Category Archives: Christmas

Jan 03 2014
Christmas, Solstice

Joyeux Noël

NINTH DAY of CHRISTMAS:
St. Genevieve’s Day

Beginning with yesterday’s feast day of St. Macarius, we’ve entered into a more contemplative period of our Yuletide Twelve Days, a trend that will continue through tomorrow. Today on this Ninth Day of Christmas we celebrate St. Genevieve, patron saint of Paris. She was born in the fifth century in the French countryside and eventually settled in Paris, where she became a nun. She is attributed with saving the city from an attack by Attila and his Huns in 451 through fasting and prayer, and she was the founder, around 475, of the Basilica of St. Denis.

St. Genevieve is often depicted with a candle, and here again at the deep darkness of solsticetide we have an image of light, much like Santa Lucia on the 13th of December. It is said that although the devil continually blew out her candle when she would pray at night, St. Genevieve was able to relight it without use of flint or fire… and again the bleak midwinter’s darkness is overcome.

 

Tagged
Jan 02 2014
1 Comment
Christmas

St. Macaroon

EIGHTH DAY of CHRISTMAS:
St. Macarius’s Day

Today we celebrate St. Macarius of Alexandria, known for his extreme asceticism (a word dangerously close to aestheticism, no?). But before he became so hardened against the things of this world, Macarius was a confectioner, and so he is known as a patron saint of cooks, confectioners and pastry chefs. This, as you might guess, is the St. Macarius we are most interested in on this Eighth Day of Christmas. Some people have a hard time saying St. Macarius, and so he has also been known over the ages as St. Macaroon––fitting enough for a confectioner, I’d say.

Macarius was born in Alexandria in the early fourth century and it is in that fabled city where he made his living selling candies and pastries. In about 335, he left the bustle of the city to become a monk, and eventually made his way to a monastery in the desert (a word dangerously close to dessert, no?) and lived the life of a hermit from there on out. He ate very little: raw vegetables most days, and on special days, a bit of bread dipped in oil.

There is a rather nice story attributed to St. Macarius, a story he is said to have told his fellow monks in the monastery, who were interested in perhaps moving out of the desert and into the city in an attempt to reach more souls. Macarius spoke of a barber in a small town who eked out a decent living by charging three coins for a shave. He earned enough this way to sustain himself and his family and to even save a little extra for his old age. But he heard a rumor that barbers in the nearby city were charging a lot more than three coins for the same service. He thought long and hard about this, and finally, he made the decision to sell all he had in the small town and move to the city and set up shop there, where he could earn a larger profit for his services. And so he did.

Sure enough, at the end of his first day in the city, he had earned more than he had ever earned in the small town, and the barber was quite elated. And after closing up shop, he headed for the market to buy food and provisions for his family, but he found that everything  in the big city market was much more expensive than it had been in the small town. Indeed, he ended up with no money at all in his pocket that day––a trend that continued each day after. Finally, the barber decided it would be best to return to his native town, where at least he made a small amount of progress each day in his savings.

With this story, St. Macarius swayed his fellow monks to stay in the quiet solitude of the desert. And of course there is a lesson in this story for all of us: a lesson of quiet patience, the understanding that sometimes what is best for us is right where we are.

St. Macarius became so devoted to his asceticism that he began to take things to some extreme ends. He once spent twenty days out in the open air without sleep, a self-inflicted punishment for accidentally killing a mosquito that had bit him. I’ve always been wary of extremists, and so for me, the best celebration of St. Macarius’s Day for this Eighth Day of Christmas is a celebration that calls to mind his place as a patron saint of confectioners and cooks. It’s a great day, I think, for enjoying something sweet. Think of all the joy that confectioners bring us, even today. Certainly Macarius brought much joy to the people of Alexandria when he was selling candies and confections there. And so on this Eighth Day of Christmas, remember St. Macarius, and take joy.

 

 

Tagged
Jan 01 2014
3 Comments
Christmas, New Year, Solstice

Wes Hel

New Year

SEVENTH DAY of CHRISTMAS:
New Year’s Day

Ring out the old,
Ring in the new,
Ring out the false,
Ring in the true.

The old year has passed and we awake hopeful for what the new year will bring. Good health is often at the top of the list, and this first day of the year, as the Seventh Day of Christmas, also happens to be a traditional wassailing day. Wassail, derived from the Old English toast Wes Hel: “Be of good health!”

The wassailing tradition is from Britain but is also practiced in many parts of the United States. Ale or beer or hard cider is warmed together with sugar, spices, apples and fruit juices, usually orange or pineapple. Lamb’s wool––whipped cream, essentially––is often floated on the top of the brew. The large wassail bowl is taken out to the orchard, where the custom is to wassail the oldest and largest tree in the grove. The ceremony, which usually takes place around midday, involves pouring wassail on the roots of the tree and hanging toasted bread soaked in wassail on its branches. The wassail bowl is, of course, passed around the company gathered, and all partake, along with great shouts of celebration (the word Huzzah seems particularly essential) and with songs, along the lines of this one from England:

Here’s to thee, old apple tree
Whence thou may’st bud and
whence thou may’st blow,
And whence thou may’st
bear apples enow.

Hats full, Caps full, Bushel,
bushel sacks full,
And my pockets full, too!
Huzzah!

Don’t have an apple tree to wassail? We don’t have them here in Lake Worth. Here, we grow oranges and grapefruits and mangoes and cocoanuts. You can wassail any tree, and why not? Trees that bear fruit are perhaps the most worthy of wassailing, but in the absence of one, I’d encourage you to wassail any tree that is your favorite.

Mumming and guising are also important customs on New Year’s Day. It’s a tradition known well in Philadelphia, where the annual Mummer’s Day Parade takes place each First of January as it has been since around the turn of the last century. The practice of mumming and guising, however, goes back much further than that. Mummer’s plays are another of the British Christmas traditions with pagan roots. The plays, typically performed by roving troupes, usually include characters like St. George and the Turkish Knight, dragons, and, of course, Father Christmas. Enter the players:

In comes I, Old Father Christmas,
Welcome or welcome not,
I hope Old Father Christmas
Will never be forgot.
If you don’t believe what I do say
Enter St. George and clear the way.

In come I, St. George,
A man of courage bold
With sword and spear all by my side,
Hoping to gain a crown of gold.
‘Twas I that slew the dragon,
and brought him to the slaughter,
And by those means I hope
To gain the King of Egypt’s daughter.

The plays are quick and typically involve the death of one character by the sword of another… but always a doctor is called in and the dead man is brought back to life. All of which echoes the death of the old year and its rebirth as the new, or the death of the sun at the solstice and its rebirth as the days begin to lengthen once more. The circle––or the ever expanding spiral––goes on and on, without end.

 

 

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