Category Archives: Christmas

Dec 29 2015
Christmas

What Fools these Mortals Be

Chaplin

FOURTH DAY of CHRISTMAS
The Feast of Fools

Numbers and balance play fascinating parts in the seasonal round of the year and in the varying traditions, both Pagan and Christian. Here, at the Fourth Day of Christmas, we reach a Christmas tradition whose roots go back further than the birth of Christ: It is the Feast of Fools, a direct descendent of the Roman Saturnalia that has given us so many of our Christmas traditions. The idea is simple: today, all order is turned upside down. Chaos ensues. This disintegration of order parallels the disintegration of the old year.

Back to the numbers: Twelve. Six of our twelve days of Christmas are in the old year, and six are in the new. For the first half of the Twelve Days, the old year is dying, disintegrating into chaos. It is the theme from time immemorial for this solstice tide: the old year must die for the new year to be born, the sun must die at the solstice to rise again, the son born at Christmas must die to rise again at Easter. The story is an ancient one, told over and over again. And come the new year, we welcome the other half of our Twelve Days. And there it is: balance and harmony, as the old year gives way to the new.

And so here today comes the Feast of Fools, a day not widely observed nowadays, but perhaps it should be. One of the grand things about the Feast of Fools is it gives us a chance to make tense situations more palatable through humor. For today, the children take charge of the house, the servants lord over the masters, the jester rules the court. Certainly there are simple things we can do: have breakfast for dinner (why not?). Take the cat for a walk. Let your guard down and be a little foolish. You will be in good company in a long line of wise yet silly people… like Charlie Chaplin, for instance. Here then, is a health to the comedians, who make us laugh at the silliness of our ways (even when we think we are being serious).

 

Image: Charlie Chaplin and his cat at their home in Switzerland, circa 1950s.

 

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Dec 28 2015
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Christmas, St. Nicholas

Unless Ye Become as Little Children

Kids

THIRD DAY of CHRISTMAS
Holy Innocents Day, Childremas

“Christmas is for children” is something we hear at times, often from older folks who have fallen out of touch with their own sense of wonder. It is a statement with which I heartily disagree. Christmas is for everyone. Nonetheless, here we have a day that has always been devoted to children. It is the Third Day of Christmas, Childremas, or Holy Innocents Day. The Christmas story begins with peace and wonder but quickly turns, for the world has always been threatened by the insecurities of weak people in positions of power. The news of the birth of a king did not sit well with King Herod of Judea, and he ordered the slaughter of all the children of the land. This day honors those children and all children.

In last year’s chapter of the Convivio Book of Days for Childremas, we mentioned the tradition of the Boy Bishop. One of our readers, Kathy Whalen in England, wrote that Manchester Cathedral had recently elected a girl bishop for the first time, the first in the United Kingdom. Well done, we thought! Here’s the tradition, one that goes back to medieval times throughout Europe: a Boy Bishop would be elected at cathedrals each year on St. Nicholas’ Day, the Sixth of December. He was typically chosen from the boys in the choir and for the duration of his reign, which typically ended on Childremas, he wore bishop’s vestments and performed all the duties of a bishop, save for celebrating Mass. In some places, the actual bishop would be obliged to follow the orders of the Boy Bishop, which calls to mind the Feast of Fools, which will be celebrated tomorrow on the Fourth Day of Christmas, when the normal order of things is ceremoniously turned on its head. This melding of Childremas and the Feast of Fools probably is informed by the words of the Magnificat: God has put down the mighty from their throne and has exalted the humble and the meek. On the Third Day of Christmas, typically, the Boy Bishop would be allowed to return to being a child once again (though we noticed the Girl Bishop at Manchester Cathedral last year had to be a bishop all the way to Epiphany!).

One of the oldest traditions for Childremas is the ceremonial exchange of token blows using evergreen branches of birch or pine or rosemary or bay: parents beat their children, children beat their parents, husbands and wives beat each other, and masters and servants exchanged blows, too. The beatings were in good fun and were not at all done with malice or cruelty. Along with the beatings came the words, “Fresh, green, fair and fine! Gingerbread and brandy-wine!” or else, “Fresh green! Long life! Give me a coin!”

Finally, in Spain and Latin America, the Third Day of Christmas is a day for practical jokes, kind of like April Fools Day. The victims of these jokes are known as inocentes, although sometimes it is the prankster that gets that name in a plea for forgiveness. No matter how you spend the day, the theme, it seems, is universal: celebrating and honoring children… and perhaps reconnecting with the child you once were, revisiting the land we all came from. And why not? Tomorrow is the Feast of Fools. Here’s your chance to practice for that.

 

Image: Seth and I were married, after twenty years together, this past October 26. All our nieces and nephews and great nieces and great nephews played their parts, some carrying flowers, some carrying pumpkins. They are the kids in our lives, and here they all are in this photograph by Charles Pratt.

 

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Dec 27 2015
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Christmas

Blessed Wine

TastingTheWine

SECOND DAY of CHRISTMAS
St. John’s Day

The ceremony of this day focuses on wine. The early Church assigned the date of the birth of Christ to to the Midwinter solstice in December and the birth of St. John the Baptist to the Midsummer solstice in June. Here, on this Second Day of Christmas, we have the Feast Day of St. John the Evangelist, one of the twelve disciples. St. John is the only one of the disciples who did not die a martyr’s death for his faith. He lived to a ripe old age, but not without some attempts at his life. The most famous one involved poisoned wine. But John drank the wine and it had no ill effect on him, and from this comes the tradition of honoring his day with wine.

Wine has long been brought to churches on this day for a blessing, especially in Germany and in Austria, and this blessed St. John’s wine is thought to have healing properties and to taste better than other wines. Some even hold that wine that is not blessed but is stored nearby to blessed St. John’s wine improves in flavor just by being near it.

Yesterday, for the First Day of Christmas and St. Stephen’s Day, we enjoyed roasted chestnuts and mulled wine. Today, we do the same. Simple foods and a simple act mark the day best.

Image: “Provando o Vinho” (“Tasting the Wine”) by an unknown artist working in the English School, Portugal. Oil painting, 19th century. [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

 

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