeating. (Well, maybe not everything has changed.) And though we tend to imagine Victorian-era Christmases as sentimental gatherings around the candlelit tree, blazing hearth, and festive punchbowl, the 19th-century evidence tells us quite otherwise.
Drawing from his extensive collection of antique postcards, greeting cards, advertising giveaways, and other ephemera, author John Grossman presents a picture of Christmas past that, frankly, looks a lot more like Halloween. Broomstick-riding witches and vampire bat–borne cupids deliver New Year’s greetings. Fur-clad fairies gather ’round a campfire to roast their Christmas dinner—a huge dead rat. And Saint Nicholas? He’s that skinny guy in the bishop robes who arrives with his dark companion, the Devil-like Krampus brandishing switches to punish the badly behaved.
With Christmas Curiosities, STC wishes you a very merry, very scary Christmas.
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$6.85 |
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(4.5 / 5.0) Good Luck Life is the first book to explain the meanings of Chinese rituals and to offer advice on when and how to plan for Chinese holidays and special occasions such as Chinese weddings, the Red Egg and Ginger party to welcome a new baby, significant birthdays, and the inevitable funeral. Packed with practical information, Good Luck Life contains an abundance of facts, legends, foods, old-village recipes, and quick planning guides for Chinese New Year, Clear Brightness, Dragon Boat, Mid-Autumn, and many other festivals.
Written with warmth and wit, Good Luck Life is beautifully designed as an easily accessible cultural guide that includes an explanation of the Lunar Calendar, tips on Chinese table etiquette for dining with confidence, and dos and don'ts from wise Auntie Lao, who recounts ancient Chinese beliefs and superstitions. This is your map for celebrating a good luck life.
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$5.98 |
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(4.5 / 5.0) When a special activity evolves into a tradition within a family, it creates meaning, connection, and community and makes common occasions more momentous and memorable. Establishing a sense of stability and shared history has never been more important to parents than it is today, as families become more fractured and scattered. THE JOY OF FAMILY TRADITIONS offers more than 400 fresh ideas and creative approaches to cultivating birthday, anniversary, holiday, and other rite-of-passage and seasonal traditions that strengthen personal bonds and reflect a family's individual style, spirituality, and values.
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$10.36 |
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(3.5 / 5.0) “Fascinating . . . An admirably lucid, level-headed history of outbreaks of joy from Dionysus to the Grateful Dead.”—Terry Eagleton, The Nation Widely praised as “impressive” (The Washington Post Book World), “ambitious” (The Wall Street Journal), and “alluring” (The Los Angeles Times), Dancing in the Streets explores a human impulse that has been so effectively suppressed that we lack even a term for it: the desire for collective joy, historically expressed in revels of feasting, costuming, and dancing. Drawing on a wealth of history and anthropology, Barbara Ehrenreich uncovers the origins of communal celebration in human biology and culture. From the earliest orgiastic Mesopotamian rites to the medieval practice of Christianity as a “danced religion” and the transgressive freedoms of carnival, she demonstrates that mass festivities have long been central to the Western tradition. In recent centuries, this festive tradition has been repressed, cruelly and often bloodily. But as Ehrenreich argues in this original, exhilarating, and ultimately optimistic book, the celebratory impulse is too deeply ingrained in human nature ever to be completely extinguished.
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$2.45 |