It’s a new month and a new year, and here’s your printable Convivio Book of Days calendar for January 2015. Like Janus, the Roman god that gives January its name, we do a lot of looking back and looking ahead in January. We’ve been celebrating Christmas and midwinter since the end of December, but we begin January with New Year’s Day and the second half of the Twelve Days of Christmas. And at the end of the month, we get to sing “Auld Lang Syne,” which many of us sang on New Year’s Eve, all over again, for it is Burns’ Night on the 25th, celebrating the great Scottish poet Robert Burns, who penned that song we know so well.
There is some question in my head each year about St. Distaff’s Day. I have some sources that list the day as a moveable holiday, while other sources––sources I put more faith in––set it at January 7 each year. St. Distaff is one of the folk saints; not a real one based on the life of a real person. St. Distaff’s Day, rather, is part of the series of little known but important celebratory January holidays that ease us back into ordinary time once Christmastide has passed after January 6. St. Distaff’s Day marks the day that women went back to their household tasks, especially spinning. Soon after comes Plough Monday, when the men returned to work on the farms, and Copperman’s Day, a big day for us printers.
We wish you the very best for this new year. A thousand blessings upon you and those you love. Wes Hel!
Thank you for your hard work, compiling, writing, and sharing all this wonderful information. Years ago I studied Folklore at Indiana U. Your website reminds me of those days and how much I enjoyed them.