25 December 2004

[Guest]

Church late Christmas eve. A little time with my wife
Christmnas day. We don't have kids and we don't
go all out about gifts. Maybe one from each of us to
the other. Have some younger relatives who *do* get gifts.
It's fun to shop for books for kids.
The holiday originated as a Christian celebration. Reading
the statements of others an the group, I see how
destructive the secularization has become.

I know what you are saying, Uther, and please don't get me wrong. We always attend midnight mass and our children know full well the real meaning of Christmas. They have a nativity scene here that they act out and books that we read together. Trust me, I know what we are celebrating, and what we are being thankful for, and they do too, but I also see Christmas as a precious time for sharing with family and friends.

Yes, they get a lot of gifts, but we don't spend hundreds on them like many parents do, not even a hundred, I am good with making a little go a long way, and they appreciate everything.

Lou

 

[Guest]

Reading the statements of others an the group, I see how
destructive the secularization has become.

WTF! (just learned that).

Perdita

 

[Quasimodem]

Christmas Celebrations, Then and Now.

These days, I wake up early Christmas morning and start chewing Kleenex Tissues. As soon as I have masticated enough, I wring out the pulp, and caulk both earholes as tightly as possible with this fine insulation.

I am then ready to go over to my nephew's house and watch the kids open presents, eat their diner, (Guess who put the din in dinner?) and try unsuccessfully to find some place to lie up and heal. Preferably a place where the kids – after they have broken all their toys – won't jump on me demanding: "Read me a story, Uncle Quasi."

After twenty-five years with my two nephews, I can ‘recite' Dicken's "Christmas Carol" without recourse to the book, and since my Great Nieces and Nephew aren't fly enough yet to tell when I am adding episodes, I am able to recount a version which would surely cause Dickens to shudder.



Nearly half a century ago, before Great Nieces and Nephew, or even regular Nephews had been invented, Christmas meant a long, dicey trip over frozen roads to my cousins' home.

First, there came the general milling about, removing about forty-pounds of clothing. (I don't know why, but to my memory, we each wore more clothes daily, than exist, now, in my entire wardrobe.)

Next, came more milling about, getting underfoot, while all the food that the guests brought along was shoe-horned onto the table. As we waited, pools of water collected about our feet – half drool, half snow melting out of the winter coats.

(Again, perhaps it is my faulty memory, but clothing does not seem half so absorbent as it was when I was a kid. After twelve hours hanging in a heated, well-ventilated hall, we could go home in coats as damp as if we wore the recently wrung-out dish rage. That item was just as dry.)

Then, an old codger – no relative of mine, no relative of my cousins – seemingly somebody who came one Christmas by mistake, and was asked back each succeeding Christmas, for the sake of tradition, would say the benediction. Here was an old coot who said nary a word from December 26th to December 24th, but came December 25th and he was good for three hours, without inhaling.

Finally, when the gravy had began to congeal, the benediction would be over, and we were allowed to eat.

Following dinner, the male adults would crawl into the living room and converse. Usually, the discussion – if one listened closely – involved a preponderance of words beginning with the letter zed. (Yes, Zed – this was Canada, eh?)

Meanwhile, the female adults would start carrying dirty plates and cutlery to the kitchen for the eventual washing and drying ceremony/spectacle. "Doing The Dishes" was a major Christmas Day sport.

Since no female adult would resign her post as volunteer dishwasher, or dryer, there was always far too many volunteers than were needed, or indeed, than the big farmhouse kitchen could uncomfortably hold.

What followed next, was a curious cross between a country square dance and a demolition derby.

When all the dishes had been swept away, it was time to open the presents. We children looked forward to this activity with all the apprehension it deserved.

On the one hand, we may actually get something we liked, but if we appeared pleased, one of the older generation would call us over and tell him what life had been like in the cave in which they had been raised. They had not needed colouring books. They had boiled the colour out of twigs and bark, to draw their own pictures on a blank wall. Then they had carried the wall to school, ten miles, uphill both ways, so their teacher could tell them how to do better.

Still, that was somewhat preferable to the strain placed upon our acting talent by any gift from our old maid aunt who tried so valiantly – and unsuccessfully – to knit. We found it difficult to assure her that her gift had been exactly what we needed, without giving away that nobody had the slightest clue what part of the anatomy it was meant to adorn. This placed a considerable strain upon all, the younger children, especially.

Finally, the children were rounded up, by several well-meaning adults, to conduct them through a Crokino competition.

For the uninitiated, Crokino is a bit like shuffleboard, except one uses one's fingers. The board is about a metre in diameter, the centre marked by an inset hole, just large enough to accept a ‘button' The buttons are much like checkers, only slightly heavier. Around the centre hole, cluster a circle of posts guarding that goal.

The participant's snap the button with his finger, shooting the button in, past the posts, and dropping the button into the hole. For a kid, this is the equivalent to a hole-in-one at golf. If someone else's button is there already, you are to shoot your button, and hit the other, knocking it skittering off, while your button remains behind to count toward the score.

That is what is supposed to happen.

What invariably does happen, is that the child snaps his button, it slides toward the centre of the board, hits a post, rebounding directly back, and hits him on his finger, before he can remove his hand. If he does manage to get past the posts, it will hit the opposition's button and remain where it was. However, his opposition's button will be knocked aside. It will ricochet around between the posts, until it can find its way between the posts, the same way the original button had entered, so that the kid's opponent's button hits him on his finger.

Each Round, the kid shoots ten buttons, somebody has to score 100 points before the kid can quit. That usually means forty or fifty snaps of his fingernail against the button, and forty or fifty impacts of his (or his opponent's) button, crashing against his finger, for every completed game.

A competition could involve twenty games – if the kid is unlucky enough to win. That could total a thousand concussions to a child's finger, on his soft, still forming fingernail.

There can be little wonder why, even before the Crokino competition ends, many children were whining to be permitted to go home. In fact, it may now be revealed that some kids had whined to not have to go – ever before leaving home – in anticipation,

They just don't make fun like that anymore.

They couldn't even if they had the desire. This generation of children have been exposed to our country's child cruelty laws. They would never stand for it.

 

[McKenna]

.

 

[wildsweetone]

I'm loving reading all these posts. Thanks everyone for contributing.

Christmas, when I was young, involved waking before the crack of dawn and sneaking out to the Christmas tree (pine, decorated on every pine needle with home made or school made decorations until the tree bent under the weight) to see what goodies were underneath it.

Usually there were three huge piles, one for myself and my brothers with our name written in Santalike writing on paper on top.

One year at something like 2am, my brother opened his biggest present and then spent an hour riding his new three wheeler tricycle around the house.

Invariably we would 'get caught' and be sent back to bed until some other more reasonable ungodly hour of the morning when we would begin on the next biggest present each.

These days... it's slightly different. Our children wake at the ungodly hour and start ripping open presents and we groan and moan and pretend we can't hear them and then one of us gets up and hides the grins as we growl and tell the kids (teenagers) to get back to bed until it's light outside.

Breakfast consists of eating croussants in a bed covered in the children's wrapping paper. The remainder of the day is generally split between my parents and my inlaws. Half the day spent with one, and the other half with the others.

If we're lucky and we've managed it right, we only have to have one huge Christmas meal. If we mess up, then we get two huge Christmas meals.

i.e. Turkey, ham, hot vegetables - peas, beans, the revolting sprouts, new potatoes, cold salad, and anything else that fits on a 12 foot by 4 foot table. Then there's dessert, ice cream, strawberries, chocolate logs, jellies. Not just one of everything either, you have to have 'choice!' apparently.

Any other tables in the houses also must be laden with food. Lollies, fruit, cakes, little Christmas mince pies etc.

No wonder we all gain weight. *sigh*

And all this food happens no matter if it's 18oC outside, or 28oC. You see, my parents and my inlaws are all English and it's traditional here in NZ for English families to go the whole hog with their Christmas munchies. So, the rest of us suffer!

Me, I'd be happy with a bar-b-que on the beach.

Yes we have Christmas crackers with plastic rings, and keyrings and cards inside, and we have paper hats that come out of the Christmas crackers.

Usually before Christmas I make a fruit cake, store it away with brandy soaking through it (I do so love having brandy with cake making - cook's priviledge). Then Christmas week, the cake comes out and gets decorated with almond icing and white icing and Santa and his sleigh and whatever else the kids think they can put on top of a 10 inch square cake.

Boxing Day consists of walking a lot and sleeping a lot and eating leftovers and answering the phone to mothers and mothers-in-law who want to know if we enjoyed ourselves.

Religion and Christmas?
For me religion and my belief is a very personal thing. I don't need a special day to have a belief, nor a special time of day in which to carry out my belief.

My children know and understand about the religious meanings of Christmas and are old enough to make their own informed choices and that's all I ask of them.

 

[Guest]

Any UK 'member': what is Boxing Day? What does 'boxing' mean for the day? I simply don't know. (And there's one of you who doesn't either. )

Perdita

 

[wildsweetone]

Try this one Perdita:

http://www.web-holidays.com/boxing/



Around here, it's the day we collect up all the boxes and put them in the recycling bin.

 

[gauchecritic]

Any UK 'member': what is Boxing Day? What does 'boxing' mean for the day? I simply don't know. (And there's one of you who doesn't either. )

Perdita

Ok it was me, but I can tell you that no one else can give you a definitive answer either.

Gauche

 

[The_old_man]

Tomorrow we will post the last of the presents to our grandchildren, they will be going to APO addresses.

The evening of 23 Dec., my wife and I will go to one of the better local restaurants for our anniversary supper, number 54.

Dec. 24 we will attend our church Xmas eve. service. This is one of three "Must Attend" services.

Dec. 25 will be a "sleep in", TV dinner, lazy day.

We may get phone calls from our children, who are scattered all over the country.

 

[Guest]

From WSO's site: "Now, the actual origin of this holiday is debatable and has been debated, one idea being more popular than the other at a given time."

So, I have a new research project. Crap.

Odd people, you.

Perdita

 

[Guest]

Done. I went to my best source, Michael Quinion's site (url below). I'll go with the OED, and also await Ogg's opinion.

Perdita
--------------
Let me first explain that in Britain Boxing Day is the day after Christmas Day, 26 December, a public holiday that is more correctly called St Stephen’s Day. (Strictly, the public holiday is the first working day after Christmas Day, but the name Boxing Day is always reserved for the 26th.)

We have to go back to the early seventeenth century to find the basis for the name. The term Christmas box appeared about then for an earthenware box, something like a piggy bank, which apprentices took around at Christmas to collect money. When it was full, or the round complete, the box was broken and the money distributed among the company. By the eighteenth century, Christmas box had become a figurative term for any seasonal gratuity. I cannot resist quoting the First Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which has a splendid lip-curling, drawing-away-of-skirts, how-awful-these-lower-orders-are description of this sense that suggests James Murray, who compiled the entry, had been importuned once too often:

A present or gratuity given at Christmas: in Great Britain, usually confined to gratuities given to those who are supposed to have a vague claim upon the donor for services rendered to him as one of the general public by whom they are employed and paid, or as a customer of their legal employer; the undefined theory being that as they have done offices for this person, for which he has not directly paid them, some direct acknowledgement is becoming at Christmas. These gratuities have traditionally been asked from householders by letter-carriers, policemen, lamp-lighters, scavengers, butchers’ and bakers’ boys, tradesmen’s carmen, etc, and from tradesmen by the servants of households that deal with them, etc. They are thus practically identical with the Christmas-box collected by apprentices from their masters’ customers, except that the name is now given to the individual donation; and hence, vulgarly and in dialect use it is often equivalent to “Christmas present”.

Some time after the beginning of the nineteenth century, the word box of Christmas box shifted to refer to the day after Christmas day, on which such gratuities were often requested and on which the original Christmas box was taken round. The first recorded use of Boxing Day for the 26th December is in 1833. By 1853 at the latest it had become a scourge that justified Murray’s later acerbic comments, at least to judge from these comments by Charles Manby Smith in his Curiosities of London Life:

We can hardly close these desultory sketches of Christmas-time without some brief allusion to the day after Christmas, which, through every nook and cranny of the great Babel, is known and recognised as “Boxing Day,”—the day consecrated to baksheesh, when nobody, it would almost seem, is too proud to beg, and when everybody who does not beg is expected to play the almoner. “Tie up the knocker—say you’re sick, you are dead,” is the best advice perhaps that could be given in such cases to any man who has a street-door and a knocker upon it.

This custom, seasonal visitors to Britain may be assured, has now died out, though solicitations for Christmas tips continue to some extent, especially from the deliverers of newspapers. Instead, on Boxing Day people now rush to the first post-Christmas sales.

World Wide Words

 

[Mhari]

Well, Christmas is a weird time for my family. 6 people in our immediate family died right around then, so...well...it's just a bit weird to be celebrating, you know? My parents put poinsettias in the church every year in their memory, which I guess makes it a bit easier for them (my parents, that is).

We also rarely have Christmas on Christmas Day, as my sister is a pilot and usually has to work.

In any case, the day we do Christmas, whatever day that happens to be, everyone gets a stocking to open. Then the presents get opened one at a time, with suitable time for oohing and ahhing over the gifts. This takes a great deal of time.

At some point during the present-opening, my mother puts the ham in the oven. Whenever it's close to getting done, she'll start making all the stuff to go with it. We will all ask if we can help, and she will say no, then become annoyed because no one is helping. Eventually, we'll all sit down to Christmas dinner, my sisters and my father and I still dressed in sweats or PJs and my mother all dressed up. (I'm never sure how she manages to get fancied up while fixing all the food.) We will eat much ham and drink much cold duck, then all adjourn to TV-watching spots to fall asleep. Much later, we will have the trying-on-of-clothes, because we will all have gotten clothes, even if we didn't ask for any.

My pilot sister and I will yell at each other, then apologize, then Christmas will be done.

I can't decide if we're dysfunctional or not, but we're definitely unusual. It's much nicer now that I'm no longer married and don't also have to deal with my husband's impatience with our little rituals.

 

[wildsweetone]

Awesome work on the research Perdita


I forgot something that we've begun to do amongst the adults in our family in the last couple of years, and also with people at work.

It's a thing called Secret Santa.

With my family, we put names in a hat (or a little white box as it happened this year) and each adult pulls out one name. That is the person we are to buy a Christmas present for. It's all secret hush hush stuff, though everybody eventually knows who everybody's secret Santa actually is. Still, we keep the pretense for the kids who seem to get so excited and rush about asking "Who've you got?" to all the adults.

On Christmas day (at some point), all the presents get put under the tree and then one child gives them out to the grown ups.

With the staff, it's slightly different. Each staff member buys a gift (under NZ$10) and the gifts are put into a box. On a specific day, the box is handed around and each person picks out a present.

A further addition to this game is that, the present can be accepted or swapped with somebody who already has opened their gift. Ultimately that means there's a 'not so nice' present left behind... but it's all fun and games and much laughing goes on during the whole process.

wso

ps My family Secret Santa this year is going to be a wonderful fun person to buy for.

 

[Icingsugar]

Here's a question: does anyone else who is a non-religious type feel the slightest bit hypocritical around Christmas? I know I do.

Hehe, as a non non-religious type, I almost feel a bit hypocritical myself. Scholars today almost unanimously would agree that The Dude was not born that day, and that the date is set to please the oh-so-horrible pagans of the old-time beliefs.

I believe that is why the main Christmas celebration here in Sweden taks place on the 24:th instead. Here we had some old Viking festivity that day, that the christians simply adopted.

Ya gotta admit it, they were practical fellas back then.

--

My holidays will be kind of torn this year. Me and Lin have a family each that both wants us there for Christmas, especially since it might be the last chance before we are up to our ears in our own family. And it's not like we can go To one and then the other just like that, with them living half a continent apart. And fuck it if we'd have to split up.

Truth be told, we haven't decided what to do yet. It's kind of annoying.

 

[Guest]

Done. I went to my best source, Michael Quinion's site (url below). I'll go with the OED, and also await Ogg's opinion.

Perdita

<SNIP>

Yep, you got it spot on, Perdita. We always save one little present, usually hung on the tree, for Boxing Day. It's a way of showing each other gratitude for everything we've done for each other over the year.

When I was little I used to think Boxing Day was the day the Three Wise Men visited Jesus in the stable, and gave him his gifts (boxes), and that's what my chidren were told at school. I tried explaining the actual meaning to my girls the other day. I'll print off your post later and read it to them, thanks for that.

Seeing as Boxing Day is a bank holiday and the newspaper, milk and post don't get delivered that day, we always tip the people that deliver those before Christmas. I'm sure most people think Boxing Day means 'the day we go to the sales and buy boxes of crap'. The last sentence of your post alluded to that. It's a shame these proper traditions and the real meanings of them are fading with each generation.

Lou

 

[Dirty Slut]

I think I did this already, but here goes...

Christmas is the day that my family celebrates the birth of our savior, Jesus Christ. As such there is a great deal made out of making his birthday cake Christmas Eve by the women in my family wherever they many live. Once the cake is baked, and finished being decorated, one lone candle is placed in the center to be lit Christmas morning before any gifts are unwrapped where we each live. On Christmas morning after the candle is lit everyone in that household sings "Happy Birthday" to Jesus followed by "Silent Night," and once that is done everybody blows out the candle to signify their acceptance of the Christ Child as their first Christmas present. After that gifts are open in that household, and preparations are made to go to Grandma's house for the day. The cake and orange juice is breakfast.

Just like for Thanksgiving, Grandpa cooks the meal on Christmas. But as he made turkey in November, he really goes all out on December 25th. Preparing Prime Rib, and a Pork Loin together starting the pork alone hours before at a higher temperature. The gravy from this combination is incredible. In this manner he can serve rare to medium well-done prime rib and still not under cook the pork. He serves three different dishes of potato; mashed, twice baked with chives, and potato pancakes with side dishes of candied yams, and candied carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower in a cheese sauce, onions stuffed with cream cheese, and peppered with paprika, Stuffed mushrooms. Served of course with hot dinner rolls. He also puts out a lazy Susan with spinach dip in a pumpernickel loaf surrounded by various crispy veggies, and fresh mushroom halves. Another large lazy Susan is kept in the living room on the coffee table filled with various nuts, cheeses, and crackers. Both of the lazy Susan’s are out to munch on while waiting for dinner. Grandma makes her special sherbet punch for everybody. The rest of us bring deserts, and the wine, or beer, or whatever each adult drinks. Everyone holds hands around the dinner table as my father says grace once the food is on the table as he is the eldest son.

All day long the TV in the living room is solely for Christmas movies, the one in the recreation room is for sports, or whatever as majority rules in there. We also have our own variation on Secret Santa. Back in November during Thanksgiving everyone except Grandma, and Grandpa pick one name out of a hat, and that's whom they buy a present for. Each of these presents are tagged with two names, For: the person who gets it, and from: Santa Clause. Now here’s the thing, back when those names were pulled out of a hat each person who put them in the hat in the first place wrote down three things that they wanted from Santa. Three choices of which one would be picked by Santa, and not presented to them under their own tree at their own residence. No price limit has ever been put upon Santa’s gift, but no requested gift has ever gone over a hundred dollars either. (Everybody pitches in for Grandpa, and Grandma’s gift.) As you can imagine a great deal of phone calling is done in the background so that no one already has this gift at home on Christmas morning. If the present requested by a child, such as a certain bicycle is too much for their secret Santa the parents are told on the side, and either they buy the bike, and it’s under the tree at home, or they help Santa out with a contribution. In any event, all of the parents know for sure about three presents that their children really want, and one of those presents will be at Grandpa, and Grandma’s house to be opened one hour before everyone heads back home. In this way everyone looks forward to the gift opening, and grandpa’s house is clean when everyone leaves.


DS

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Re: Re: Mex-Brit Xmas?

P.S. Here's a sneak preview of what Adam and I look like with the obligatory fashion accessory for Brits on Christmas Day:

Why are you wearing paper-panties on your head???



In Sweden, we don't call it Boxing Day, we call it Annandag Jul, which literally means "Another Christmas Day".

Sort of shows our attitude for this holiday, huh?

 

[Guest]

Re: Re: Re: Mex-Brit Xmas?

Why are you wearing paper-panties on your head???

Flicka, you're too much. I can't say why exactly but after laughing out loud I thought of Gauche's xmas contest story (which is funny too).

Perdita

 

[McKenna]

.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

I think it comes from the fairy tales, where they always have wedding parties that last for three days. Three is a lucky number, so it makes sense to make the holidays three days long. We have the same thing for Easter:

Easter Eve, Easter Day, and Another Easter Day.

 

[Guest]

I think it comes from the fairy tales, where they always have wedding parties that last for three days. Three is a lucky number, so it makes sense to make the holidays three days long. We have the same thing for Easter:

Easter Eve, Easter Day, and Another Easter Day.

I'm sure you were saying that with your tongue firmly in your cheek, Svenska, but it's Good Friday (the day Jesus died on the cross), Easter Saturday and Easter Sunday (this day actually being Easter Day, the day of Jesus' resurrection). Us lucky people in the UK also get another day tagged on, Easter Monday, but that day doesn't have any religious significance (at least I don't think so).

As for those stupid bloody hats, yeah they could double up as paper-panties, if taped up in the right place.

Lou

 

[McKenna]

.

 

[Guest]

Re: Perdita!

This one's for you...

Mack, I loved it. Will print and give to my brothers.

Perdita

 

[Quasimodem]

This illustrates another Christmas Tradition for WSO!

 

[*Catbabe*]

If any one wants to know what Christmas is like in a bakery read Catbabes Christmas story. She catches the atmosphere perfectly.

Wow!! Thanks Wills. What a nice compliment.



My favourite Portuguese food is malassadas. I make 'em better than my Portuguese sisters-in law, which gives me great pleasure.


My family's tradtions have become so mixed up in their origin that they are just plain "our's" now.