TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS: JERKY, GROG & REINDEER DROPPINGS BY SHAYNA MATTHEWS

                                     
       TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS: JERKY, GROG & REINDEER DROPPINGS,
                                                   BY SHAYNA MATTHEWS

There's nothing like the anticipation of Christmas morning to torment a child. I should know, my parents certainly got their jollies from dragging out Christmas morning. Up before dawn in my flannel nightgown, I was bouncing, eager to rip into that tree. Of course, I had to wait. Dad had to make his coffee, then drink a few cups, slowly, while Mom made iced cinnamon rolls. Now, any other day of the year cinnamon rolls are fine and dandy with me. Christmas morning, however, was a different story. Fifteen minutes for them to bake, then cool enough to eat? Come on, Mom! I amused myself by looking outside, anywhere but at the stack of presents under that twinkling tree! - Santa's reindeer made their presence known in our driveway every year. Having left a bag of corn for the reindeer, I found empty cobs with deer tracks, a few missed kernels, and reindeer poop (yes...reindeer poop!) in the gravel driveway. I suppose when reindeer eat that much corn, it's only natural to let nature take over before they fly to the next house!

My Dad explained to me that Santa gets mighty tired of milk and cookies all the time, he appreciates an especially festive offering on Christmas Eve. I always left smoked bologna and cheese, and a hefty jug of grog. Funny, Santa left me letters, but by the end of the letter, his spelling was practically unlegible! I don't know why he always told me that I was a good girl, but to eat my vegetables. Does Santa really care that much about vegetables? (The Easter Bunny always told me the same thing, but he eats carrots, not cheese, grog and bologna).

When my father had enjoyed two or three cups of steaming procrastination, and the cinnamon rolls were eaten (gobbled may be a more appropriate term) - it was finally time. First on the list was always the stocking. I don't know what it is about a sock stuffed with goodies, but it's among my favorite Christmas memories. (Aside from Santa's grog-induced letters).
There are many legends that arise from the tradition of the Christmas stocking. My favorite tells the tale of a once-wealthy merchant down on his luck, with three daughters of age to wed. Too poor to offer a dowry, but too proud to accept charity, the merchant despaired over his daughters' happiness. One Christmas Eve, the daughters, having come in cold and wet from their chores, hung their socks by the fire to dry. Little did they know, St. Nicholas heard about the merchant's predictament. That night he rode into town on a magnificent white steed, and tossed three golden balls down the chimney. Inexplicably, the golden orbs fell into each girl's sock. Christmas morning was met with much rejoicing. Each daughter married happily, and as the story spread, children began hanging their socks by the fireplace in hopes St. Nicholas and his white horse would ride by and bless them with gifts, too. The gold balls in the story were quickly replaced with traditional oranges. No one could replicate a golden ball for a gift, but the round fruit of the same color was always a welcome treat.
                                    
Our tree was always decorated with handmade ornaments, baked from a mixture of either clay or a type of cookie-like dough, rolled into shapes, painted and laquered. I still have the few surviving ornaments on my tree to this day. One year, I specifically recall our choice in garland. Barring the tinsel, we chose to string popcorn and cranberries, following another old tradition in decorating with what you had. Now, bear in mind, the tree was always standing in the corner of the main room, opposite my bedroom door. Awake that night, counting each dragging minute and listening for the sound of tinkling reindeer bells, I heard something unexpected. I could not figure what it could be, for I had not heard the sound before. It was, for lack of a better term, rather like a soft "chewing" coming from the corner of the next room. By morning, since I could not leave my room to investigate (everyone knows Santa won't leave the good stuff behind if you try to peek) my nerves were gnawed raw. Come to find out, my nerves weren't the only thing gnawed raw that Christmas Morning. There, perched in a branch of the tree, sat a fat mouse, feasting on popcorn and berries. That was the last time we tried that particular Christmas tradition.

Written by Shayna Matthews, author of "The Legend of Venture Canyon" and "A Spot in the Woods" from the anthology "Memories from Maple Street, U.S.A, Leaving Childhood Behind".

What of you? What are your favorite traditions? Or, perhaps you make your own family traditions to follow?

A few little Christmas snippets.

Brought to you by - The English Rose.

Hello fellow Roses. 

I don’t have an up-coming release to tell you about, I’m sorry, but I have seen some really good ones coming up, lots more to add to the TBR list. You ladies are such prolific writers! I really need to get my finger out. As this is the season of good cheer, I thought I would just share my very personal views of this time of year with you.

Here in UK, people have been filling their windows with Christmas decorations since the beginning of November. There is a craft channel on tv which even has a Christmas in July spot, and each week after that they are selling Christmas items for crafters!

I sometimes wonder just exactly why people think they are decorating their houses and shops? And why on earth over such a long period? I saw something last week which really tickled me, it was a picture of a grumpy looking Santa and the caption was ‘There are twelve days of Christmas and none of them are in November.” Hear, hear!

Why do people decorate for so long before the 12 days? It’s a puzzle to me. My own decorations go up on Christmas Eve, and come down before twelfth night. No, I’m not a Scrooge, I actually started doing that when my daughter was tiny, for no other reason than that I wanted her to recognize the magic of the moment, so despite everywhere else being decked out, I put our decorations up whilst she was asleep on Christmas Eve, so that when she woke up in the morning the place was filled with warmth, color, glitter, balloons and good food.  

We had a large open fire then, so we would get up early and light it, and place a huge ‘Yule Log’ on it, which we tried to keep burning for as many days as we could, (I don’t think we ever managed a full 12 days though.) The look on her little face those first few years was totally priceless. I can never forget it. Of course as she grew older and realized what was happening she started to decorate her own room with my spare decorations a long time before Christmas Eve, but I kept to my own personal tradition. And still do, for the grandchildren, except I don’t have an open fire any more, so the poor old Yule log has had to give way to a few candles and a gas fire!

When I think about it, my way of doing it is closer to the original ’12 days of Christmas’ than most people’s, in reality within the Western Church, the 12 days actually begin on December 25^th and end on January 5^th, the beginning of Epiphany (when the Magi brought the gifts to the baby, if that is your belief.)

Our tradition of giving gifts on Christmas Day actually seems to come from a festival of Pagan days named Saturnalia where people gave gifts in honor of the ones who had died during that year. They would exchange ‘lucky fruits’ and have a big feast, as we still do today.

Holly and mistletoe were Pagan and Druid symbols of fertility and the colorful lights we decorate everything with are descended from the Pagan ritual of lighting fires and candles to chase away the darkness of winter and bring back the sun.

The star on top of the tree is not a Star of David, in fact it is two triangles, which represent the perfect union between male and female into one entity. The upturned triangle represents the male, whilst the downturned one is the female. We place a fairy or angel on our trees because, traditionally, fairies and angels are supposed to grant wishes.

Santa Claus/Father Christmas/Kris Kringle (and many other aliases) is a very old tradition indeed, it can be actually dated right back to a monk who was born into a noble family in Turkey, around 280 AD. He gave away all his vast inherited wealth and travelled the country helping the sick and poor. In one town he is supposed to have saved three sisters from being sold into slavery by their father, by giving them all a good dowry so they could be married. He later became known as the protector of children and sailors. He died on December 6^th which was then considered a very lucky day to get married.

Now here’s a shock, I have only just found out that Rudolf the red nosed reindeer was actually born in 1939 in America! A copywriter named Robert L May, who worked for the Montgomery Ward department store wrote the story to try and drive custom to the store, in that year, he sold almost two and a half million copies of his book and since then, it has been translated into twenty-five languages (we can only wish on our fairies for figures like that, eh ladies?)

                                  Here's a beautiful Christmas Rose for all you lovely Roses.

Well, I don’t want to keep you all from your tree decorating and mince pie eating, so I’ll go now, wishing you all a peaceful, healthy and happy holiday time, whatever your persuasion, and a very good New Year.  Catch you all on the other side!