"St. Lucia invites you to Breakfast!"
This is the book my daughter read and took to heart so much she made
a special breakfast for her brothers, and served it dressed just like this!
This year, at Christmas, we are giving this book to eldest Grand!
I think Howard can cede first place to Santa Lucia today. (Although the cautious modernist in me suggests that electric candles powered by a battery would be a good idea.)
ReplyDeleteAnd here’s another outstanding person:
Jose Mujica [Click]
I have read of Jose Mujica before, but this is a very nice little piece about the President of Uruguay. Such leaders do not grow on trees, and never have.
—Alan
I mostly agree about the use of electric candles for the top of little girls' heads. In the days before they were invented, however, my daughter did wear a ring of real candles on her head, and yes we lighted them. We made the inner part of the Lucia crown out of layers of aluminum foil which entirely covered the crown of her head. ;-)
DeleteRe-reading the Wikipedia article on Santa Lucia, I am reminded that her feast day was originally on the Winter Solstice, which would put it twelve days or so before Old Christmas if I am not mistaken. Return of the light, and all that.
ReplyDelete—Alan
I got a letter from the American Chemical Society today. Informing me that I have now been a member for 50 years. Wow!
ReplyDeletePenny got the same letter.
Wow! Congratulations!!
DeleteWhat sort of professions are associated with the American Chemical Society? I once knew a guy who worked for Dupont as an engineer, and I knew a chemist who worked for the New England Aquarium.
Essentially anyone with a degree in chemistry or chemical engineering. Assuming the DuPont guy was a chemical engineer rather than some other kind of engineer, both would have been eligible.
DeleteAlan, got any good poems or readings for a Winter Solstice event? I recently rediscovered that while Christianity is 2000 years old and Hanukkah is 4000 years old, Solstice is 32,000 years old. We have one family member who gets miffed that the rest of us celebrate one of the newer traditions. She feels that Christianity takes all the fun out of everything and that the pagan traditions are best. Then I read about the Hunting of the Wren…a pagan tradition of spearing a wren which dates back to fertility rites, and was later co-opted (like so much else) as a Christian custom allegedly because some wren betrayed St. Stephen to those who stoned him. Egads. My take on all of it is that there is crap in all faiths or atheisms, and that God, the gods and fate get blamed for a lot of stuff that humans made up and can't forgive themselves for. All that said, I want to find a way of including her tradition in our family gathering, because it will begin on the day of the Winter Solstice. She'll hate whatever we do, but we will know we tried.
ReplyDeleteHunting of the Wren is a new one for me, too--sounds absolutely barbaric!
DeleteNothing comes to mind for a Winter Solstice reading, but I will see what I can find without working much [grin]. I wonder about Saturnalia... the apocryphal story is that Roman Christians decided to celebrate Christmas during Saturnalia as a way of giving it some protective coloring. During Saturnalia people visited friends, exchanged gifts, and so forth.
--Alan
--Alan
Mithra's birthday is also on the solstice (since he is a sun angel), so having Christmas on almost the same date made it easier for the Mithra-worshipers who dominated the later Roman legions to conform to Constantine's Christianity.
DeleteSo far this is the best we've found:
ReplyDeleteThe Shortest Day by Susan Cooper
So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive,
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - Listen!!
All the long echoes sing the same delight,
This shortest day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, fest, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!!
There ought to be some useful leads HERE [Click]. Sol Invictus (a very inclusive holiday, that) looks particularly promising, as does Yule.
DeleteFollowing excerpted from here [Click].
Midwinter(Yule)..."Practices vary, but sacrifices, feasting, and gift giving are common elements of Midwinter festivities. Bringing sprigs and wreaths of evergreenery (such as holly, ivy, mistletoe, yew, and pine) into the home and tree decorating are also common during this time."
Hope this helps; can't say as readings have ever been a part of holiday celebrations in my family. Mistletoe and holly have certainly been symbols of life at midwinter since time immemorial. Hmmm....I am reminded that Midsummer is the time to set out hay for Sleppnir.
--Alan
--Alan
Today the Jesuits and other employes, volunteers and friends of the Xavier Society for the Blind processed with their statue of St. Lucy from their old digs to their new ones. That must have been quite a sight. But New York being what it is, I suspect no one even noticed, much less thought it odd.
ReplyDeleteIt certainly sounds appropriate; good for them.
Delete--Alan
I currently have two books going, A Star Shall Fall, a Fantasy novel dealing with the return of Halley's Comet in 1758 and the problem this poses for the fairies of the Onyx Court beneath London - They banished the dragon that caused the Great Fire of London to this comet, oops! - and Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter.
ReplyDeleteSnow is forecast here for Saturday and Sunday along with some frigid temps. Glad I don't have anywhere to go!