At the Gate of the Year

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.
And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.
                                                       . . . from "The Gate of the Year" ("God Knows") by Minnie Haskins

Who...is St. Stephen?

"Good King Wenceslas went out

On the Feast of Stephen..."

Ever wonder why we sing this song at Christmas, since it mentions the Nativity not at all?

The song is actually meant to be sung on St. Stephen's Day, the day after Christmas, and celebrates the second day of the "twelve days of Christmas" with a plea to the well-to-do to share with those not as economically fortunate. The kindly Wenceslas (who was actually a Polish nobleman, not a king) saw a needy peasant and went out to give him food, drink, and firewood. Because he was holy and doing a kind deed, his very steps were warmed, and his page was able to keep warm as he and Wenceslas walked "a league" (a little over three miles) to the peasant's home.

St. Stephen is celebrated because he was the first martyr in the history of the Christian church. He was stoned to death for opposing the views of the Sanhedrin, the priest class of the Jewish faith. One of the onlookers, who took no part in Stephen's stoning, but made no attempt to stop the event, was a man named Saul. Later he was converted to Christianity and known as St. Paul the Apostle.

St. Stephen's Day is known in Great Britain and other former British colonies as "Boxing Day," and it is customary to give gifts (or "boxes") to the church as well as to people who serve you during the year: the postal carrier, for instance, servants, your lawn service or gardener, etc. It is a legal holiday in Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, and also other European countries like Germany and Serbia. The holiday has also been long associated with horses, and Boxing Day fox hunts used to be popular. Now that foxes are a protected species, the hunts are still held, but with the hounds chasing a dragged cloth with artificial fox or rabbit scent on it.

Winter Fun at the Lake

The Tuckers: The Cottage Holiday, Jo Mendel
"Penny Tucker stood on her knees among the cushions of the window seat and pushed her nose against the cold glass. With each fresh gust of wind, hard little white balls shot out of the dark and hit the windows. Across the street every house twinkled with ropes of Christmas lights...[t]onight the PTA was holding a special meeting to celebrate the beginning of Christmas vacation. All of the Tuckers...were to take part. That is, all but...seven-year-old Penny. She had been kept in with a virus infection Nobody had asked her to be on the program."

Children's series books have proliferated since the late 1800s; this was one that was supposed to appeal to both boys and girls: the stories of five children, their parents and grandparents, plus one big black-and-white wooly dog and a black cat. The kids are a rambunctious, but generally-well-behaved bunch, but the youngest girl is not always well and in this Christmas story, she begins to fret that she is becoming lost in her family of achievers. Her oldest sister Tina can bake, her older brother Terry is a builder and his twin sister Merry is musical, and her younger brother Tom is practical—but what can frail Penny do? She finds out when she wishes the family can spend Christmas at their lake cottage: it's a week of fun, friends, festivities, and even suspense, when she and a friend discover an abandoned baby in a trailer.

While written in simple words, Penny's plight is still touching and will appeal to anyone who feels left out by life. The warm events in the cottage and at a nearby farm will enfold you in its Christmas arms; you'll wish you were out, carefree, playing games in the snow and joining the kids in finding a Christmas tree. But it's Penny's search for a place for herself that really makes this book special and sets it above all the other books in the series.

"Wonderingly she thought, 'I've found something I didn't know I was hunting. I've found Christmas.'" In reading this, may you, as well.

"The Singular Christmas"

The Christmas Survival Book, one of my go-to reads before the holidays, has a chapter about "the singular Christmas." You know the one, where there's a death in the family, a car accident, a hospitalization, or even an emotional shock (author Lawhead uses as one example a woman who told her husband she was leaving him on Christmas Day). I've had singular Christmases, like 1983, when my cousin Sonny was killed by a drunk driver on December 23rd. And some semi-singular Christmases we've had when James had to work and either got sent home early or was able to telework, so we could have dinner with friends but later than usual.

This year we thought we might have another "singular Christmas" as COVID-19 captured the world. However, we had a close circle of friends that have been keeping a low profile during the chaos, and as we gather once a month for haircuts, we thought it would be safe for Christmas dinner. It would be the same group of people, who have been mostly home-bound since March, and we planned to wear masks when not eating. Such was our plan until yesterday afternoon.

We managed to have fun yesterday despite the fact that it was deeply grey, cold, and raining. We did the usual grocery shopping in the morning (the store was slammed, but everyone was very good-humored) and wished everyone in earshot at Publix a Merry Christmas, then came home for lunch and watched Forged in Fire Christmas (they had to make George Washington's sword). Then we decided we needed to do something to cheer up the day, so we did a "drive-by Christmas gift drop." We told Alice we were coming and she left our gifts on a table on their porch and I took those and swapped them with our gifts and waved to Alice through the windows. Then we drove to Mel and Phyllis' house and dropped off late Hanukkah gifts. It was raining in earnest then and starting to get colder and we didn't stop to talk (Phyllis standing six feet away under the roof of the carport and me in a mask) very long. Our final stop was at the Boulers, where we left their bag with the gifts in it on their doorknob, the trip there only interrupted by a brief stop at Lidl to get bread and onions.

We had Tucker with us, since I'd had to take him out a second time in the afternoon because he wouldn't stay out in the rain this morning. He was interested in the trip until he realized it didn't involve food or going for a walk and then he got bored and yawned a lot.

We did make a happy discovery on the way home: Hibachi Grill has reopened! Oh, and it was sleeting instead of raining.

Anyway, it was at least fifteen degrees colder when we got home as when we left, so much so that the rain turned into snow for about a half hour (nothing that stuck; it just looked pretty with the birds at the feeder), and I was damp from getting in and out of the car, so I made some hot chocolate when we got home.

Here's where it went pear shaped. James said, "Wow, I'm cold. I'm so cold I'm shivering." He'd never gotten out of the truck, and at Lidl he'd put the heater on.

I took his temp about three times during the afternoon and he had no fever. But James was visibly shaking and he was flushed. I made dinner (our usual Christmas Eve dinner of macaroni and gravy with pork in it) and he had no appetite and didn't eat much. (He could still smell the gravy and the macaroni, and still taste. He just wasn't hungry.)

And then his temperature started to inch up. 99.5...100.1...100.8...it topped out late that night at 101.5. He finally called the Advice Nurse at Kaiser. She said if we were worried to take him to Urgent Care, but if Tylenol kept the temperature under control we could do self-care. However, if his temp kept going up or if he had any of the warning signs of COVID-19 we needed to make haste to Urgent Care.

Urgent Care. Christmas Eve at Urgent Care. Fluorescent lights and endlessly beeping medical instruments. What a prospect.

Luckily, the Tylenol did keep the temp under control. It got to 99.5. We got through The Homecoming (after my nerves sent me running to the toilet every twenty minutes) and the weather report and pieces of two different Midnight Masses. Then James took a lukewarm shower, and he really did look better afterward; the flush was gone. We finally got into bed about 1:30, and slept all the way until ten, with one potty break at eight.

Ironically, James looked better at eight than he did at ten. At ten he was flushed and his temp back up to 100.5. And he was by then so hungry he was feeling nauseated. Once he ate he was fine, and after the Tylenol, continued to improve. He's been under 100 most of the afternoon.

We didn't really have any lunch, just a good breakfast. Then we broke into the gifts. I got a new Mercedes Lackey paperback, a new wallet (really needed!), and a book-themed mask. I got James the PanAm game he wanted and two other World War II books. We also opened our gifts from Alice and Ken (plenty of keen things including a no-touch soap dispenser) and the big red "Royal Mail" bag from the Lawsons which was full of Terry Pratchett-related things, a nice basin, and other goodies. About two James fixed himself some soup and I ate a bun from Lidl. My stomach was too upset thinking of having to take him to Urgent Care. Late in the afternoon we noticed he had a little rash forming on his left foot, where he also has an ingrown toenail. We have been trying to get into podiatry for three straight weeks now so they can fix the nail; all they said was we'll call you back about an appointment but in the meantime if it looks infected to go to Urgent Care and get antibiotics for the infection. Well, it hasn't looked infected, and I should know, because I'm the person taking care of the toe. However, it does need attention and Urgent Care will not do that.

After this afternoon I'm wondering if the temp is one of two things: an infection in the toe (even though it doesn't look infected) or a UTI. The Urgent Care nurse said that with the fever the one thing he needed was liquid, liquid, liquid, and I don't think he's let out as much as he's taken in.

But anyway...definitely a singular Christmas. This afternoon we've been quietly watching some videos (a history of Christmas and of Santa Claus, The House Without a Christmas Tree, and now I've been watching Ask the Manager Christmas episodes while James surfed the net). Luckily we had turkey thighs in the freezer. We'll have them for dinner with stuffing and some boiled potatoes (I can't rouse enthusiasm for the carrots), and watch more Christmas until the holiday episode of Call the Midwife comes on.

(Goodness, Juanita just stopped by with more goodies!)

"Today, Christ is Born"

Christ was born on Christmas Day;
Wreath the holly, twine the bay;
Christus natus hodie:
The Babe, the Son, the Holy One of Mary.

He is born to set us free,
He is born our Lord to be,
Christus natus hodie:
The God, the Lord, by all ador'd for ever.

Let the bright red berries glow
Ev'rywhere in goodly show;
Christus natus hodie:
The Babe, the Son, the Holy One of Mary.

Christian men, rejoice and sing;
'Tis the birthday of a King,
Christus natus hodie:
The God, the Lord, by all ador'd for ever.

"Christmas"

by John Betjeman

The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.

The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
'The church looks nice' on Christmas Day.

Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says 'Merry Christmas to you all'.

And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children's hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say 'Come!'
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?

And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

Dashing Through the Snow

Re-read: Sleigh Bells for Windy Foot, Frances Frost
I’ve been trying to figure out how many years I’ve been reading this book. It was in the Stadium School library, and I guess I got to it about fourth or fifth grade. So…1965 maybe? And then of course a long gap where I was no longer at Stadium School, but remembered this book so fondly until thirty or so years later found a copy, and it was just as full of Christmas joy as I remembered. Frances Frost wrote four books about the Clark family of Webster County, Vermont (not far from the Canadian line), a farming family of the late 1940s/1950s, the protagonist Toby Clark, the eldest boy of three children. Toby loves life on the family’s dairy farm, and his life was complete in the first book of the series, when he received Windy Foot, a fleet-footed large dapple-grey Shetland pony. It’s due to Windy Foot that Toby first meets Tish Burnham, whose father raises race horses.

In this second book in the series, Tish and her dad Jerry are due to visit the Clarks for Christmas. In the meantime, Toby and his sister Betsy and little brother Johnny make preparations for the holiday: Toby cuts down an old sleigh to fit Windy Foot and impatiently awaits the gifts he ordered from the mail order catalog, Betsy and Toby go searching for princess pine and partridge berries to hang on the Christmas tree and see an amazing sight, and Johnny, as always, talks a lot in rhyming verses and is generally cute (okay, sometimes the rhymes get tiresome, but he’s only five). Jim Clark is planning a big Christmas surprise for Betsy to boot, plus there’s a marauding bear come down from the north to add a little excitement.

I still read this book amazed at the amount of work Toby can do–and how much he can eat! He repairs and paints the old sleigh (and polishes up the sleigh bells), shovels snow, helps milk the cows, does other farm chores–all in one day at one point!…no wonder he never gains an ounce! I can’t blame him for wanting to eat, as his mother cooks up all quantities of delicious-sounding food. Living on the farm and near the small town sounds marvelous: there’s gorgeous countryside and wildlife, and it’s a lovely small town with a cozy general store, friendly livery stable and drugstore owners, and the community has carol sings and late shopping days before Christmas. You literally want to don some warm underwear and go skiing, snowshoeing, caroling, and other activities with the Clarks and their crusty but inwardly genial farmhand Cliff. It’s like being in a Hallmark movie, but better, since there’s no little magic elves, picture-perfect holiday community, and drippy love story (unless you count the fact that Jim Clark loves his wife Mary and the feeling is mutual, and that you can see a glimmer of a future down the line where Toby marries Tish).

Yes, it’s only a kid’s book–but a warm and happy Christmas gift of one, with a couple of dramatic moments, especially the one near the end, to remind us that even the best of life is fraught with a little hardship. Come home to Crooked Valley and spend a country Christmas with Toby, Tish, and the rest of the families. This book is worth hunting up a used copy for. The Young Pioneer edition is okay, but the original McGraw-Hill version is the best.

Boy Bishops, Christmas at the Pub, and Other Stories

A Herefordshire Christmas, Sutton Publishing
I found my first Sutton "Christmas anthologies" (A Worcestershire Christmas, if you care) at a library book sale many years back. When A Surrey Christmas turned up at a subsequent sale I realized this was a series. I think the coronavirus emergency made me a little crazy this year; every time I found a book from this series for less than five dollars with postage, I bought one and managed to accumulate ten (or is it eleven?). These contain short excerpts of Christmas/Christmastide passages from various British novels, memoirs, and poetry books, with the action taking place in the shire or historical era denoted in the title.

The Herefordshire edition of this series is as crammed with Christmas as a traditional Christmas pudding is crammed with raisins. There's an account of caroling in Fownhope, another of wassailing the apple trees (Hereford being noted for its orchards and its cider) in ancient and modern times, a long chapter on traditional Christmas customs, several entries about the old custom of "Burning the Bush" (thirteen piles of brush were set afire around a farmer's fields and then one of them, the Judas pile, snuffed immediately; the rest of the piles, representing Christ and the remaining apostles, burned to give the farmer good luck in raising a crop in the coming year), the story of a ghost encounter, a tale of a good-hearted eighteenth-century landowner in "Tales of Old Ross," even a couple of accounts by children of their Christmas day haul. Recipes featuring cider (natch!) are included, as well as some others, there's Christmas poetry from John Masefield and Thomas Traherne, and even an excerpt from Masefield's classic children's Christmas novel The Box of Delights (a six-part BBC production of this story was a staple for years on Nickelodeon in the 1980s).

Photos and vintage illustrations round off this satisfactory volume!

"The Time Draws Near the Birth of Christ"

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The time draws near the birth of Christ:
      The moon is hid; the night is still;
      The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.

Four voices of four hamlets round,
      From far and near, on mead and moor,
      Swell out and fail, as if a door
Were shut between me and the sound:

Each voice four changes on the wind,
      That now dilate, and now decrease,
      Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,
Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.

This year I slept and woke with pain,
      I almost wish'd no more to wake,
      And that my hold on life would break
Before I heard those bells again:

But they my troubled spirit rule,
      For they controll'd me when a boy;
      They bring me sorrow touch'd with joy,
The merry merry bells of Yule.

How Do You "Take" Your Christmas Carol?

"Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

"Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail."

Who, having read those words, can't help but thrill in delicious anticipation of what to come in Charles Dickens' classic A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story in Prose? Full of vivid characters everyone knows, like Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, and Tiny Tim, and wonderful descriptions of an early 19th century Christmas, it should be an annual read. Today is the 177th anniversary of the publication of the Carol.

However, many people take their Christmas Carol doses via film, and here's a nicely opinionated guide!

A Christmas Carol Film Adaptations - Best and Worst Movie Versions

If you're a book lover, you might enjoy this volume combining the two, which I  ordered for myself this year, read (see my review from December 7), and enjoyed:

A Christmas Carol and Its Adaptations 

"A Time of Dwindling"

Re-read: Christmas After All: The Great Depression Diary of Minnie Swift, Kathryn Lasky
I just realized I've been in love with this book for nineteen years. It's the story of the Swift family in the fall and early winter of 1932, as the claws of the Depression strike deep into their finances. Sam Swift, an accountant, works fewer hours every week, they've doubled up sleeping space to save heating rooms, and the family meals include more filler and less meat. Eleven-year-old Minerva "Minnie" and the rest of the family, mom Belle; older sisters Gwen, Clem, and Adelaide ("Lady"); and nine-year-old prodigy Ozzie are surprised when a telegram arrives telling them an orphaned cousin of theirs, Willie Faye Darling, will be coming to live with them. Willie Faye, a tiny girl Minnie's age, arrives with a cardboard suitcase, caked with dust bowl detritus from the tiny  town of Heart's Bend, Texas, and a kitten named Tumbleweed, and she's never seen an indoor bathroom, heard of Minnie and Ozzie's favorite radio hero Buck Rogers, or eaten peaches (not to mention many other things). Willie Faye's life has been so isolated that Minnie figures they will have a lot to teach her—but in fact it will be the other way around.

One of the best things about this book is that Minnie is no plaster saint. She and Ozzie have invented a ratings system they call "the Vomitron" for things they don't like, like the endless meals of two hot dogs stretched with rice, cheese, and ground vegetables or aspics, or Rudy Vallee on the radio. Yet as they criticize the food, they reveal they also are so hungry they lick the cooking pots before washing them. Instead of being an angel, Minnie complains about all the standard kid things like snotty classmates and missing spelling words, brags some, forthrightly speaks her mind when society says she shouldn't, yet she is tender enough to show compassion to a classmate who suffers a terrible tragedy, the impoverished families she visits in a "Hooverville," and a young man who lost a hand in the previous war. Minnie's creative sister Lady, who can do anything with a needle and thread and old fabric, is a lot of fun to read about as well, as is Ozzie, the "boy genius" whose passion for science and building radios is equal with his passion for offbeat films and news of Al Capone. The family interactions are very real, perhaps because author Lasky based them on her mother, aunts, and uncle. But there's no whitewashing of the perilous financial situation the family is in: they've closed off rooms to save coal, pinch pennies, walk everywhere to hoard enough dimes for the occasional movie, come up with creative ideas for gifts, but most of all spend time worrying about Papa, who spends his time squirreled in the attic, working at something. And then the final crisis comes.

Throughout little Willie Faye becomes the family's bulwark. Her amazing creativity, her faith, her steadfastness in adversity are blessings as Minnie and her family cope with one shock after the other, yet the story is filled with optimism and even a few touches of humor.

The only thing that is off-putting about this lively Christmas tale is the obligatory "Dear America" format epilogue, in which the author reveals what happened to the family. As Barry Donenberg's "Dear America" epilogues are uniformly depressingly grim, this one takes a few a few fairy-tale-like leaps in which great wealth and fame and awards, plus every social cause of the 1940s-1960s, are addressed as the Swift family having been involved with. (I also think it's coincidentally weird that Minnie ends up marrying someone who has the same name as an item that was mentioned early in the book! Was he supposed to be a descendant of the creator?) If you discount that one little quibble, this is a magical tale, full of hope in the middle of grim reality.

Back to Rudolph...and The Dead Guy in the Garden

Dying in a Winter Wonderland, Vicki Delany
Rudolph, New York, in the past a thriving port on Lake Erie, has remade itself into a year-'round Christmas town, where our protagonist, Merry Wilkinson, runs a high-class gift shop, Mrs. Claus's Treasures. Unfortunately mysteries seem to find her, and the newest arrives in the form of Luanne Ireland, a rather self-absorbed former classmate of Merry's younger brother Chris, who talked Merry into designing her small summer wedding. On Christmas Eve, Luanne breaks the news that the wedding's moved up to Valentine's Day and will be three times as big. Merry's no sooner digested this bombshell than brother Chris returns for a holiday visit, and suddenly "happily-engaged" Luanne throws herself at him, arising the ire of her wealthy fiance, Jeff Vanderhaven. So when Vanderhaven is found clubbed to death in the gardens at the Yuletide Inn, guess who is blamed—and guess who is determined to clear him.

Before I start, please note that I really like these books: I'd nearly sell my soul to live in an all-year Christmas town like Rudolph, I like Merry and her Christmas-centric family (dad Noel, former opera singer mom Aline, unseen sisters Carole and Eve), the store sounds fabulous, so does Vicky's bakery, and Merry's boyfriend is a doll (so is her dog). Even annoying police officer Candy Campbell isn't all that bad.

 

But really, I have no idea why anyone would want to marry Luanne, who is a whiny crybaby, or why Luanne would even look twice at Jeff Vanderhaven (you know he's an asshole when he parks in a handicapped parking space and isn't handicapped). As Aline was too nice to her old college classmates in the last book, Merry is too nice to Luanne once she starts throwing herself at Chris. And Merry is letting her assistant manager Jackie get away with too much (why is Kyle always hanging around?); although she has to thank God for Jackie, as she is so busy being out sleuthing that her store would soon go out of business as little as she seems to be in it sometimes. And Muddle Harbor, the little town next to Rudolph, seems just so stereotypically nasty it's if they are a collection of inbred hillbillies up in the wilds of western New York state—now apparently they've entered a new level of illegal activity if what Diane Simmonds says is true. (Sounds like this is something that may pop up in the next book.) Surely there must be a few nice people in Muddle Harbor?

So I enjoyed the mystery, enjoyed the setting, like the people, but still wish the Rudolph vs. Muddle Harbor battle wasn't so black and white and Merry would decide whether she wants to run the store or a detective agency.

From Austen to Hardy to Trollope, With a Side of Bassoons

A Hampshire Christmas, Sutton Publishing

I found the first one of these Sutton Christmas anthologies (A Worcestershire Christmas, if you care) at a library book sale several years back. I think the coronavirus emergency made me a little crazy this year; every time I found a book from this series for less than five dollars with postage, I bought one and managed to accumulate ten (or is it eleven?). These contain short excerpts of Christmas/Christmastide passages from various British novels, memoirs, and poetry books, with the action taking place in the shire or historical era denoted in the title.

After being a bit disappointed at the book of Essex memories, this book about Hampshire is more in a festive mood. Hampshire, southwest of London and containing both big English seaports like Portsmouth and Southhampton, plus the famous New Forest, is noted for Captain Marryot's book Children of the New Forest and for its ponies, plus being known for both Trollope, Hardy, and Jane Austen. All three writers are represented in this volume, including Hardy's poem "Old Christmas Eve" and an excerpt from Austen's Emma. BBC announcer and producer John Arlott provides a detail-rich sensual memory of Hampshire Christmases in the 1920s. There are several entries about the gypsies (Romany people) who used to live in and around the New Forest and were allowed to harvest holly to sell during certain weeks of the Christmas season (the 1970s BBC series All Creatures Great and Small episode "Merry Gentlemen" features a similar plot about gypsies and mistletoe). "Christmas Be Come" and "When Christmas Passed This Way" are two pieces of verse from Norman Goodland, who provides other Hampshire-accent contributions in the volume.

Later, Charles Clark provides a portrait of his Edwardian Christmas memories, Irene Pilson chats about Christmases during the first World War, noted Victorian author Charlotte Yonge recalls holiday customs and Christmas plants, "The Man Who Lost Christmas" is an amusing tale of a Victorian gent whose wife's resentment of all the time he spends practicing his bassoon comes to a head one Christmas morning, and Christmas tree poaching and point-to-point racing customary on Boxing Day are also addressed. A good variety thereof, although the excerpts from A Christmas Carol seem out of place (the author included them because Charles Dickens was raised in Portsmouth).

The 12 Days of Christmas: Something We Need in 2020

Centuries ago, Christmas was a raucous affair. It took place in the fallow winter months when chores were minimal. According to their budgets, people celebrated extravagantly; even the poor saved up pennies for treats like an orange for a child, a little extra ale and a goose for Christmas dinner, and the ingredients for the Christmas pudding so celebrated in song. The festivities lasted for twelve days, all the way until January fifth, Twelfth Night, which was celebrated with a big party featuring a cake with little objects baked inside to tell one's fortune for the new year. Epiphany was a more somber day, thinking of the Magi who, according to legend, reached the child Jesus on that date. In some societies, Christmas Day was reserved for worship, Epiphany for gift-giving to echo the gifts of the Magi. Yet other gifts were given on New Year's Day. And Christmas decorations, the fresh evergreens and the berried holly, could stay up until February 1, the day before the feast of Candlemas, the blessing of the candles.

Christmas eventually got so wild that the Puritans in England banned it completely, citing drunkenness, and wild customs like wassailing, in which roving bands of young men wandered around soliciting food (but mostly alcoholic drink) door to door becoming more drunken and violent as they went. When Christmas finally came back, it was a tamer holiday, eventually becoming a family-centered celebration.

Today we have been persuaded by the media and by retail sellers that the "twelve days of Christmas" are those last frantic twelve days before Christmas when you have to buy, buy, buy, to make certain everyone "has a merry Christmas," even though up until modern times Christmas wasn't primarily for gifts, but for seeing family and friends and mostly for having fun. Once any minimal gifts (mostly for children) were given and dinner was eaten, it was time for party games. If you had the least bit of room in your home, the furniture was cleared away, and our ancestors danced, more recently to records, earlier just to someone who had a fiddle or as little as a harmonica. They sang around a piano or a guitar, or they went caroling. Kids prepared for parties by making home-made taffy and using inexpensive crepe paper or even scraps of paper to make decorations. Today people open the gifts, eat dinner, sit down to watch some sports or the umpteenth rerun of It's a Wonderful Life, and some even tear down their tree by midnight. Christmas is over, after all!

No, it's just beginning.

In this horrible year, why not spread out Christmas cheer during the twelve days? Sure, you'll need to go back to work on the 26th. We don't get Boxing Day off like the British and the Canadians, after all. But you can still keep some of the spirit going: once the work day is over, continue to have special treats, give small gifts, have a game night, have a movie night with popcorn, go caroling around your neighborhood, drive to see a display of Christmas lights (usually they're up at least until January 1). Do some things for others as well: bring food to a food bank (they don't just need food during the holidays), give to a charity, help a neighbor (take a prompt from the graphic at right). Keep the spirit of Christmas glowing into the New Year.

☙ 50 Ideas to Celebrate the 12 Days of Christmas

☙ When Are the 12 Days of Christmas? And, How Do You Celebrate Them?

☙ Where Do the 12 Days of Christmas Come From?

☙ 12 Ideas for Celebrating the 12 Days of Christmas

☙ Let's Bring Back the 12 Days of Christmas 

☙ The "12 Days of Christmas" Song (No, it was not written as a Catholic Catechism, even though this charming "fact" is repeated on Catholic web pages! It was part of playing a party game.)

☙ The Meaning of the 12 Days of Christmas (This article notes that the "calling birds" were in the original song as "colly birds"—"colly" or "coally," meaning black as in blackbirds, and that's the way I learned the song as a child in school.)

☙ Fact Check: the 12 Days of Christmas

☙ Keeping the 12 Days of Christmas 

☙ What Are the 12 Days of Christmas? 

Chapter 5: "Dulce Domum" (Christmas from The Wind in the Willows)

Illustration by Inga Moore

Chapter 5: "Dulce Domum"

Signs of the Old Days

Christmas Revisited, Robert Brenner
I don't buy Schiffer books often because they are so expensive, but Robert Brenner's Christmas decorating books are hard to pass up, especially his monumental Christmas Past and Christmas: 1940-1959, which I was lucky to find on discount. So when this book presented itself on Hamilton Books, I grabbed it up. It's the first edition of a book he published in the 1980s to follow up on the original printing of Christmas Past—and show off some newly discovered rare ornaments and lights that he had found as well. The reason that I love Brenner's nostalgic Christmas books is that they aren't really price guides at all, but wonderful histories of the often throwaway items that were used for decoration. Instead of dollar signs we get origins and years of popularity of things like Dresden (paper) ornaments, bead garlands, tinseled "scraps," the various types of candle holders and candle jars, glass ornaments whether round or figural, even things like end-of-day glass ornaments and home-made efforts. Plus most of the photos are in color; some of the black and white ones in this volume are from Christmas supply catalogs.

This year there have been many conversations about casual racism, and there is no more poignant and at the same time damning example as the toy bank pictured on the bottom of page 93, which says it all. No wonder white children grew up seeing black people as some sort of live clowns when faced with the popularity of a mechanical bank known as the "Dapper Dan Coon Jigger"! A very telling lesson that will make you squirm.

Otherwise the ornaments are fascinating to look at, and there are even examples of Christmas advertising collectibles with Santa advertising everything from coffee to spices. You'll be fascinated by what the ornaments are made from, including wax and the so-flammable celluloid that was everywhere from 1900 to mid-century.

Who...is Santa Lucia?

Many people know "Santa Lucia" as an Italian song, but unless you are Scandinavian you might not know that "Lucia Day" is celebrated every December 13 there, especially in Sweden.

 

The story of Lucia (whose name means "light") is a sad but ultimately triumphant one. Lucia was a martyr in the fourth century who was killed for helping Christians. Her saint's day falls on what was, on the old Julian calendar, the shortest day of the year, and the day on which light begins to reappear. It is said Lucia wore a crown of candles on her head in her efforts to bring food to hidden Christians, so to leave her hands free to carry more food. Now on December 13, it is a tradition for the eldest daughter in a household to don candles—today battery-powered crowns do the job more safely!—on her head to bring coffee and sweet rolls called "Lucia buns" or "Lucy cats" (some are made with raisin eyes) to the rest of the household. The familiar song "Santa Lucia" is sung, but with different lyrics.

 

Northern Italians and Sicilians also celebrate Lucia Day. Some of the celebrations just involve religious devotions, but sometimes children receive gifts on the feast day.

 

☙ St. Lucy's Day Celebrations as Recounted in Wikipedia  

 

☙ The Surprising Ways that Italy Celebrate Santa Lucia 

 

☙ Lucia in Sweden 

 

☙ Celebrating Santa Lucia in Sweden 

 

From Christmas Day to Plough Monday

 

An Essex Christmas, Sutton Publishing

I found my first Sutton "Christmas anthologies" (A Worcestershire Christmas, if you care) at a library book sale many years back. When A Surrey Christmas turned up at a subsequent sale I realized this was a series. I think the coronavirus emergency made me a little crazy this year; every time I found a book from this series for less than five dollars with postage, I bought one and managed to accumulate ten (or is it eleven?). These contain short excerpts of Christmas/Christmastide passages from various British novels, memoirs, and poetry books, with the action taking place in the shire or historical era denoted in the title.

These books vary in quality in what is included in each volume, based on what regional information can be collected. Sometimes there is much generic commentary about the weather and events in December and January without having much connection to the holiday season. This volume did frustrate me a bit with entries like the generic "Essex" and a fragment of Anthony Trollope talking about riding to hounds, plus a couple of bits about highwaymen (one of whom was a woman). On the other hand, I fell in love with three entries by Ethelind Farmon (only to find all her books are all out of print) that had definite Gladys Taber vibes. Elsewhere a man reminisces about the fierce snowball fights of his youth, another takes on the almost-forgotten customs of Plough Monday (the first work day after Epiphany). A January snowstorm traps a small village, a doctor runs through his rounds on Christmas Day 1930, a man recalls Christmas during WWII bombings. Tennyson goes skating and memorializes it in verse, editor Humphrey Phelps presents vintage seasonal fare, a dog comes home for the holidays...and more.

Really worth it for the Farmon pieces.

 

Happy Hanukkah!

Hanukkah begins tonight at sundown.

You can read this classic book about the origins and meaning of Hanukkah customs at Archive.org. Registering is free, and you can borrow books just like at a library.

Hanukkah: The Feast of Lights: Compiled and Edited by Emily Solis-Cohen

This is a children's book with lively illustrations in the same vein:

Light Another Candle: The Story and Meaning of Hanukkah by Miriam Chaikin

Who...Are the Julnisse?

In the classic Lassie episode "Lassie's Gift of Love," Ruth Martin comments, in response to Mr. Nicholson's stories about Christmas celebrations in other lands, "I guess there must be as many ways to celebrate Christmas as there are nationalities."

Certainly the nisse fall into this category. Wee folk, under four feet tall, these nisser (or pixies) originally inhabited farms. So long as they were well-treated, they helped keep the animals well and assisted (silently) with the farm chores. But don't cross them or they will sour the milk, encourage the pigs to dig out of their pens, and do other mischief!

 

The julnisse confine themselves specifically to the Christmas season, and for their assistance wish only a bowl of traditional rice pudding for supper. As with the humans of the julnisse's household, there may be an almond hidden in the rice pudding, which entitles one to a prize.

 

In the 1840s, it became the julnisse who gave gifts to the children of Norway. They don't come down the chimney like Santa Claus, but march directly up to the front door.

In Sweden this small gift-giver is known as the jultomte, in Denmark it's the julemande, and in Finland they go by joulupukki.

 

"Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind" (or "The Holly Carol")

adapted from William Shakespeare, "As You Like It," Act II, Scene VII.

Source: Francis Turner Palgrave, ed., The Golden Treasury. London: Collins, circa 1861, #42.

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.

    Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly:
    Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
    Then, heigh ho! the holly!
    This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remember'd not.

    Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly:
    Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
    Then heigh ho, the holly!
    This life is most jolly.

Ebenezer Scrooge: A Household Name for Nearly Two Centuries

A Christmas Carol and Its Adaptations: Dickens's Story on Screen and Television, Fred Guida

Last year I read Craig Wichman's book about radio drama adaptations of A Christmas Carol and in my review mentioned "[a]t least one book devotes itself to following all the film versions of the reformation of Ebenezer Scrooge, that "tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!" Well, this is that book!

My first exposure to this classic was seven days after I'd turned seven years old: Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. I don't remember watching it, but I must have enjoyed it, because the very next December I recall sitting on the sofa chanting "It's almost time for Mr. Magoo!" (and my mother telling me to quit kicking the sofa 😀 ). Over the years I've watched various older versions (Sim, Hicks, Owen) and dipped into new ones as they came along (Mickey Mouse, George C. Scott, Patrick Stewart, even the creepy three night British version from last year). My favorite version is still Magoo's, but my favorite Carol is still the book.

Anyway—anyone interested in how A Christmas Carol has been done on film over the years should really enjoy this book. Guida gives a very thorough treatment of all the films and television productions he could find records of up until the time of the publication of the book, which went to press before the Patrick Stewart version aired. He even covers a few student and amateur versions that were filmed by private filmmakers, and a Mexican version of the Carol that is filmed as a Victorian English drama that I'd never heard of. Also covered are Carol variations: television shows that used elements of the story in an Christmas episode, such as The Odd Couple and Bewitched (he left out the Quantum Leap version, though). And of course he talks about the versions he considers "superior," including the 1951 Sim version and ... surprise! ... Magoo's Carol. Such good taste. 😁

The book opens with a short history of Dickens' Christmas books, of the reasons he wrote the Carol, and the difficulties he had after it was published keeping book pirates from printing their own versions, including versions with treacly additions. There's also a chapter on Dickens' own readings of the book, stage versions, and even magic lantern slide narratives. At the back of the book is a list of every silent film, sound film, and television version Guida could track down.

(I'm not sure if Mr. Guida is still with us, but I'd love to see what he thought of the British version that was broadcast last year!)

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

In some countries Christmas gifts don't come on Christmas. The holiday is reserved for religious observation and family gatherings. Gifts are given on St. Nicholas Eve.

☙ St. Nicholas and Your Shoes

☙ The Traditions of St. Nicholas Day Around the World

☙ Celebrating St. Nicholas in Spain 

☙ Why St. Nicholas Puts Candy in Boots 

☙ The German St. Nicholas Tradition 

The original St. Nicholas was born in Turkey, and reputedly attended the Council of Nicea, growing so angry at a representative who claimed Jesus was not divine that he hit the man and was jailed. He is known for several miracles, including bringing three divinity students back from the dead after they had been pickled and brined by a greedy landlord. He became associated with gift giving due to a kind act: he secretly gave three bags of gold to a poor man with three daughters who needed dowries to be married, else they would have to become prostitutes.

In Holland, St. Nicholas arrives by ship from Spain and has a helper called Black Peter, a Moorish servant. There he is usually portrayed as riding a white horse. In other countries, as in this illustration, he travels with a donkey.

Who...is St. Barbara?

St. Barbara was an early Christian martyr. The daughter of a wealthy pagan, she secretly converted to Christianity. When she confessed this finally to her father, he had her imprisoned and tortured. Stories say the weapons used to torture her miraculously turned against the people using them. She was finally beheaded by her own father. (On his way home, it was said he was struck by lightning and consumed in flame.) A Christian man buried her mutilated body, and it was said that visitors to her tomb were often the witnesses to or the recipients of miraculous events.

Over the years, St. Barbara became the patron saint of folk "who face the danger of sudden and violent death at work. She is the patron of miners, tunnellers, armourers, military engineers, gunsmiths, and anyone else who worked with cannon and explosives. She is invoked against thunder and lightning and all accidents arising from explosions of gunpowder. She became the patron saint of artillerymen."*

Does she have anything to do with Christmas, besides her feast day being on December 4? Well, sort of. In Germany, where winter weather sets in early in November, people who already miss the green leaves and flowers of summer have a charming custom called Barbarazweig, the St. Barbara's branch. According to Catholic Culture: "The original folklore was that unmarried girls cut twigs from cherry trees and forced them into bloom. There is an old belief that if the twig blossoms on Christmas Eve, the girl will be married the following year." The custom came from a legend that said St. Barbara, locked away in her tower, found a dying cherry branch at her window one winter's day. She kept it warm and watered, and it burst into bloom just before she was executed.

Today we can go into many stores and find amaryllis bulbs to be brought home for the Christmas season. Red, white, and red-and-white varieties are sold for a perk of Christmas color and the pleasure of blooming flowers in the house during the Yuletide season.

☙ Celebrating St. Barbara's Day at Catholic Culture 

☙ Barbarazweig and the St. Barbara Legend at The German Way

* from Wikipedia.

"No More Twist!" But Much Snow and Caroling

A Cotswold Christmas, Sutton Publishing

I found the first one of these Sutton Christmas anthologies (A Worcestershire Christmas, if you care) at a library book sale several years back. I think the coronavirus emergency made me a little crazy this year; every time I found a book from this series for less than five dollars with postage, I bought one and managed to accumulate ten (or is it eleven?). These contain short excerpts of Christmas/Christmastide passages from various British novels, memoirs, and poetry books, with the action taking place in the shire or historical era denoted in the title.

The Cotswolds are an area in south-central/south-west England comprising the Cotswold Hills, a range of rolling hills  The area is famed for the English market towns and villages built from honey-colored stone. Agatha Raisin, protagonist of a series of modern cozy mysteries, retired to the Cotswolds; Laurie Lee's beloved home town, Shad (written about lovingly in Cider With Rosie, a.k.a. The Edge of Day) is located there; and the noble Mitford family (including a sister who was a Nazi and another who married a Fascist) had their home there. Lee and the Mitfords are both featured in these pages—passages from Cider With Rosie bookend the entries—along with reports of workhouse Christmases, tales of going caroling, several stories about the attraction of the Christmas "Fat Market" (the cattle brought to town to end up as Christmas dinner), several pieces about the old custom of mumming and giving the play "St. George and the Dragon" (St. George having been turned into a different king and the Dragon into a Turk in later plays); medieval pomp during the holidays (including a bishop who took his household goods on trips with him); the inevitable Christmas ghosts; letters home from the war (including a battle in Korea); and even an amusing story about a man listening to an old codger complaining about how cold and snowy and more Christmas-y the holidays were in his time (1870s) who researches the newspapers for that era and found the editors complaining of the same thing; and more.

There's even a visit to a Gloucester reproduction of the tailor shop in Beatrix Potter's charming Christmas fable, "The Tailor of Gloucester."

Photos, drawings, and woodcuts illustrate this fun volume that illustrate Christmas from the dark ages to the dark cold of the Big Freeze in 1963. 

"Song for December"

by Gladys Taber, circa 1947

The snow invades the land, silent and deep,

Levels the meadows, blurs the darkened hill,

And Christmas candles burn where good folk keep

A welcome light for him who brings goodwill.

 

Across the centuries, in alien land,

Once wise men knelt and dreamed of kingdoms won–

Unsceptered still the Christ-child's open hand,

Yet they perceived great destiny begun.

 

Bitter the fare of our atomic day,

Diminished now the glory of their dream,

For many things for which we used to pray

Now most unlikely and illusive seem.

 

Yet where the Christmas candles shed their light,

Behold how kind the face of Christ tonight!