It's a Cracker: in search of Comfort and Joy

"Ring out the old, ring in the new;
Ring, happy bells, across the snow.
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true."
(Alfred Tennyson)

 

 I had already prepared this and another fairly light-hearted post for the New Year before events beyond Gigionsea shocked and saddened the world. Planes drop from the heavens and people continue to take up arms against each other; disease and discontent find seemingly endless ways to hide and thrive and re-invent in the dark recesses of fear and deprivation. The news through the yuletide period into the New Year has been bleak. I held onto my posts like leftover crackers, not wanting to be trite or uncaring.

Yet the truth of it is that terrible things really do happen everyday to good, ordinary people. There really are ''natural disasters''; the progression of technology is ultimately powerless against the might of the elements or the repeated lessons of human failing. If we have evolved as a species with our Googling of the best ''friendly bacteria'', we must accept that the tiniest, most insignificant-seeming microbe might grow and mutate and find alien ways to attack us.

Through it all, life remains essentially an unbidden gift and . Although I have my own boundaries, incidents and situations I would never make light of or joke about, I also respect the resilience of the smile. As I unashamedly believe in God, I believe that we can find the laughter of God everywhere; as often as we can invoke His tears.

We will all die: this is a certainty but no less distressing and even painful for that. Some of us will die young, some old. Some of us will die in planes, on the road, at the hands of another, in an anodyne hospital bed. The truest tragedy is not to have lived up to that moment; not to have said that ''hello'' as much as any goodbye. Not to have made that call, seen that sunset, painted that picture, held that person. Each time we witness the inevitability of our mortality or the indiscriminate lottery of fortune, surely we must find life all the more precious? Death is indeed inevitable but the giving and living of life are unconditionally wondrous, whatever church you will or won't subscribe along the way.

Many of the traditional excesses that found their way onto our Christmas dinner tables or hung around our bedraggled front rooms on New Year's Eve are rooted in the debauched and often cruel carnival that the Romans celebrated at Saturnalia. Depending on your viewpoint, Saturn was the resident god of seeds and harvest, liberation and wealth, waging war and death, Saturn's festival would run in the Julian calendar from around 17th December for more than a week. Animal and even human life was sacrificed, fires were lit, huge feasts consumed, lavish gifts and displays of affection and lust were exchanged. Within the continual partying, drunkenness, extravagant costumes, ribald humour and wild sex were to be expected. It was probably not unlike Brighton's West Street at dusk in the run-up to Christmas Eve.

At it's most innocuous, Saturnalia was also a festival of lights leading up to the winter solstice, with an abundance of candles lighting the quest for knowledge and truth. The advent of the new year was celebrated in the later Roman empire with the feast of the "Sol Invictus"; the Unconquerable Sun...

Our baubled Christmas trees and bumbled kisses under the mistletoe are steeped in Roman pagan beliefs. My own tree, Noel, now in his ninth year, is currently flickering outside my back door. His outdoor lights may be from B & Q, but his triangular shape and evergreen presence are rooted (sorry) in the conversion of pagan festivity to Christian celebration, with symbolism evolving to illustrate the holy trinity and eternal life.

I wondered where Christmas crackers originated from and was surprised to learn they only surfaced in 1840s Europe. One Tom Smith, a noted purveyor of confectionery, created larger "bon-bons", wrapped with a twist at the end. He inserted little love messages and tokens into the bon-bons; then small gifts, mottos and jokes. He latter added the banger mechanism to emulate the crackle and pop of  yuletide fires and fireworks. The revised name "cracker" is onomatopoeic. The inclusion of paper crowns takes us right back to Romans; even the servants would play at being kings for a few days.

Finding absurdity and joy in the nitty-gritty minutiae and harshest realities of life truly is as ancient as looking to the stars for miracles.

 

"Semper Saturnalia agunt. (They're always celebrating Saturnalia.)"

(Petronius)

 

"Non semper Saturnalia erunt. (It won't always be Saturnalia-time.)"

(Seneca)

"In Dulce Jubilo"  Mike Oldfield

 

 

(Photo: Gigi, album)

Noel the Christmas Tree; Comfort and Joy, from my home to yours x

 

'Twas the Twelfth Night after Christmas...

(All photos: Gigi, album)

 

"And all those sayings will I overswear;
And those swearings keep as true in soul
As doth that orbèd continent the fire
That severs day from night."

(All quotations: "Twelfth Night", William Shakespeare) 

 

I used to feel quite melancholy on the evening of "Twelfth Night"; I don't like taking decorations and lights down and packing away Christmas for another year. Traditionally, I think many people believe that's exactly what the twelfth day of Christmas is: an ending of festivities, sensitivities and niceties.

Twelfth Night for the western Christian Church also commemorates the Epiphany, from the Greek word meaning of striking or unusual appearance; when some learned men and others followed an exceptionally bright comet to Christ's birthplace. The eastern churches also celebrates the infant's baptism by John the Baptist around this time, although their adherence to the Julian calendar would bring their Epiphany to around 19th January in our New Year diaries.

Some confusion persists in whether Twelfth Night falls on 5th or 6th January. The old Celtic tradition of the new day starting at sundown rather than midnight seems to pull the twelfth day of Christmas back to 5th January. My Mum always said it was unlucky to leave the Christmas decorations up after Twelfth Night; so the Roman Catholic me went off to mass to celebrate Epiphany yesterday morning and the half-Oirish, superstitious me made sure the lights, garlands and beads were down by midnight.

Particular attention has been paid to Twelfth Night for many centuries. It marks the end of a traditional winter festival that actually starts on All Hallows Eve back in October. It feted the pagan "Lord of Misrule", who turned the seen world upside down and reversed fortunes; so kings would become peasants and vice versa. In theory of course.

Shakespeare's play "Twelfth Night" or "What You Will" was written especially to be performed on this date. His play has many reversed elements, including a leading female role disguised as a man and a servant who pictures himself as a nobleman. The Christian story poignantly and pertinently turns the world upside down, with nobles and wise men humbled by a newborn baby and shepherds chosen to witness the birth of a king. Interestingly, Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is the only one of his plays that makes no reference to children at all.

 

Initially this morning, my home and garden looked quite bare without festive decorations. My long-suffering Christmas tree (Noel), now in his ninth year and his biggest pot ever, has come a long way since his own humble beginnings as a "disposable" Christmas decoration for the mantelpiece. He was the tiniest of the small potted pine tree cuttings in the Lewisham branch of Sainsbury's; he looked pathetically cute when I bought him for £1 as a little extra for Mum and my cat Sooty. He now guards my Brighton back-yard and I have to stand on the storage bench to fix his star properly. In my eccentric little way, I like to think he enjoys the dressing up, although that wouldn't be unusual in Brighton, even for a tree.

Between work shifts and 'phone calls, I managed to get all the trimmings untied and unravelled in time, fortified by crumpets with humours and cranberries; another quirk of mine. My sister gave me a bottle of Celtic mead at Christmas and I've discovered this goes down very neatly with ginger ale. My blogger friend Pagan Annie has said she's pleased that the blog is continuing, but would like more recipes. So included here for her is the traditional recipe for the old wassailers (literally, "apple howlers"), who drank as they sang as they went at both Halloween and Twelfth Night.

It would be lovely to see the twelfth day of Christmas as a new chapter of kindness and hopefulness, rather than the packing away of merry togetherness, gratuitous cards, gifts and greetings and goodwill to all with the tinsel and baubles. Family, friends and faith in the future really should be forever. not just for Christmas.

 

"Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools, let them use their talents."  

 

 

"But rather reason thus with reason fetter:

Love sought is good but given unsought is better."

 

 

The Lambswool Wassail

1.5 Litres (3 x 500ml bottles) of traditional real ale or traditional cider
6 small cooking apples, cored
2 tablespoons of grated nutmeg
1 tablespoon of ground ginger
150g brown sugar (Demerara)
Preheat the oven to 120C.
Prepare the apples in advance, so they're ready when you want to put them into the ale to serve.
The apples should be fully cored, with no pips.
Lightly grease the baking tray. Place the apples on the baking tray about 6cm (2 inches) apart – they will swell.
Bake the apples at 120C for about an hour, so they become soft and pulpy and the skins are easy to peel away.
In a large thick bottomed saucepan add the sugar and a small amount of the ale (or cider) and heat gently.
Stir continuously until the sugar has dissolved. Then add in the ground ginger and the grated nutmeg.
Stir, and keeping the pan on a gentle simmer, slowly add in all the rest of the ale.
Leave for 10 minutes on a gentle heat.
Take the baked apples out of the oven to cool for 10 minutes.
Break open the apples and scoop the baked flesh into a bowl, discarding the skin.
Mash the apple pulp while it's still warm, into a smooth purée.
Add the apple purée into the ale and whisk.
Warm everything through for thirty minutes, on a gentle heat, until ready to drink.
Whisk again for a couple of minutes, vigorously frothing the drink up.
The apple froth will float to the surface, looking "woolly"!
To traditionally froth drinks up they were normally poured continuously between two large serving jugs to get air into the drink.
Ladle the Lambswool into heat-proof mugs or glasses, topped with some grated nutmeg; share, drink and be merry!

 

 

"A Spaceman Came Travelling"  Gregorian (version)

  

"Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them."