Jennifer Fickley-Baker grew up in Baldwin in a close-knit family. She remembers oddball phrases older family members used that evoked a different era, particularly a grandfather who would go on about whippersnappers, fuddy-duddys, and doohickeys.
“My grandfather talked like that all the time,” says Fickley-Baker, the author (under the pen name Jennifer Joy) of 26 Ways to Come Home for the Holidays. “That was how he talked all the time: ‘Oh, run to the garage and get me one of those doohickeys,’ like, you had to know exactly what he was talking about.
26 Ways to Come Home for the Holidays — released in October by Foxburg & Stern Books — serves as both an homage to Fickley-Baker’s family and a remembrance of Pittsburgh Christmases past. Set during Thanksgiving 1942, the book follows lead character Stella West, an employee at the Hanover Department Store in Downtown Pittsburgh. Stella faces a crisis when the store’s lead window designer suddenly departs, leaving 26 holiday window displays unfinished.
Foxburg & Stern Books 