O Bliss! O Joy!

My favorite magazine in the whole wide world used to be "Victoria."

Every month when it came, I'd set aside time - an hour at least - to just sit down and look at it. It was gorgeous - landscape photographs that took your breath away, seasonal shots that were the very ESSENCE of fall - or spring - or winter, beautiful collections of antique buttons or lace or stacks of books.

It was like a very tiny vacation, a respite from some of the ugliness that exists in the modern world.

Then they stopped publishing it.

And I was very sad. And I kept looking for a magazine like it - Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion wasn't quite it, Southern Lady came close but wasn't it either.

And then, this summer, I got a postcard in my mailbox - Victoria is coming back! Do you want a trial copy?

(Does Tasha Tudor live in a house without electricity? Of course I wanted a copy!)

So I sent the card in. And for a few weeks, I looked eagerly at my mailbox. No magazine was forthcoming.

And I sort of forgot about it - I think at one point I thought, well, maybe they didn't get enough investors.

But I opened my mailbox this afternoon - in the middle of this rather unpleasant week - and there it was. The pre-Christmas issue.

I hugged it to my chest - yes, standing right out there by my mailbox - a tiny spontaneous expression of joy.

I removed the plastic protective wrap with a bit of trepidation - what if it wasn't the same? What if it had become another everyday-celebrity-obsessed*, plastic-surgery-fied-beauty touting, "low fat/low cal dishes for HER, "real food" for HIM and the kids" type women's magazine.


(*Yes, Victoria featured people who might be called "celebrities." But it wasn't your run of the mill type celebrity - they did features on Golden Age movie stars, and on authors like Tasha Tudor [well, Tasha Tudor is also worthy of celebritydom for her pure eccentricity], and women who had "gracious businesses" like tearooms and such. Not a pop singer or a stripper-turned-actress in the bunch)

I opened the magazine.

It had the same typeface. The same typeface! You might not realize how important that is.

It has the same departments - I almost cried a little when I saw it had a feature on "calling cards" (unusual business cards for small, often woman-owned, businesses).

It has the same wonderful photography - there's a lovely feature on old Christmas memorabilia, and lovely closeups of old buttons. And wonderful, soul-stirring (well, for this displaced Northerner they are) photographs of snow covered landscapes. (I miss snow. Don't miss driving in it but I do miss having it to look at. It doesn't feel like Christmas to me without snow).

It has the same kind of "don't let the cold hard world intrude" features on gracious living and general niceness.

(Victoria used to have as its motto "Because nice matters," which I always liked. I think they even offered it as a cross-stitch kit, and except for the fact that I don't cross-stitch [I always get off-count and wind up cursing], I'd have bought it).

I don't know. Someone with a colder eye for such things than I have could doubtless point out how it's changed, but to me, it's my dear old Victoria back again, and I'm very happy to see it.

(I will say there are some changes I'd welcome - one of the "welcome back" letters suggested that Victoria run a classic poem - like something by Keats or Frost - each issue, and I have to say I think that would be a fantastic addition).

(And I suppose some people would argue it's a sort of "domestic p0rn," that it portrays the same unrealistic, unaccessible-for-all-but-the-fantastically-wealthy-and-idle sort of world that Martha Stewart has created. And you know - they have a right to their opinion, but I don't agree with them. Just as many people read romance novels for an escape - or watch the Travel Channel - or window-shop, for me, Victoria is a tiny little vacation. Oh, it's not a world I could or would inhabit full-time, but it's certainly nice to visit and imagine about)

But what a nice thing, what a good thing to have back. My life is a tiny bit better with this magazine back in it.