Tag Archives: St. Stephen’s Day

Dec 26 2015
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Christmas

First of Twelve Days

ChestnutDad

FIRST DAY of CHRISTMAS
St. Stephen’s Day, Boxing Day, Day of the Wren

It’s not uncommon for folks to feel let down once Christmas Day has passed, or sad that it’s over. We lay our hopes and dreams upon Christmas, along with expectations for how we envision the holiday, but Christmas delivers to us what it will. Perfection is rarely part of the equation. And here we have the antidote to all of these feelings: Welcome now to the Twelve Days of Christmas. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day stand on their own and we enter now the season of Christmas proper. Following along means taking a step outside dominant culture, but if you can handle that, you will find this journey more fulfilling than the alternative, trust me. For doing so means treating Christmas like an old friend who comes to visit each year, and it is good to be friendly with Christmas. This is what “keeping Christmas” is all about.

This First Day of Christmas is St. Stephen’s Day. Stephen was the first Christian martyr, and so the Church assigned this first day of Christmas to him. In Italy, this is a day for roasted chestnuts and mulled wine (as is tomorrow, St. John’s Day: the Second Day of Christmas). In medieval Europe, chestnuts were so common a part of our foodways that much of the chestnut crop was ground into flour for bread and other baked goods. This changed over the centuries, of course, to the point that chestnuts are more of an oddity and delicacy on our tables. They are, nonetheless, a big part of my family’s dinner table come autumn and winter each year, and now here we have two days set aside where they play a central role.

My Aunt Anne and my mom say that my grandmother, Assunta, typically made soup for supper on this First Day of Christmas, where we remember Santo Stefano. The soup was a nice break from the rich fare of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Over in Ireland, it is the Day of the Wren. It is the wren that is traditionally thought to have brought bad luck upon the imprisoned Stephen, who was making his escape when a wren alerted the sleeping guards to the situation. His capture lead to his execution and martyrdom. Wrens were traditionally hunted on this First Day of Christmas, then paraded around town.

And in England and the Commonwealth countries, it is Boxing Day. Servants typically had to work on Christmas Day, but the First Day of Christmas was their day to spend with their families. Their employers would send them home with boxes of gifts for themselves and for the families they were heading home to. Certainly those boxes contained chestnuts.

Tonight, join us in raising a glass of mulled wine and cracking open some roasted chestnuts for this First Day of Christmas. The mad rush is over, and now we can enjoy Christmas in our own time.

Image: My father cutting a cross into each chestnut, preparing them for roasting. The cross cut into the nut makes things a lot easier when it comes to peeling them when they are hot out of the oven. Dad doesn’t have many kitchen tasks, but it is always his job to do this.

 

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Dec 26 2014
Christmas

St. Stephen’s Day

Frühstück mit Trauben, Nüssen, Kastanien und Brot

FIRST DAY of CHRISTMAS:
St. Stephen’s Day, Boxing Day, Day of the Wren

Christmas Eve ushers in Christmas Day, and now Christmas Day is past and we enter into the Twelve Days of Christmas, days that stand outside of ordinary time. This is Christmastide, or Yuletide, and there is a delightful dance between the newer Christian religion and the older Pagan one that make up the ceremonies of this period. The Twelve Days of Christmas will take us to the Feast of the Epiphany on the sixth day of January, though you will meet people who consider the Christmas season to run through to February 2, the next cross quarter day, which is halfway between the Winter Solstice, which has just passed, and the Spring Equinox. We mark the Second of February here in the States as Groundhog Day, but it is known also by its traditional name as Candlemas or by its even more traditional name: Imbolc.

But I’m getting far ahead of myself. The point is Christmas has just begun. Christmas exists on its own as Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and today, December 26, is counted as the First Day of Christmas. On this day we celebrate St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Being the first to die for his faith (about 34 AD), the Church gave Stephen the first saint’s day after Christmas Day. There is a second St. Stephen who came many years later. This St. Stephen is associated with animals, and particularly horses, and so the First Day of Christmas is a good day to honor animals.

In earlier times St. Stephen’s Day was celebrated by hunting a wren and parading the wren’s corpse through the village. There are some places where this still takes place, especially in Ireland, but it is most often a fake wren that is paraded through town now. Traditionally, though, the day does not go well for wrens. The story goes that it was a wren who betrayed St. Stephen: Stephen had been captured and was about to make his escape when a wren began squawking, awakening the guards who were supposed to be watching him. Wrens have since been considered very unlucky… hence the Day of the Wren. Today’s village parades in Ireland and elsewhere will be attended by wrenboys in bright costumes and strange conical straw hats.

And finally it is Boxing Day today, as well, a British tradition in which gift boxes are given to servants and workers by their employers. Most servants had to work on Christmas Day to help make the day as merry as could be for the families that employed them. But the day after Christmas was usually their day off to spend with their own families. Their employers would send them off with a box containing gifts for themselves and the families they’d go home to.

In Italy, St. Stephen’s Day and the day that follows, St. John’s Day, calls for mulled wine and roasted chestnuts. This is the tradition we like best for this First Day of Christmas.

Image: Frühstück mit Trauben, Nüssen, Kastanien und Brot by Georg Flegel. Oil on oak panel, c.1638. [Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.]  The chestnuts are the “kastanien;” “castagne” in Italian.

 

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Dec 26 2013
Christmas

St. Stephen’s Day

FIRST DAY of CHRISTMAS:
St. Stephen’s Day, Boxing Day, Day of the Wren

The First Day of Christmas, December 26, celebrates St. Stephen. He was the first Christian martyr and so was honored with the first saint’s day after Christmas. In Italy, it is the humble chestnut that is the ritual food for the feast of St. Stephen, and Italians tend to celebrate both St. Stephen and St. John the Evangelist, whose feast day is tomorrow, over the course of the two days with roasted chestnuts and mulled wine.

In England and Canada and other Commonwealth countries, it is Boxing Day, when gift boxes would traditionally be given to servants by their employers. It is also the Day of the Wren, not a particularly good day to be a wren:

The wren, the wren, the king of all birds,
On St. Stephen’s Day was caught in the furze,
Although he was little his honor was great,
Jump up me lads and give us a treat.

Wren Day is celebrated mostly in Ireland. Nowadays it is a fake wren that is hunted on Wren Day, but it used to be real wrens, and it was considered unlucky to hunt them on any other day of the year. The hunting of the wren on St. Stephen’s Day probably goes back to ancient midwinter sacrificial rites. The wren is paraded through the streets by wrenboys in brightly colored costumes and straw hats.

As for us, we’ll be sticking with roasted chestnuts and mulled wine.

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