Last Sunday night was the first night of Hanukkah and we held a little celebration. I told the story of the miracle of lights as we lit the candles. We played dreidel. We didn’t have any Hanukkahgeld, so we used beans. We had latkes for dinner served with sour cream and applesauce. For dessert we had donuts filled with whipped cream and raspberry jelly that Miriam made. It was a fun evening. The girls especially loved it.
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| Playing dreidel while we wait for dinner. |
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| Whipped cream and jelly filled donuts that Miriam made. |
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| Lighting the menorahs. |
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| Our Hanukkah dinner. |
On Monday afternoon the Thayns left for home. After having the girls here for a week and then the whole family here during the Thanksgiving weekend, the house seemed lonely after they left. But they will be back in a few weeks to celebrate Christmas with us. Josiah will be home from school by then and the Fosters are coming too, so the house will be full and happy again.
We left November behind and crossed into December last week. We marked the passage here by decorating. We already had the outdoor Christmas lights up, but on Tuesday we decorated the inside of the house. We cleared away the usual items that adorn the house – the photos and knick-knacks – and set up the special items we use to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year (that’s what Andy Williams calls it). We put up garland and hung bells on the doors, we set out our collection of Santa and Christmas tree figurines. And we set up our Nativities. We have three big Nativities and lots of little ones that we placed in their traditional places. So our house is decorated now except for the Christmas tree, which won’t go up until the 6th. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas at our house.
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| Some of our Nativities. |
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| A cabinet (with a mirrored back) full of little Nativities. |
Outdoors it was looking pretty Christmassy too, a regular winter wonderland with four inches of snow on the ground and the trees decked in white. But then on Thursday the weather warmed into the 40's and melted most of it, leaving only dirty, crusty patches here and there, not at all pretty. I was actually glad to see the bare ground again knowing that I probably won’t see much of it over the next months. I have a love/hate relationship with snow. I love it when it behaves as I want it to and hate it when it doesn’t. If only it would do as I wish, winter would be so much more pleasant. I only want snow from mid-December to mid-February. When it’s here, I want it to be like it was for Good King Wenceslas, deep and crisp and even, but without the cruel frost and rude wind’s wild lament part. And by deep, I mean not to exceed two feet. And on and around December 25th, I want it to create an Irving Berlin-ish white Christmas, just like the ones I use to know with tree tops glistening etc., although I’ve never heard sleigh bells in the snow. But snow almost always misbehaves. It comes too early, stays too late, gets ugly and mushy, and often completely forsakes us right at Christmastime.
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| How things looked at the beginning of the week. |
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| How they looked later in the week. |
Speaking of Good King Wenceslas, I finished A Time of Gifts, the first volume of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s account of his youthful trek across Europe in 1934-35. It ends with him having traveled across Holland, Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, and ready to cross the Danube into Hungary. During his time in Czechoslovakia, he mentions Saint Wenceslas, which made me think of the carol, which made me do a bit of research. I love knowing the stories connected to the carols. Good King Wenceslas was not a king. He was actually Wenceslaus I (c. 911 – 28 September 935), or in Czech, Václav I, Duke of Bohemia. He was a popular leader known for his charitable works, but he came to a bloody end. On September 28, 935, his younger brother, Boleslav (called the Cruel), invited Wenceslaus to a celebration of the feast of Saints Cosmas and Damian. At the steps to the church, Boleslav and three of his companions stabbed Wenceslaus to death. His martyrdom and his reputation for kindness and virtue and the miracles attributed to him resulted in him being declared a saint in 984. He was also posthumously declared to be a king and became the patron saint of Bohemia (the Czech state). He is buried in the Cathedral of St. Vitus in Prague in an ornate chapel where, on the direction of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, St. Wenceslaus’ skull was girded with a crown of gold. Knowing that kind of makes you see the Christmas carol in a whole new light.
on the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about,
deep and crisp and even;
Brightly shone the moon that night,
tho’ the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight,
gath’ring winter fuel.
if thou know’st it, telling,
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?”
“Sire, he lives a good league hence,
underneath the mountain;
Right against the forest fence,
by Saint Agnes’ fountain.”
bring me pine logs hither:
Thou and I will see him dine,
when we bear them thither.”
Page and monarch, forth they went,
forth they went together;
Through the rude wind’s wild lament
and the bitter weather.
and the wind blows stronger;
Fails my heart, I know not how;
I can go no longer.”
“Mark my footsteps, good my page.
Tread thou in them boldly
Thou shalt find the winter’s rage
freeze thy blood less coldly.”
where the snow lay dinted;
Heat was in the very sod
which the saint had printed.
Therefore, Christian men, be sure,
wealth or rank possessing,
Ye who now will bless the poor,
shall yourselves find blessing.
In 1853, English hymn writer John Mason Neale wrote those lyrics which he set to the melody of the 13th-century spring carol Tempus adest floridum (The time of flowers has come). I’ve always liked Good King Wenceslas, but many music critics do not. When the Oxford Book of Carols was published in 1928, the compilers included the carol but wrote (read this in a posh, rather stuffy British accent):
“This rather confused narrative owes its popularity to the delightful tune, which is that of a Spring carol, ‘Tempus adest floridum.’ Unfortunately Neale in 1853 substituted for the Spring carol this ‘Good King Wenceslas,’ one of his less happy pieces, which E. Duncan goes so far as to call ‘doggerel’, and Bullen condemns as ‘poor and commonplace to the last degree’. The time has not yet come for a comprehensive book to discard it; but we reprint the tune in its proper setting . . . not without hope that, with the present wealth of carols for Christmas, ‘Good King Wenceslas’ may gradually pass into disuse, and the tune be restored to spring-time.”
Ninety-three years later, I’ve never heard anyone sing Tempus adest floridum and we are, happily, still singing Good King Wenceslas.
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| Wenceslas as depicted in a carol book, at his murder, and on an icon. |
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| St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague, St. Wenceslaus chapel in the Catherdral, St. Wenceslaus' skull. |
Most of the week was quiet here. I don’t remember doing much other than the usual routine. After the snow left midweek, I took longer walks in the mornings. The garden is drab. The lawn is browning. The trees are bare. I discovered a little patch of johnny-jump-ups (Viola tricolor) blooming in the garden duff and it made me happy. As I walk, I envision and plan what will happen when spring comes. The sun is almost at its southernmost rising and setting points. It makes only a small arc across the sky now. Our weather has been cloudy for the most part, but there have been a few pink sunrises. When the sun does shine, it feels weak and if the wind is blowing at all, it has little warmth in it.
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| Drab garden. |
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| Johnny-jump-ups in December. |
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| A pretty pink sunrise last week. |
Miriam has been busy preparing for the festivities ahead. She bakes almost every day – bread, cookies, brownies. Most of it goes into the freezer to await future celebrations, but some of it gets eaten immediately. I love Christmas treats. I think this week I will make a fruitcake and set it to age.
We are home from church. We’ve eaten lunch. There’s still a little time before I need to do the chores. I think there’s time for a nap. And then there is the week ahead. We’ve decided to get our Christmas tree tomorrow for Family Home Evening. So many exciting things coming.
