Good Yule!

As a solitary pagan with no fixed roots I like to celebrate Yule.

The traditional twelve days, which begins on 21st December with the Winter Solstice (yes I know, technically that is on the 22nd this year  but hey 🙂  ), covers Christmas, in some years also takes in Hannukah and ends on the 1st January with the welcoming of a new year.

It covers all bases so what’s not to like!

Whatever your personal celebration blessings I wish good fortune to you as one year ends and the next hoves into view.

Good Yule everyone,  and may 2024 treat us all well.

Christmas Bird – Merry Christmas All!! Sussex Tales #free story #christmas

Getting the Christmas Bird
A Tale of Christmas

‘It’s a one-legged Woozlum.’ My father assured me. ‘It’s a cross between an Oozlum and a Woozle. Very rare.’

I looked down at the row of small round holes that trailed through the snow next to our bootprints and snorted both amusement and exasperation. I loved my fathers’ elaborate jokes but there were times when he drove me mad. This one may have worked when I was five but not anymore.

The sledge was heaped high with dark-leaved holly, bundles of ivy, fir swathes and my favourite, the gleaming, orange/pink fruited spindle. I knew they were far more than necessary, but I adored the Christmas ritual of Gathering-the-Greens. It was only I that was really interested, but with my father’s help I always made an occasion of it. We had gathered evergreens for swags and left the sledge near the ram’s shed before heading toward the Top Close where two-dozen steers were kept on deep litter for the winter months.

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Let There Be Light… #christmastrees #christmaslights

Ours is not a house where decorations are gone into in any great quantity but I do usually stretch to a tree and a few bits and bobs.

The tiny fibre-optic tree in the dining toom was simple – out of the box and plug it in.

Then came the front room – something more of a mission. But as it was a cold day and Yule is just 11 days away it seemed as good a time as any to deck the halls. I had tested both sets of tree lights a couple of days ago. Both worked so I didn’t buy any more whilst we were out shopping yesterday. This afternoon when I got them all out I tested them again.

All was well…

A little rant

Whilst shopping today in the local high st  what can only be described as an ear splitting wail of sheer despair rose up above the crowd. It was a chilling sound that brought the street almost to a standstill as we all searched for the source of that heart-rending cry.

Some distance away, across the main square, a young woman was fleeing from the bank (?- may have been a shop), with a handful of papers, yelling  at the top of her lungs in obvious distress. She scuttled across the square and into an alleyway between shops on the far side, but her anguish could still be heard quite plainly. This was a full scale melt-down in progress.

Christmas Ghosts – Free story for one week only!

Concerning the Events in Leinster Gardens

(Title story from  Leinster Gardens & Other Subtleties (c) Jan Edwards)

The paving under his feet rumbled, setting shivers up through the soles of his boots. It was the Tube; only trains, he knew that. The ginger-moustachioed officer told him, as he’d sold Archie his ticket, how the Metropolitan Line ran right through the street, and laughed as he spoke of it. Archie had laughed along with him, though he felt less than amused now.

‘Number twenty-four.’ He checked the card again, sure that he had come to the right place. The door was solid enough beneath its ionic portico. The perfectly normal balustrade on either side of the perfectly normal step was all perfectly normal for a Regency terrace. But unlike the other residences in Leinster Gardens, there were no lights showing in any of its windows. Even without a Ball, and even if the family were not at home, servants would keep lamps burning in this kind of household. The only sign of life was a small tabby cat perched on the end of the balustrade.

‘This is all a bit wet,’ he told it. ‘Dashed poor show.’

The cat only stretched onto its toes and pulled its lips back in a silent hiss before slinking into the basement stairwell.

Archie looked at the lit windows all along the row, noting how a few drapes had been left daringly undrawn, the better to show off electrical Christmas lights; welcoming beacons for the late-night walkers. When he turned back to his dark destination he almost fell off the stoop, because in that short moment all things had changed.

Sussex Tales Christmas

It’s a one-legged Woozlum.’ My father assured me. ‘It’s a cross between an Oozlum and a Woozle. Very rare.’
I looked down at the row of small round holes that trailed through the snow next to our bootprints and snorted both amusement and exasperation. I loved my fathers’ elaborate jokes but there were times when he drove me mad. This one may have worked when I was five but not anymore.
The sledge was heaped high with dark-leaved holly, bundles of ivy, fir swathes and my favourite, the gleaming, orange/pink fruited spindle. I knew they were far more than necessary, but I adored the Christmas ritual of Gathering-the-Greens. It was only I that was really interested, but with my father’s help I always made an occasion of it. We had gathered evergreens for swags and left the sledge near the ram’s shed before heading toward the Top Close where two-dozen steers were kept on deep litter for the winter months.
It had snowed hard that morning, and the sky promised a lot more to come. Leaden cloud layers spanned the sky and a stiff wind was blowing from the north.

(Extract from Sussex Tales – Christmas Bird) (available here – paper and kindle)

 

Christmas Revenge…

I saw this meme today that reminded me of the battle my dad waged with his sister over who could buy the worst (from parents POV) xmas gifts for my cousin and my brothers respectively.

 

 

 

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Ghost of Family Xmases Past

Reading  posts across various blogs about Christmases-past-and-present has set me thinking about the family traditions of my own childhood, and at the risk of sounding terribly boring ours were nothing out of the ordinary.

My family did the usual things familiar to all the length and breadth of these islands. We ate too much food, watched too much tv, played board games and ate even more food. As my father had just one sister, and Sussex was too far from Mother’s Welsh clans, Christmas was always celebrated among we five; my parents, my two elder brothers and me.

Christmas Past and Present

After memories from Misha Herwin come Barry Lilly’s Christmas

‘Below the Plimsoll Line’ – a ‘Captain Georgi’ Mini Christmas Adventure

Emelia Hartwood ushered Cpt Georgi into the library to view the scene for herself. Tattered remains of evergreen swags littered the fireplace and shelves and floor. A set of rolling-steps stood away from the book-lined walls at an alarming angle, dripping a straggle of bloodstained ivy from its handrail. The reading table that was untouched by the carnage held a model merchant ship laid up in polished oak dry dock and a Naval sword lounging across a matching stand.

Christmas Food

Misha’s Christmas food marathon

Misha Herwin

No, not the traditional turkey, goose, chicken, beef or pork. A pot full of golombki is one of the dishes we will be eating this Christmas Eve.

Because of my Polish family, my children were brought up celebrating both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  Which meant cooking two different meals.

On the night before Christmas we laid the table, putting wisps of hay, or straw under the cloth to remind us of Jesus in the manger. Then the youngest was set to look out for the first star, or that at least was the theory and it did give the kids something to do.

Once the star was sighted then Christmas could begin. First the baby Jesus was put in our homemade crib, then came the distribution of the oplatek. The thin wafer, like communion bread, that in those days was sent to us by our family in Poland. Each person took a…

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