"Calennig" -- a Welsh Holiday Custom

The name "Calennig" comes from the Latin "Kalends," which was the name for a Roman New Year's festival. The Romans gave each other olive branches as a way of wishing others good health for the new year.

In Wales, the offering is traditionally an apple, stuck with cloves, with an evergreen branch (usually boxwood, but sometimes pine or holly) through its stem and three small sticks of wood to form a tripod to support the apple. This "perllan" would be taken door to door; in the "olden times" the children begged for food, but in more modern times the children would receive some coins or candy.

A town called Cwm Gwaun and other villages in the surrounding area still celebrate this old custom on January 13, the first day of the new year on the old Julian Calendar.

Read more about the Welsh new year traditions on Hen Galan (Welsh for "first day of the month").

75 Years of Miracle on 34th Street

Miracle on 34th Street: The Perfect Christmas Classic (75 Years)

Technically this is a special interest publication put out by the people at "Time" magazine under the old "Life" moniker, but it's a nice tribute to this classic film, and I'm glad to have found it, because I believe there's too much fuss made about It's a Wonderful Life when this is such a satisfying Christmas fable. There are some nifty publicity and behind-the-scenes photos, portraits of the four main actors in the film, a short history of the Macy's parade, a discussion about Macy's rival Gimbel's, but, really, why, oh, why, if this was a tribute to the 1947 film did they have to devote eight pages to the Richard Attenborough remake? Couldn't we have had brief portraits of the careers of the supporting actors, including Porter Hall as Dr. Sawyer, William Frawley as Halloran, Jerome Cowan as DA O'Mara, Gene Lockhart as Judge Harper, and Philip Tonge as Shellhammer, not to mention brief mention of character actress Thelma Ritter (this was her first film!) and the "guy at the post office who saved Santa Claus," future Oscar winner Jack Albertson? I sure would have been more interested in them than photos of the dorky remake.

Shepherds--and Carolers, Tipteers, Etc.--Arise!

A Sussex Christmas, compiled by Shaun Payne

Alan Sutton Publishing has a series of these "Christmas anthologies," the first which I bought at a book sale several years ago, and I try to pick up inexpensive copies when I can find them. Most of them concentrate on a certain shire or area in England (there are a handful, like A Dickens Christmas, A Wartime Christmas, and A Bronte Christmas that are set around a historic era instead).

This volume is stuffed with Christmasy and wintry goodies, covering the southern shire of Sussex, known for its rolling downs and sheep, so there are several entries that have to do with shepherds and their importance in the Christmas story as well as providing a portrait of Sussex in the old days when the independence of farmers and livestock owners was prized. A good deal of the tales are those of families celebrating in an old-fashioned style, with beef roasts and turkeys that had to be cooked in the bakers' ovens; trees covered with candles, and children happy with gifts like tops, dolls, and nuts; lottery drawings for Christmas dinner prizes; and cutting fresh holly in the woods. Of course there are a couple of ghost stories, an excerpt from the "Mapp and Lucia" stories; and several essays about walking the beautiful Sussex downs in wintertime. The routine story about the Christmas mummers is presented in a different manner, this time concentrating on a man who was trying to revive the custom in Sussex. Offerings from Bob Copper, a popular folk singer, are also included. Poetry also scatters the volume, including Francis Thompson's beautiful verse "To a Snowflake," and, of interest among the illustrations (maps, posters, advertisements, and more) are vintage winter photographs from the late 1930s, some from the George Garland collection.

Memorably Heartwarming

Memorable Christmas Stories, compiled by Leon R. Hartshorn

This is another Christmas book I just plucked up from a book sale to add to my sizeable Christmas book collection (I don't buy recipe or decorating books, just histories of Christmas and short stories). I didn't look at it more closely until I got home. It's a publication of Deseret Books, and basically is a collection of heartwarming original short stories and "Chicken Soup for the Soul" type entries from several publications of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (commonly known as "Mormons"): "The Deseret News," "Improvement Era," "The Instructor," and "Relief Society Magazine," as well as publications like "Reader's Digest" and "Guideposts."

This certainly gave me a lot more pleasure than this year's "Chicken Soup" book! The fiction pieces, especially, are in the style of stories that might have been published in "St. Nicholas" or in women's magazines of the early 20th century (or in the current magazine "The People's Friend"). At least two of the stories ("The Fiftieth Cake" and "The Christmas Cards") are about older people finding love, which I adored. Others are about small children having faith and their wishes coming true. One, the story of a streetcar conductor and some rich teens, I had read in one of Joe Wheeler story compilations; the grandmother character in the first fiction piece in the collection put me to mind of Gran in Kate Seredy's The Open Gate!

If you like Christmas stories in the vein of Christmas With Anne and Other Stories by L.M. Montgomery, it is well worth your while to pick up even if you aren't a Latter-Day Saint.