Fun for Charity: "Caring for Christmas" at the Mary Baker Eddy Library in Boston

The Mary Baker Eddy Library is celebrating the holiday season this year with "Caring for Christmas-a Nineteenth-Century American Story." This original musical and dramatic review will explore the evolution of Christmas as a holiday from pre-nineteenth century forward. It's your chance to discover how Americans really came to "care for Christmas."

The program is also an opportunity to give to those in need. Admission to the Library's exhibits that weekend-Saturday, Dec. 5, and Sunday, Dec. 6-will be in the form of a donation to a local charity. Representatives of Friends of Boston's Homeless, The Home for Little Wanderers, and On the Rise will staff tables at the Library to collect monetary donations but wish lists of needed items are also available on the Library's Web site at www.marybakereddylibrary.org. To give you an idea, it'll be everything from gift cards for the children to Kleenex for the homeless. (Items donated must be new. But your donation is tax-deductible and you'll get into the museum for free!)

The performance itself will be on Sunday, December 6, at 2 P.M. and will last about an hour. If you can't make it then, remember to stop by the Library that weekend for a tour of the world famous Mapparium (a three-story, stained glass walk-through globe) and to make your donation.

The Mary Baker Eddy Library is located at 200 Massachusetts Ave., in Boston's Back Bay near the Prudential, Symphony, and Hynes/ICA T stops. You can get more specific directions at www.marybakereddylibrary.org or by phone at 617-450-7000. And while you're online if you'd like to know more about the charities, visit their Web sites:

The Friends of Boston's Homeless : www.fobh.org

The Home for Little Wanderers : www.thehome.org

On the Rise : www.ontherise.org

And of course, in case you're new to Boston or hadn't gathered from the Mapparium factor: "the Library" does far more than lend books. The Mary Baker Eddy Library was created to give access, context and floorspace to an enormous collection of material relating to Mary Baker Eddy, a nineteenth-century American author, teacher, and religious leader who founded the Church of Christ, Scientist and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Christian Science Monitor, amongst other achievements. So in addition to an active lending and reference department, researchers to help you navigate the archives, and the aforementioned one-of-a-kind globe; the Library also offers two galleries and rotating exhibitions about Mary Baker Eddy, spirituality, and the power of ideas. With projection art by David Small and a gorgeous fountain of Howard Ben Tre's occupying a vast neo-classical hall original to the 1935 construction, the Mary Baker Eddy Library is well worth a visit. And now you can do it for charity!