Nothing says Smithsonian cheer like ZooLights. Photo by Jim Jenkins

Friday, December 21: Lars Krutak: Spiritual Skin

Presuming the end of the world is not for at least a few thousand more years, we present a night of enlightening tattoo appreciation. It turns out, while the oldest known example of tattoos are cosmetic, the second oldest is actually most likely medicinal. Megan Gambino spoke with Smithsonian anthropologist Lars Krutak for her blog, Collage of Arts and Sciences, about his time spent studying tattoo practices throughout history. His research has taken him around the world and now it brings him to the Big Board in D.C. for a book signing and lecture about the spiritual role of tattoos and scarification. Free. 7:00 p.m. The Big Board, 421 H St. NE.

Saturday, December 22: Dakota 38

Abraham Lincoln has been remembered for many things, but seldom is he mentioned as the President who authorized the largest mass execution in United States history. Thirty-eight Dakota man were put to death at the end of the Dakota War of 1862. Native spiritual leader Jim Miller knew none of this when he dreamed, in 2005, that he rode across South Dakota to watch the execution of 38 strangers in Minnesota. When he learned of the event, he set out with a group of riders to recreate his dream journey, documented in the film Dakota 38. Free. 3:30 p.m. American Indian Museum.

Sunday, December 23: ZooLights, Conservation Carousel

What better way to spend a restful Sunday evening than taking in the seasonal lights display at the National Zoo. See your favorite animals larger than life and in their full holiday splendor. And new this year, the Conservation Carousel features 56 hand-carved figures modeled from the Zoo’s collection as well as two hand-carved chariots. Everyone from naked mole rats to hummingbirds is along for the ride, so you should be too! Rides are $3. Parking is $16 for non-members. Lights run 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. National Zoo.

Read more articles about the holidays with our Smithsonian Holiday Guide here

Arturo Rodríguez used a postcard from the Louvre to create this Van Gogh-inspired holiday card to Helen L. Kohen, ca. 1980-1999

The head of Hallmark, Donald Hall, is worth an estimated $1 billion, according to Forbes. Founded in 1910, the company has grown into the biggest greetings card manufacturer in the United States and by now, its brand is commonplace during the holiday season.

But Mary Savig and the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art are here to remind you that not all cards come from a store. In her new book, Handmade Holiday Cards from 20th-Century Artists, Savig includes 190 illustrations of the original holiday cards held in the Archives. Some famous names pop up, including Josef Albers, John Lennon and Yoko Ono and Robert Motherwell. Unlike the Hallmark stock on the shelves, these cards weren’t meant to be sold, but were instead just sent between friends to mark a shared occasion.

Painter and printmaker Philip Guston sent this Christmas card to poet Elise Asher in the 1950s, which was a departure from some of his dark subject matter contemplating the violence and persecution perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan.

Kathleen Blackshear and Ethel Spears, a prominent Works Progress Administration artist in Chicago working in the 1930s, sent this Christmas card to fellow artist Andrew A. Bucci in 1964.

Born in Ohio, Charles Ephraim Burchfield painted evocative water color scenes of nature like this one, a letter sent to Louise Burchfield in 1933.

Abstract artist Frederick Hammersley met Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Constantin Brâncuşi during the 1940s and created this festive card in the 1950s.

Miné Okubo was one of the hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans interned during World War II, later publishing a book of sketches and writings on the period. Here, she turns her artistic skill to a Christmas card made in 1959.

Using imagery from a wire-sculpture circus creation, Alexander Calder created this unique card in 1930.

Signing her name in newsprint in the bottom right hand corner, Helen Frankenthaler created this collage for artist Theodoros Stamos in 1960.

Count on a Surrealist artist and painter like Kay Sage to send this as a Christmas card to Eleanor Howland Bunce.

Read more articles about the holidays in our Smithsonian Holiday Guide here

See more handmade cards here.

Last week’s holiday gift guide had a little something for everyone: science lover, wordsmiths, artsy types and history buffs. But this week, we’re bringing you the unabridged list of history picks, each of which were recommended by researchers, curators and staff at the Institution so they’ve got the smarty stamp of approval.

So stop sneezing over perfume samples and sorting through silk ties, this list of more than 30 titles, from hip-hop history for newcomers to the Civil War canon, is all you’ll need this holiday season.

Biography

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff. The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer delivers a dramatic account of one of the most famed but misunderstood women of all time. The New York Times called it “a cinematic portrait of a historical figure far more complex and compelling than any fictional creation, and a wide, panning, panoramic picture of her world.” (Recommended by Laurel Fritzsch, project assistant at the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation)

The Lost World of James Smithson: Science, Revolution, and the Birth of the Smithsonian by Heather Ewing. Learn more about this British chemist and the Institution’s founder, who left his fortunes to a country he’d never even set foot in, all in the name of science and knowledge. (Recommended by Robyn Einhorn, project assistant for armed forces history at the American History Museum)

Young Romantics: The Tangled Lives of English Poetry’s Greatest Generation by Daisy Hay. In addition to the celebrated figures of Lord Byron, Mary Shelley and John Keats, Hay’s book also weaves in mistresses, journalists and in-laws for a riveting tale of personal drama. (Recommended by Laurel Fritzsch, project assistant at the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation)

Genius of Place: The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted by Justin Martin. “Olmsted did so many different things in life, that it’s like reading a history of the country to read about him,” says the Institution’s Amy Karazsia. Not just the landscape architect behind everything from Central Park to Stanford University, Olmsted was also an outspoken abolitionist, whose social values informed his design. (Recommended by Amy Karazsia, director of giving at the American History Museum)

Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children’s Literature by Philip Nel. Not as famous as their mentee Maurice Sendak, Johnson and Krauss lived just as colorful a life creating children’s classic, including Harold and the Purple Crayon, that endure even today. (Recommended by Peggy Kidwell, curator of medicine and science at the American History Museum)

American History

Big Chief Elizabeth: The Adventures and Fate of the First English Colonists in America by Giles Milton. A look at some of the first settlers, including a Native American who had been taken captive, traveled to England and then returned to America as Lord and Governor before disappearing. Milton unravels the mystery of what happened to those early settlers. (Recommended by Carol Slatick, museum specialist at the American History Museum)

The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilization, 1600-1675 by Bernard Bailyn. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author who has written profusely on early American history here turns his eye to the people already on North America’s shores when the British arrived and their interactions with the colonists. (Recommended by Rayna Green, curator of home and community life at the American History Museum)

Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different by Gordon S. Wood. For those who think they have the complete picture of the founding fathers, allow Pulitzer Prize-winning author Gordon S. Wood to fill in the details and explain what made each unique. (Recommended by Lee Woodman, senior advisor for the office of the director at the American History Museum)

Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 by Gordon S. Wood. And for those who like their Pulitzer Prize winners to take a broader look, Wood’s Empire of Liberty examines the larger context in which those greats from his Revolutionary Characters worked. (Recommended by Timothy Winkle, curator of home and community life at the American History Museum)

Six Frigates: The epic history of the founding of the US Navy, by Ian W. Toll. Our Smithsonian recommender wrote that this book is a, “real page-turner about the politics surrounding the creation of a navy, the shipbuilding process, the Navy culture of the time, characteristics of each ship and the characters who served on them,” from the War of 1812,  the Mediterranean naval actions and more. (Recommended by Brett Mcnish, supervisory horticulturalist at Smithsonian Gardens)

The Burning of Washington: The British Invasion of 1814 by Anthony Pitch. The story of how Dolly Madison rescued George Washington’s portrait from the White House when it was engulfed in flames during the British attack is by now common classroom stuff. But Pitch breathes new life into the now quaint tale, delivering a gripping account of the actions as they unfolded. (Recommended by Cathy Keen, archives curator at the American History Museum)

What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War by Chandra Manning. We remember the Civil War through the words of famous men, but Manning returns the struggle’s voice to those who fought, including both black and white soldiers as she pulls from journals, letters and regimental newspapers. (Recommended by Barbara Clark Smith, curator of political history at the American History Museum)

The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner. Though we learn more about the man every year, Abraham Lincoln’s true relationship to the issue of slavery remains buried somewhere between pragmatism and indignation. This account from the Pulitzer Prize-winning Foner brings out the nuance of the full conversation, not shying away from the difficult and sometimes contradictory parts. (Recommended by Arthur Molella, director of the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation)

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard. The best-selling book just released in June details the attempted assassination of President Garfield in 1881. Full of intrigue, the book found fans in the Smithsonian partly because the apparatus Alexander Graham Bell used to find the bullet which wounded the President is actually in the collections. (Recommended by Roger Sherman, curator of medicine and science for the American History Museum)

Guest of Honor: Booker T. Washington, Theodore Roosevelt and the White House Dinner That Shocked a Nation by Deborah Davis. Though enslaved African Americans built the White House, none had ever dined there until Booker T. Washington was invited to by President Roosevelt. The incredibly controversial dinner engulfed the country in outrage but Davis places it within a larger story, uniting the biographies of two very different men. (Recommended by Joann Stevens, program director of Jazz Appreciation Month at the American History Museum)

Freedom Summer: The Savage Season of 1964 That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy by Bruce Watson. Racism consumed the entire nation, but the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee chose Mississippi as one of the worst offenders. A modest army of hundreds of students and activists went to the state to man voter registration drives and fill the schools with teachers. Though the summer produced change, it also witnessed the murder of three young men whose deaths would not be solved until years later. (Recommended by Christopher Wilson, program director of African American culture at the American History Museum)

The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro. This four-volume monolith by the Pulitzer Prize winning Robert Caro runs more than 3,000 pages and yet it captured the adoration of nearly every reviewer for its painstakingly thorough and engaging biography of a complicated man and era. (Recommended by Rayna Green, curator of home and community life at the American History Museum)

Social History

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James McPherson. As Alex Dencker says, this is, “not a typical Civil War book.” McPherson deftly handles the Civil War while also creating a portrait of what made America unique, from its infrastructure, to its agriculture to its populations, to set the stage in a new way. (Recommended by Alex Dencker, horticulturalist at Smithsonian Gardens)

City of Scoundrels: The 12 Days of Disaster That Gave Birth to Modern Chicago by Gary Krist. July 1919 proved particularly eventful in Chicago, with a race riot, the Goodyear blimp disaster and a dramatic police hunt for a missing girl. Krist looks beyond the buzz of headlines to capture a city in transformation. (Recommended by Bonnie Campbell Lilienfeld, supervisor curator of home and community life at the American History Museum)

Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America by Juan Gonzalez. A revised and updated edition of a comprehensive work from columnist Juan Gonzalez provides a contemporary look at the long history of a diverse group whose national profile continues to rise. (Recommended by Magdalena Mieri, program director in Latino history and culture at the American History Museum)

The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued their Bosses and Changed the Workplace by Lynn Povich. Valeska Hilbig, from the American History Museum, loved the way this book, “as compelling as any novel,” also provided “an accurate, intimate history of new women journalists invading the male journalistic world of the 1970s” to reveal how women’s struggle for recognition in the workplace may just be beginning. (Recommended by Valeska Hilbig, public affairs specialist at the American History Museum)

At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson. If you happen to, like Bill Bryson, live in a 19th century English rectory, you might assume your home is full of history. But Bryson shows us, in addition to touring his own home, that these private and often ignored spaces hold the story of human advancement. (Recommended by Laurel Fritzsch, project assistant at the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation)

Science History

Poisons of the Past: Molds, Epidemics, and History by Mary Kilbourne Matossian. Could food poisoning have been at the heart of some of Europe’s strangest moments in history? That’s what Matossian argues in her look at how everything from food preparation to climate may have shaped a region’s history. (Recommended by Carol Slatick, museum specialist at the American History Museum)

Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World by Adrienne Mayor. An easy read that looks at the often dark and very long history of biological warfare, using everything from Greek mythology to evidence from archeological dig sties. (Recommended by Carol Slatick, museum specialist at the American History Museum)

The Republic of Nature: An Environmental History of the United States by Mark Fiege. In a sweeping history, Fiege persuasively argues that no moment in time can be separated from its environment, brining together natural and social history. (Recommended by Jeffrey Stine, supervisory curator of medicine and science at the American History Museum)

Sea of Glory: America’s Voyage of Discovery, The U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842 by Nathaniel Philbrick. Our insider, Brett McNish, described the text and its connection to the institution saying it was, “a brilliant read about the U.S. Exploring Expedition (a.k.a. Wilkes Expedition) and what would become the basis of the Smithsonian’s collection,” noting that, “Smithsonian Gardens has descendants of some of the plants Wilkes brought back in our Orchid Collection and garden areas.” (Recommended by Brett McNish, supervisory horticulturalist of grounds management)

The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic–and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson. 1854 London was both a thriving young metropolis and the perfect breeding ground for a deadly cholera outbreak. Johnson tells the story not just of the outbreak, but how the outbreak influenced that era’s fledgling cities and scientific worldview. (Recommended by Judy Chelnick, curator of medicine and science at the American History Museum)

The Arcanum The Extraordinary True Story By Janet Gleeson. The search for an elixir has long obsessed man, but in the early 18th century, Europeans were hard at work on another mystery: how exactly the East made its famed and envied porcelain. Gleeson tells the diverting tale of that fevered search with flourish. (Recommended by Robyn Einhorn, project assistant for armed forces history at the American History Museum)

The Skull Collectors: Race, Science, and America’s Unburied Dead by Ann Fabian. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, the story of skull collecting in a misguided effort to confirm racist stereotypes of the 1800s is a dark, even ghoulish tale. Fabian takes one noted naturalist, Samuel George Morton, who collected hundreds of skulls over his lifetime as she unpacks a society’s cranial obsession. (Recommended by Barbara Clark Smith, curator of political history at the American History Museum)

The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum. For years, poisons had been the preferred weapon of the country’s underworld. All that changed, however, in 1918 when Charles Norris was named New York City’s chief medical examiner  and made it his mission to apply science to his work. (Recommended by Laurel Fritzsch, project assistant at the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation)

Music History

Groove Music: The Art and Culture of the Hip-Hop DJ by Mark Katz. Told from the point of the view of the very people at the center of the genre’s creation, Katz’s history of hip-hop relies on the figure of the DJ to tell its story and reveal the true innovation of the craft that began in the Bronx. (Recommended by Laurel Fritzsch, project assistant at the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation)

Underground Dance Masters: Final History of a Forgotten Era by Thomas Guzmán Sánchez. According to the Institution’s Marvette Perez, the text “captures the essence of hip-hop culture in California, not only from a great student of hip hop and popular culture, but one who was part of the movement back in the day, a great account.” Looking at the break dance movement that predated hip-hop’s origins, Sánchez details what made California’s scene so unique. (Recommended by Marvette Perez, curator of culture and the arts at the American History Museum)

Read more articles about the holidays with our Smithsonian Holiday Guide here

Our curators and researchers recommend a little something for everyone.

The curators and researchers spend a lot of time reading, everything from classic novels to the latest exhibition catalog. We asked some of them to lend us their reading lists to see which titles rose to the top and why.

For the Art Connoisseurs:

Leslie Umberger, from the American Art Museum, recommends:

“James Castle: Show and Store, an exhibition catalogue produced by the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sophia in 2011 brilliantly navigates the complex depths of Idaho artist James Castle (1899-1977). Fresh, insightful, and deeply moving, the images and essays explore a truly, astonishing, poetic and enigmatic body of work–drawings of soot, paper constructions, and carefully rendered books and letters–entirely in its own terms. Perfectly magical.”

Lisa Hostetler, from the American Art Museum, recommends:

“Photography Changes Everything, edited by Marvin Heiferman (Aperture/Smithsonian Institution, 2012). It’s an interesting look at the wide variety of ways that photographs are used and how photography itself has affected contemporary culture. Two exhibition catalogues that I’ve been looking forward to reading are Cindy Sherman (MoMA, 2012) and Rineke Dijkstra (Guggenheim, 2012). Sherman and Dijkstra are two of today’s most compelling artists, and these retrospectives are important compendia of their careers.”

Maya Foo, from the Freer and Sackler, recommends:

“Rome by Robert Hughes. In college, I studied art history in Rome and I have wanted to return to Italy ever since. Robert Hughes’ Rome is a readable and rich history of the city told through art, architecture, literature and the author’s personal narrative.”

For the Wordsmiths:

David Ward, from the National Portrait Gallery, recommends:

“What with the opening of Poetic Likeness at the museum this fall and co-editing Lines in Long Array: A Civil War Commemoration, which includes 12 newly commissioned poems, my mind has been mostly on poetry the last year or so. I have been especially taken by the following titles: First, work by two of the great “voices” in modern American poetry, one still vital even at 85, John Ashbery, and the other sadly gone, Adrienne Rich, who passed away earlier this year after an amazingly powerful career. Adrienne Rich, Later Poems: Selected and New, 1971-2012 (WW Norton, 2012). John Ashbery, Quick Question: New Poems (Ecco, 2012).

The writer Eavan Boland is not only a first-rate poet but she is continually interesting on the subject of writing, literary history and social roles. Her latest book explores the sense of doubleness that she navigates in her career: A Journey with Two Maps: Becoming a Woman Poet.

Two prize-winning books by two of America’s best poets are also of note: Jorie Graham’s Place (Ecco, 2012) and Tracy K. Smith’s Life on Mars (Greywolf, 2011), which won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 2012.

Also, a pitch for a book that was published a couple of years ago that I don’t think got as much attention as it should have, from Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors, A New Literary History of America (Harvard University Press, 2009), which came out in paperback in 2012. It provides a really valuable, entertaining and incisive view of 500 years of American writing.”

For the Scientists:

John Grant, from the National Air and Space Museum, recommends:

Roving Mars: Spirit, Opportunity and the Exploration of the Red Planet by Steve Squyres is good for adults. Squyres writes about his work as the principal investigator on both the Spirit and Opportunity missions to Mars in 2004. A good read for people following the more recent Mars developments with the Curiosity mission.

And for the younger set: Fly Me to Mars by Catherine Weitz is a terrific kids book.

For the History Buffs: 

Cory Bernat, co-curator of FOOD: Transforming the American Table at American History, recommends:

Paradox of Plenty: A Social History of Eating in Modern America by Harvey Levestein, which covers America’s eating habits from the 1930s to present day.

John Edward Hasse, at the American History Museum, likes:

Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood and How It Changed America, by John M. Barry, because it’s a “fascinating story told so compellingly that it reads almost like a novel.”

Nancy Bercaw, of the American History Museum, suggests:

Tiya Miles’ Ties That Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom, first published in 2006, but an interesting read for readers looking for something different in the Civil War sesquicentennial.

See More Holiday Gift Guides from Smithsonian.com »

What would the holidays be without Eartha Kitt, seen here performing in the Broadway show Timbuktu. Photo by C.M. Nell, Courtesy Smithsonian Archives

Guest blogger, Joann Stevens is the program manager of Jazz Appreciation Month at the American History Museum. Courtesy of the author

It’s that time of year again when the airwaves jingle with a potpourri of holiday music, performances and mashups, featuring songs and artists with jazz, pop culture, film, classical and sacred music roots. Some of the chestnut classics are playing 24/7 on radio stations (for those of you who still listen to radio) across the land.

Speaking of chestnut classics, during his 29-year career, jazz vocalist and pianist Nat King Cole recorded four versions of his chestnuts roasting by open fire “The Christmas Song” before arriving at the 1961 version that became the perennial favorite. Surprisingly, the tune was composed on a hot summer day in 1944 by Mel Tormé and Robert Wells. Whitney Houston released her stellar version in 2003. Two years later, the music licensing organization ASCAP noted that the song was number one among the ten most performed holiday tunes during the first five years of the 21st century.  Santa Claus is Coming to Town and Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, were two and three, respectively.

I always keep my ear out for Eartha Kitt.  The original Cat Woman purrs for holiday furs, cars and jewels in Santa Baby, a satirical tune co-written in 1953 by Philip Springer and Joan Javits, niece of U.S. Senator Jacob Javits.

Whether your tastes veer towards the traditional or something a little funkier, here’s an eclectic mix of jazz and other music by seasoned and emerging artists to explore this season, along with some interesting bedtime stories you probably didn’t know. So curl up with your hot cocoa and click through some of my holiday favorites.

For all he did, including giving us one of the most popular Christmas songs of all time, Nat King Cole got his own stamp in 1994. Courtesy of the National Postal Museum

Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s Nutcracker Suite.  Tchaikovysky swings in the hands of these classically trained jazz masters. In 1960 the duo reinvented the ballet classic, mixing rhythms and musical styles. These two selections bring sass to the Nutcracker Overture  and make the Sugar Plum Fairies sound like they’re hung over from too much partying at the Sugar Rum Cherry Dance.

Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.  At four foot nine, country music-rock star Brenda Lee was known as Little Miss Dynamite.  She was 13 when she recorded this classic in 1958.  Her version became a chart buster in 1960 and reigns as the all time favorite, played by radio formats from Top 40 to Country Music to Adult Contemporary and Adult Standards.  Nielsen Sound Scan rated digital track sales at 679,000 downloads.  Miley Cyrus also had fun with the song .

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. Composed by Hugh Martin Jr., who also wrote “The Trolley Song” and “The Boy Next Door” for the film Meet Me in St. Louis, starring Judy Garland.  This song from the film might have become the most depressing holiday song ever written.  Luckily studio executives and Garland intervened, requesting  rewrites to give the public a more hopeful classic.  Compare the original lyrics to the holiday friendly versions sung by Frank Sinatra and Luther Vandross. 

The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late). What more can I say?  Gotta love Alvin and the Chipmunks in this song composed by Rostom Sipan “Ross” Bagdasarian, who had a knack with novelty music.  The son of Armenian immigrants, Bagdasarian was a bit stage and film actor whose first musical success, ”Come-on-a-My House,” was a dialect song that became a hit for Rosemary Clooney, the aunt of actor George Clooney.  The song was co-written with Bagdasarian’s cousin, the famous writer William Saroyan. Go ahead, do your best impersonation. ALLLLLVIN!

Oh Chanukah.   This traditional song commemorating the Jewish Festival of Lights was standard fare in the New York City school programs when music appreciation and performances were used to explore cultural diversity and heritage. Enjoy the traditional song by this young choir and an offering of  Klezmer holiday music by a high school sax quartet.  Klezmer Jazz  a fusion of  the rhythms and traditional music of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe with American jazz, evolved in the U.S. in the 1880s.

Carol of the Bells.   One rarely hears jazz played on the Hawaiian ukelele or such performances compared with Miles Davis, unless you’re Jake Shimabukuro — a largely self-taught virtuoso who was introduced to the instrument by his mother. Listen to his take of the classic Carol of the Bells, a song based on a traditional Ukranian folk chant, followed by a rocking jazz performance .

Yagibushi. Okay it’s not a holiday carol but if  music by jazz performer Chichiro Yamanaka, a standout at the 2012 Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival, doesn’t rouse you for the holidays, nothing will.

Kwanzaa.  Kwanzaa is observed from December 26 to January 1 in Canada and the U.S. to honor African and African American cultural traditions that teach valuable life principles.

And Now for Something Completely Different. Jazz pianist/composer and NEA Jazz Master Randy Weston has made African and world culture the core of his creative process. Blue Moses is a composition influenced by time Weston spent in Morocco learning the traditions and musical culture of the Gnawa  people—West Africans taken to North Africa as slaves and soldiers around the 16th century.  In an interview with Jo Reed, Weston said that within the Gnawa music ”I heard the blues, I heard Black jazz, I heard the music of the Caribbean, I heard the foundation which proved to me that the rhythms of Africa, they remained alive, but disguised in different forms, whether in Honduras, or Haiti, or Jamaica, or Trinidad, or Brazil, or Mississippi. ”

Happy Musical Holidays!

Joann Stevens is program manager of Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM), an initiative to advance appreciation and recognition of jazz as America’s original music, a global cultural treasure.  JAM is celebrated in every state in the U.S. and the District of Columbia and some 40 countries every April. Recent posts include Danilo Pérez: Creator of Musical Guardians of Peace and Jason Moran: Making Jazz Personal. 

Read more articles about the holidays with our Smithsonian Holiday Guide here

Nothing says holiday fun like ZooLights. Photo by Jim Jenkins. Courtesy of the National Zoo

The days may be getting shorter, and the nights longer, but thanks to the National Zoo, that’s a good thing! ZooLights, the seasonal favorite that lights up the Zoo with colorful lights displays, has returned. The season officially kicks off November 23, when the Zoo will once again be full of larger-than-life representations of some of your favorite animals. And this year, in addition to the models train and snowless sledding, the Zoo will also be unveiling its Conservation Carousel, an old-timey carousel crafted with care that features more of the Zoo’s animal icons.

So bundle up and enjoy the long nights with a cup of apple cider and some new creature friends.

Catch your favorite animals, just hanging out. Photo by Jim Jenkins. Courtesy of the National Zoo

Nothing like the holidays to bring people–and animals–together. Photo by Jim Jenkins. Courtesy of the National Zoo

Model trains and even a kids’ train ride add to the entertainment. Photo by Jim Jenkins. Courtesy of the National Zoo

An elegant elephant strikes a pose. Photo by Jim Jenkins. Courtesy of the National Zoo

Tropical holiday greetings from the Zoo to you. Photo by Jim Jenkins. Courtesy of the National Zoo

The Sant Ocean Hall at the Natural History Museum is just one of the many attractions to be enjoyed this holiday weekend. Photo by Chip Clark. Courtesy of the Smithsonian

If you think your house is going to be packed for Thanksgiving, imagine the crowds at a Smithsonian museum. According to the Washington Post, the museums had 418, 000 visitors over the holiday weekend in 2010. Though that number dipped in 2011, the institution is still gearing up for a full house.

To help visitors navigate their way through the 19 museums and National Zoo, Smithsonian will be fielding questions before and during the holiday on its Twitter page. Just follow @smithsonian and use the hashtag “#TgivingVisitTips” to stay up to date. Veteran visitors will also post their own tips with the hashtag, including, “1) eat at@SmithsonianNMAI 2) take a pic at @NMAAHC site for posterity 3) comfy shoes” by Erin Blasco.

Here are some of our own insider tips, from our Greatest Hits guide (now available on your smart phone!):

Smithsonian Institution Building, The Castle: Your first stop for all things Smithsonian, the Castle is home to the information center where you can scope out all the current exhibits around the Mall, including the Castle’s own exhibit, “Experience Civil War Photography: From the Home Front to the Battlefront.” You can also pay your respects to the founder, James Smithson, who lies at rest in the crypt in the building’s foyer.

National Portrait Gallery: With several new exhibits and a host of permanent favorites, there’s plenty to take in at the gallery (like Alexander Gardner’s famous cracked glass plate portrait of Abraham Lincoln), including the building itself. On the third floor in the Great Hall, is an architectural gem that shouldn’t be missed. The yellow, blue and red stained-glass windows in the octagonal dome, dating to 1885, cast lush hues on sunny days.

American Art Museum: Housed in the same building as NPG, is the American Art Museum, which just opened its splendid new exhibit “The Civil War and American Art,” which is sure to draw crowds. The museum even had its own role in the Civil War: On the third floor near the Woman Eating sculpture, the initials C.H.F. are scrawled on the wall. The work of some hipster tagger? No, the graffiti artist also put a date: “Aug. 8, 1864.” Likely it was left by a patient; the building was a Civil War infirmary.

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center: Not quite on the Mall, the Udvar-Hazy Center (in Chantilly, Virginia—near Dulles Airport) is home to a world-famous collection of aircraft a space vehicles, including the Air France Concorde and the space shuttle Discovery. After seeing those beauties, tell the kids to check this out. Look for seven hidden oddities in the model of the mother ship made from the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. These were internal Hollywood jokes that weren’t part of the script. Hint: One is R2-D2 from the movie Star Wars.

Air and Space Museum: The world’s most-visited museum, Air and Space has everything from moon rocks to the Wright flyer. But how did they get it all in there? Look closely at the large window on the west side of the building. The glass slide away like giant garage doors.

American History Museum: Next up from the big three, American History, where even celebrities like Parks and Rec‘s Councilwoman Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) like to hang out. In addition to the brand new exhibit “FOOD: Transforming the American Table 1950-2000″ with Julia Child’s kitchen, you’ll also want to stop by the first floor for the Dolls’ House. Inside the house, inhabited by Peter Doll and his family, Christmas decorations are kept in the attic. Each holiday season, curators retrieve the tiny tree and wreaths and decorate the house.

Anacostia Community Museum: After an extensive research process, the museum recently opened its exhibit “Reclaiming the Edge: Urban Waterways and Civic Engagement” as part of its efforts to reach out to the community. Comparing waterways in L.A., Pittsburgh, Louisville, London, Shanghai and here in D.C., the exhibit is full of artworks and informative displays. Check out the playful piece Talking Trash, kinetic sculpture of fish made from plastic water bottles.

Natural History Museum: The grand dame of the big three museum, Natural History is famous partly for housing the “cursed” Hope Diamond. But it’s not all sparkle and shine. Heard of donating your body to science? Professor Grover Krantz volunteered to be put on display at the Smithsonian–with his dog. “I’ve been a teacher all my life, and I think I might as well be a teacher after I’m dead,” he said. Find the pair on the second floor.

American Indian Museum: What better time to visit the American Indian Museum than November, American Indian Heritage Month? In addition to its award-winning cafe and engaging exhibits, it has a treat for those who know where and when to look. Watch for the lovely play of light in the Potomac Atrium. Eight prisms on the south wall project refractions on the floor. See them at the peak of their brilliance between 11 and 2. On the summer and winter solstice, the light lines up precisely.

Freer Gallery: Amid the jades and bronzes from Asia, a fierce fight is playing out. The two birds depicted squawking in battle on the back wall of Whistler’s Peacock Room represent a real-life contretemps between the artist and his patron over a disputed fee for the artwork.

Sackler Gallery: With a new blockbuster exhibit, “Roads of Arabia: Archaeology and History of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” the Sackler is as busy as ever. This year, the Sackler celebrates its 25th anniversary of the 1987 gift of some 1,000 works of Asian art from Arthur M. Sackler (1913-1987), a New York City physician.

Hirshhorn Museum: Contemporary art lovers will be filling the circular gallery space to check out Barbara Kruger’s installation and the new exhibit, “Ai Weiwei: According to What?” But you’ll be headed outside. Ready for a little covert operation? Check out the sculpture Antipodes just outside the front door. The piece has two encoded texts, one related to C.I.A. operations and the other in Cyrillic related to the K.G.B.

Museum of African Art: The current exhibit, “African Cosmos: Stellar Arts” is out of this world, combining science and the arts over time. Our insider tips combines its own bit of science and art. Check out the sculpture of Toussaint Louverture. It is made of a mysterious substance that the artist also used to waterproof his house.

Renwick Gallery: Just a few steps from the White House, the Renwick is a must-see in its own right, listed as a National Historic Landmark. Up the stairs is one of the city’s premier galleries, the Grand Salon, modeled in the French Second Empire style.

National Postal Museum: A stamp collection that can’t be beat, including the first ever U.S. government-issued stamp from 1847, is just the start of the Postal Museum. This building was designed by Daniel Burnham, the protagonist of the best-seller Devil in the White City.

National Zoo: In addition to the cuddly cuties on display, the Zoo is also launching this year’s seasonal display, ZooLights, Friday, November 23. As you wander through the animals, listen for the morning songs of the white-cheeked gibbons. They can be heard up to one mile away.

Don’t forget to download our Visitors Guide and Tours app. We’ve packed it with specialty tours, must-see exhibitions, museum floor plans and custom postcards. Get it on Google Play and in the Apple Store for just 99 cents.

On June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger arrived at Galveston, Texas, bringing news to the town that the Civil War had ended and that all slaves were free. This was nearly two and a half years after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Before long, the former slaves in southeastern Texas began to celebrate June 19th as Emancipation Day. Eventually, they shortened the name to Juneteenth.

Official Juneteenth Committee, East Woods Park, Austin, Texas, June 19, 1900. Courtesy Austin History Center, Austin Public Library.

An exhibit at the Anacostia Community Museum entitled Jubilee: African American Celebration features information and artifacts related to Emancipation Day festivities like Juneteenth and other African-American traditions.

“People can learn about different celebrations. It’s like looking at African-American history through the lens of these special celebrations, including Juneteenth,” said Robert Hall, associate director for education at the museum.

But Juneteenth isn’t just a historical holiday; modern celebrations are increasing throughout the country, said Cliff Robinson, founder of Juneteenth.com, a Web site that allows individuals or groups to post information and photos from Juneteenth celebrations.

“We’ve had people from all 50 states and around the world posting on our site,” Robinson said. “I’ve seen some celebrations that try to make it historic in terms of costume, but today it can be anything: a family dinner, a backyard barbecue and everything to a concert downtown or a citywide parade. It has expanded.”

I spoke with Dr. William Wiggins Jr., professor Emeritus of Folklore at Indiana University and author of Jubilation: African-American Celebrations in the Southeast, about the history and future of Juneteenth.

Why did it take so long for word of the Emancipation Proclamation to reach Texas?

One of the popular legends associated with that is that Lincoln dispatched Union soldiers to move throughout the South to spread the word, and it took until the 19th of June.

But I think on the other end, you could perhaps say it took so long because of the resistance to emancipation itself. Texas was one of the last outposts of slavery and Galveston is sort of the epicenter. In fact, one of the last fights in the Civil War was done in Galveston and the Union forces were repelled. There had been a big resistance all along and it was because of this fact that word got slowly to east Texas. Then Gordon Granger was dispatched with a group of Union soldiers and landed at Galveston and spread the word and proceeded to go up into east Texas. He gave the executive order that slavery was no longer official and people had to compensate slaves for their labor. Texas was just sort of the outlier and took some time.

More from Dr. Wiggins after the jump.

What were some of the first Juneteenth celebrations like? What food was served?

From the beginning to now, the food came from slave cuisine. One dish in particular was barbecue and the preparation and fixing of it harkens back to old days when a pit was dug, I would say about a foot deep, and it had saplings over it. They built a fire of oak and mesquite and whatever else that they wanted. They would place the coals on the floor of the pit and then on top of the pit, they would place a hog that had been killed, gutted and they would rotate its position. Starting off, the carcass would be cut-side down and skin side up and it would cook very, very slowly until the barbecuer would flip it.

Traditionally (cooking) was an all-night thing and they would be gathered by friends and sit around drinking spirited beverages. It emphasized the comaraderie and that barbecue would be the main dish. Then there was watermelon, too.

There was the strawberry pop. By any other name, it would be a picnic or Sunday dinner at its best. At the heart of it, just like turkey at Thanksgiving, the central entrée would be barbecue. And again, barbecue preparation has deep roots in slave culture.

How did Juneteenth celebrations spread out of Texas?

The movement of this celebration was part of a larger group of emancipation days across the south. The first movement, right around WWII, was westward. So where you had black families moving to California from east Texas, and southwest Arkansas and Oklahoma, to work in the shipyards, or to work in the airplane factories, then Juneteenth started cropping up in those states.

When Dr. King had the Poor People’s March and Ralph Abernathy promised King (who died April 4, 1968) that this march would be completed and it was. So they made it to Washington and they set up a camp on the mall. Everything that could go wrong did and they had to leave at the end of the summer. So how can you leave with some sense of honor? It was late June and there were people from all different states in that village for that summer, so they had a group from Texas and someone said ‘Why don’t we have a Juneteenth celebration,’ which again is a way to address poverty and freedom and harkening back to our past. They had this closing celebration, which was held on that day, and a large number of entertainers performed.

My theory is that these delegates for the summer took that idea of the celebration back to their respective communities. So I know, for example, there was one in Milwaukee, and looking at the newspapers after that summer, they started having regular Juneteenth celebrations. The Chicago Defender had an editorial that it should be a regular idea. My feeling is that because it was used to close the Poor Peoples Campaign that the idea and so forth was taken back by different participants in that march and it took root around the country. It has taken on a life of its own.

What is similar or different about the Juneteenth celebrations in the past and present?

In terms of the date and coming back, it is just a good time with homemade ice cream, baseball games and all that sort of stuff. What has changed and what has been put in there, is the whole shift, and not so-subtle shift, to emphasizing the family. These events, more and more, are being seen as instances to reaffirm and reestablish family ties. The weekend invariably would end with church service or, just like Memorial Day or Fourth of July, a visit to family burial grounds to partake in the rich telling of the stories of the ancestors.

George Washington (ca. 1803) by William Winstanley. Image courtesy of the American Art Museum.

George Washington: He was the first President of the United States and an accomplished military man, serving in both the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. This founding father—and father of our nation—was also an adoptive parent. After marrying the widow Martha Dandridge Custis, he helped her care for her two children, John (“Jacky”) and Martha (“Patsy”), as if they were his own. Unfortunately, both Patsy and Jacky would die young, with Jacky leaving behind a wife and four children. After his wife remarried, their two youngest kids, Eleanor and George, went to live with George and Martha at Mount Vernon. Face it, George Washington has “daddy” written all over him.

Charles Darwin (ca. 1882) by Ernest Edwards. Image courtesy of Smithsonian Libraries.

Charles Darwin: Unlike most Victorian-era fathers, Charles Darwin was very attentive to his children. ”To all of us,” one of his daughters later wrote, “he was the most delightful play-fellow, and the most perfect sympathizer. Indeed, it is impossible adequately to describe how delightful a relation his was to his family, whether as children or in their later life.” He also traveled the world over and championed one of the most revolutionary—and hotly debated—scientific theories: evolution, arguing that all species have a common ancestor and, over time, genetically adapt to their environment. This is the historical pop you want if you love science, adventure and to being tucked in at night.

Frank Lloyd Wright (1931) by Peter A. Juley & Son. Image courtesy of the American Art Museum.

Frank Lloyd Wright: This is the guy who revolutionized our notions of architecture and built some of the most awe-inspiring buildings that dot the American landscape. However, based on his 1932 autobiography, Wright seems to have a perfectly ambivalent attitude toward domestic life, writing, “I hated the sound of the word papa.” John Lloyd Wright, one of Frank’s seven children, has rosier remembrances of dear ol’ dad: “He performed all the functions of fatherhood, only he performed them differently,” John wrote. “He took no personal interest in my religious or academic training. But when it came to luxuries and play, he tenderly took my hand and led the way.” (John would go on to make a landmark contribution to the world of architecture by inventing Lincoln Logs in 1916.) If you think you could get along with a brilliant—albeit spoiled and bratty—father, Wright is the way to go.

Bill Cosby: This man wrote the book on fatherhood. Literally. He also comes with a sensible assortment of sweaters and a lifetime supply of Jell-O pudding. Who could ask for anything more? A standup comedian who later lent his boundless talents to television shows like I Spy, Fat Albert and, of course, The Cosby Show, Cosby also earned a doctorate degree in education and has a host of honorary degrees to his credit. If you want someone smart, funny, talented, dessert-savvy and who has an all-around tender loving way about him, Cosby will be a perfect fit for you. Unfortunately, the collections lack any Cosby artifacts, but we just couldn’t have done this poll without including pop culture’s quintessential father figure. So please, Bill, take the hint and call the Smithsonian!

Vietnam Veterans' Memorial, photo courtesy of Flickr user ehpien

Surely many will visit the National Mall this Memorial Day, placing flowers and remembrances of loved ones passed at the war memorials. Since the dedication of the Vietnam Memorial in 1982, about 25,000 mementos have been left at the base of the wall or tucked between its granite panels. From birthday cards to teddy bears to poems and letters, the National Park Service rangers who collect the keepsakes daily noticed that the Vietnam Memorial, in particular, inspired people to leave items more personal than flowers and flags. They began cataloging the items in a Vietnam Veterans Memorial Collection, and from 1992 to 2003, over 1,500 objects from the monument’s first ten years were on view in an exhibition called “Personal Legacy: The Healing of a Nation” at the National Museum of American History.

A few items—a bottle of Jack Daniels, a wooden cross with a crown of barbed wire and an artificial Christmas tree—remain on display in the museum’s permanent exhibition “The Price of Freedom: Americans at War.” The mother of Billy Stokes, who served in Vietnam, left the Christmas tree at the wall; she used to send her son a tree each Christmas that he was in Vietnam.

Perhaps a visit to the National Museum of American History, or at least the online “Price of Freedom” exhibition, would be a fitting tribute to veterans this Memorial Day.

Sunday marks the day when we show our appreciation to the mother (or mother-like entity) who has impacted our lives in a million and one wonderful ways. (We’re not in the habit of celebrating familial dysfunction—so keep whatever mommie issues you have tucked away in the closet for a day.) With our minds focused on all things maternal, we here at ATM started thinking: what awesome moms are hanging out at the Smithsonian? Here is a short list of notable women whose presence graces the halls and walls of the museums. Who is your favorite mother in the bunch? Is there one you’d like to have tucking you in at night? Take our poll and let’s chat in the comments area below! Here are our four historical mothers competing for your affection:

Abigail Smith Adams (1804) by Raphaelle Peale. Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery.

Abigail Adams: A first-rate First Lady, Adams was a self-educated avid reader with a razor wit. Her husband, John Adams, was away for extended periods of time (forming a nation, after all, isn’t the simplest thing in the world to do), which left her at home alone to tend to a farm and raise and educate her four children—including future president John Quincy Adams. A consummate entertainer, patriot and a proponent of women’s rights (her entreaties to the continental Congress to “remember the ladies” and provide women more legal rights went unheeded), Abigail Adams is one hardcore mamma.

Portrait of Marie Curie (1934). Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries.

Marie Curie: The two-time Nobel Prize-winning Mother of Modern Physics was also the only person to mother another Nobel Prize winner (Irene Curie). Together with her husband, Pierre, the Curies isolated polonium and radium and spent their lives studying the properties of these radioactive elements—namely for their therapeutic properties. She was held in high esteem by the scientific community and received numerous awards and accolades. If you have a deep-rooted love of science—or if you happen to enjoy someone with a glowing personality—this may be the hypothetical mother for you.

Josephine Baker (1926). Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery.

Josephine Baker: Born in America, Baker made her mark in France as an entertainer and a participant in the French Underground during World War II (for which she earned the Croix de Guerre and Legion of Honor service medals) and was a lifelong civil rights activist. She also adopted 12 multi-ethnic children who lived with her in her 15th-century castle. Dubbed “The Rainbow Tribe,” it was Baker’s way of showing the world that people of all ethnic backgrounds could live together in peace and love. If you’re a wild child with a hardcore sense of self, you two would be like two peas in a pod.

Joan Crawford (1932) by Joseph Grant. Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery.

Joan Crawford: The Hollywood icon who starred in classic films such as Mildred Pierce and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is perhaps best remembered for playing glamorous, fiery characters. And there’s just no imitating her style: those drastically arched eyebrows, wide mouth and shoulder pads. Crawford later became the subject of the book Mommie Dearest, a scathing portrait written by her adopted daughter Christina. If you’re a glamour puss who hates hanging your $300 clothes on wire hangers, you two will get along swimmingly.

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