Author Susan Apps-Bodilly discusses Old Farm Country Christmas: Favorite Recipes, Homespun Crafts, and Merry Memories

McMillan Memorial Library welcomes Susan Apps-Bodilly, discussing her new book, Old Farm Country Christmas

In Old Farm Country Christmas, Jerry Apps and Susan Apps-Bodilly invite readers inside the farmhouse kitchens, one-room schoolhouses, rural churches, and snow-packed fields of Wisconsin, sharing Christmas stories from the Great Depression through the 1960s. Drawing on vivid family memories, interviews, and historical research, the authors recreate a time when holiday magic was handmade, heartfelt, and shared generously.  The book includes more than 80 cherished Apps family recipes, old-fashioned Christmas craft projects, and activities perfect for wintry afternoons, offering a timeless celebration of the season and of the traditions that knit rural communities together. 

Susan Apps-Bodilly is a retired elementary and middle-school educator. She is the author of One Room Schools, Seeds in Soil, and ABCs of Wisconsin Cheese, as well as coauthor, with Jerry Apps, of Timber! and Old Farm Country Cookbook, all published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin.