Throughout the world, Christmas is probably the most special day of the year. And everywhere, from Maine to California and beyond the ocean, it is different in each community, each home. Yet those of us who like to think Texas is special believe that Christmas here is bigger, better, and more treasured than anywhere else. This collection, first published in 1983, grew out of that conviction.
Most of these pieces bring the past into the present, reviving traditions and memories of Christmases long gone. Others reflect the diversity of our Texas people, and still others describe customs...

An important chapter in the history and folklore of the West is how women on the cattle frontier took their place as equal partners with men. The cowboy may be our most authentic folk hero, but the cowgirl is right on his heels. This Spur Award-winning book fills a void in the history of the cowgirl. While Susan B. Anthony and her hoop-skirted friends were declaring that females too were created equal, Sally Skull was already riding and roping and marking cattle with her Circle S brand on the frontier of Texas. Wearing rawhide bloomers and riding astride, she thought nothing of crossing the...

They came and scattered themselves about the plains and prairies of West Texas like seeds thrown into the constant winds. In clusters or in singles they dug in. Depending on rainfall, they flourished or failed.
Maybe the journeyers arrived in the springtime of a good year and saw the beauty of the place, expecting it to last. Maybe it did last for a season or so before a bad dry spell set in. Maybe it was several years before a real drought appeared, which they foolishly thought would pass. Regardless, there were soon small pockets of people becoming inseparable from the land. Some were...