Chapter 184
.Merriness, Happiness, Togetherness, Kindness… do it all! Make someone else happy in this season of the darkest days, the longest nights. Celebrate the turning of the season as we drift through December 21st, the Winter Solstice. Allegedly this marks the beginning of winter, but we often greet winter here much earlier than the third week of December. Many of you will be deep into winter activities and festivities by the time the solstice rolls around.
Historically, celebrations around this time were centered around communal gatherings giving offerings to the gods in thanks and for protection through the coming seasons. Honouring the sun was the focus for most people for many centuries. The solstice celebration at Stonehenge in England is still a phenomenon that is stunning to behold. People celebrate the passing of the shortest days and the return of the sun, as from this day forth the days get longer – yaay!
In the slightly non-conformist household of my youth, we used to observe old traditions, it was a pre-Dickensian Christmas affair. The majority of the christian globe now thinks of Dickens’ turkey, mistletoe, goodwill to all (and Scrooge) as “old tradition”. Dickens homogenized and reinvigorated a bunch of traditions from various times in history to create his “A Christmas Carol” a mere 182 years ago. Prior to that, Victorian Christmases were fairly nondescript single- day affairs. Back in the middle ages, there were feasting and prolonged celebrations aplenty.
I remember an assortment of interesting recipes making appearances around Christmas-time, including slow-roasted goose and salt beef. I don’t believe a turkey ever graced the table in our household. The pudding, on the other hand, did owe much to the Victorians. From a Medieval version of sausage with spices, fruits were added and meats eventually disappeared. The preparation of the pudding took place a month or two earlier…silver sixpences were secreted in a pudding made almost entirely of alcohol-marinated dried fruits with a smattering of fat and flour to hold it together. Our puddings were stirred in a giant terracotta pancheon – in itself a rather ancient piece of kitchenware – before steaming for hours and then packing away in the back of a cupboard until the great day arrived.
As a child, before the installation of fridge and freezer was ubiquitous in all households, before the shipping of various exotic fruits and vegetables around the globe was considered the norm, we were delighted to wake on Christmas morning to find a sock at the foot of the bed, filled with coloured paper, pencils, string, chocolates, nuts and… an ORANGE! The orange or tangerine filled the toe of the sock and was considered a great delicacy.
Visiting family over this season usually involved a long journey by road from one end of England to the other. Prior to construction of all the motorways, the journey was generally of several, to many hours, in length… brightened by the game of Christmas-Tree-spotting in the living rooms we could see along the roadsides. I remember a Monkey Puzzle Tree in a garden somewhere, followed shortly thereafter by a stretch of stone wall and a cluster of Red Hot Poker Plants which represented an exciting milestone, indicating that the end of the journey was coming close.
Gathering with our family, we were entertained by good old parlour games, including some sort of a ghost game that I never fathomed and now never will as those family members who held the secret of how it worked are now dead and gone.
Such traditions can pass from knowledge so simply. Talk to your friends and family, make a record of things. Share recipes and games. Pass them on.
We are the past, the present and the future. Long may it continue in harmony and light.
Kat Dancer
bodymudra@gmail.com,
+1 415 525 2630 (ph/whatsapp)
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