Auld Lang Syne

It's January, and even though we've been in the New Year for nearly 72 hours, I'm still drawn dreamily back into December and earlier days of Christmastide. Most every year I feel this way, and I can't exactly put my finger on why...I just do. Maybe it's because December is co closely linked with a kinder, gentler time in my life, when things were a little less unsure. Maybe because December holds the Magick we imagine the rest of the year. Most of my childhood memories-good and bad-are set in the homey warmth of this time of year.

It's good to simply be still and remember.

Oneness and Salvation

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Oneness and salvation...two words that most Pagans shy away from using or have banned from our vocabulary. The memories attached to them are sometimes painful and infuriating when placed in  the context of a former religious tradition. Why? Because words have power. They evoke memories which cause us to relive situations. What we miss in our hurry to cast off words such as these is that the power they have is infused by us-we ourselves give them power. Words are just tools, and until we realize that it's not the words that are the cause of our knee jerk reaction and  gut-wrenching pain, but our definition of them, we are going to be slaves to the negativity we ourselves create. Oneness is the unity of many parts:it is that which has come together.

Just being together is generally a good thing. Sometimes it's a necessary thing. We are not so much independent as we are interdependent. Our existence matters to others, and that's why we get together for conversation and dialogue, to sing and dance, to simply be.

The need to be together surfaces intensely during the winter holidays. Perhaps it's something in our genetic code that relates directly to our tribal origins. We gather to remember things we did together, things and people we have lost, traditions we hold dear. We gather to share the stories and beautiful music of the season. We gather to witness the return of the light and to experience our mortality. We gather to celebrate.

And celebrate we do! We bring evergreens inside our homes, stake up a tree and decorate it with fantastic and magickal baubles. We feast and make merry. We grow close and love. Our last days of the waning year are mostly spent in a frantic observance of hilarity and excess, which for the most part, is intended to make us happy. We make magick in the mundane, and it is the only time of the year when it is not only acceptable, it is expected.

We expect miracles out of nowhere. Out of thin air, the most dark, dank, boring  everyday parts of our lives are suddenly supposed to be transformed into something glorious. Because...Everything looks better with glitter.  In those precious few days at the end of the calendar, we ought to renew and transcend ourselves. Few of us actually know how, and this, I believe, is what causes what we've come to know as the 'holiday blues'. When our high expectation falls flat or is not met, we suddenly sink into the dark and cold parts of our souls, defeated. What were we thinking? Why did we dare to dream? The demon of depression sits heavily on our shoulder, and he has our ear.

The fact is that life goes on, even without us. That puts our existence into perspective. We are here now, and tomorrow we will be gone. What makes that matter is what we do with our time here, and who and what we love. These last few precious days of being gathered together with a singular focus is the only time for some when it is safe to love, as if they need permission or an excuse. Love, however we define it, bids us to come closer. It enjoins us to become one, and our Oneness, our recognition of our being a part of something larger than ourselves, is our true salvation.

The Reason For The Season-Revisited

We all get our very own reason for the season, and in the larger scheme of things, I honestly don't believe it matters what that is. We're in the final weeks of a dying year...Good, bad or otherwise we made it through another one!  That alone is  cause enough for celebration. Let's go out with a bang, we deserve it just for hanging in there!

The Nativity story transcends the birth of Jesus; in fact, it goes beyond the birth of any one we hold as a god. What I see is the never ending saga of our own birth and rebirth. In that old story I hear the echoes of the story of our own creation. I see the nativity of all of us, not just one, because every child is a Divine Child born of Mystery. I see parents in a committed relationship who have endured hardship, who have risen above, who have endured. I see their devotion to one another, and to the new life they've brought into the world. I don't just see Mary and Joesph...I see Tom and Mary...or Mary and Susan...or Tom and Joesph... and their child. Every child is a gift and we are all Divine.

The reason for the season is being born into Life. It is enough without all the trappings of myth and folklore ( which does, admittedly, make it more interesting). Please do drag out the decorations to brighten your home in the drab, long days of winter...which are drab and long even if you live in sunny Southern California or Florida because winter is as much a mindset as a season. Bring in the evergreens and light the candles. Hang your stockings with care, because a jolly old elf with a sleigh full of goodies just might stop by while you're taking a long winter nap. Pull everything out of the fridge, raid the cupboards and put out a feast...and don't forget to invite the neighbors because they probably feel just as crappy as you do right about now. Misery really does love company, so have a party. Have a drink and don't be afraid to be silly, because it will make you feel better. Let loose and sing until you're hoarse or someone calls the cops...Ring up someone you haven't seen in awhile and tell them you miss them...and don't be afraid to cry because you miss someone who's no longer here.

The reason for the season is whatever you want it to be. Okay, if you STILL need a reason, it's the Solstice. It's all science, folks. Hallelujah and pass the eggnog!

Remembering Love

It's just a tiny ornament, one inch long and half an inch wide. Sandwiched between two small pieces of glass is a faded, brown little flower, with the word
"Love" etched below. It's held together by a bit of metal foil and hangs by a frayed red ribbon.

It means the world to me.

We were standing in front of a shop  window filled with etched glass ornaments and sun catchers in Baltimore's Inner Harbor in mid- September,having walked from Camden Yards where we'd spent a relaxing afternoon watching the O's. Frankly, I'm not much for baseball-I'm not a fan of any sports, really: Occasionally I watch the Olympics. On this particular day I'd made the 90 minute drive down I-95 to volunteer on the crew at a charitable event John was playing for the regional Cerebral  Palsy agency, and we would be attending the Orioles game prior to the concert. Some of us took a side trip through the Inner Harbor just to window shop and came upon this glass shop.

The rather plain rectangle was quietly put into my hand. It was wrapped in a piece of white tissue paper. There was a tiny pressed purple and white violet and the word "Love" etched into the glass. It would look cute on my Christmas tree and join in the eclectic riot of ornaments that I carefully packed away each year. There were no accompanying pronouncements of love, just a low-key, non-romantic "Here you go-from me."  John had brought me ornaments from all over the world for my collection, so we'd gone through this particular ritual for years; most of the time something would arrive in the mail followed a day later by a phone call. Occasionally, like this day, the babble in question would be handed to me in person.

Nothing appeared special about the little glass rectangle when it was pressed into my hand. Nothing at all.

Except it would be the last ornament John ever gave me. He was killed in a plane crash three weeks later. I was devastated not by his dying, but by the separation of death. I wanted him back. I still do.

I'd forgotten about the little glass rectangle until I found it still wrapped in the tissue paper tucked deep in the pocket of my purse one day in early December. It was just in time to put it on the tree with my other pretties and twinkling lights. John had been dead exactly two months to the very day I placed it on a high branch so the cats wouldn't disturb it. Back lit by the lights on the tree, the edges of the etched letters made tiny dancing stars.

Fifteen Christmases have passed since John died, yet he's still with me. This one particular little piece of sparkling glass is always hung at eye-level so I can pick it out easily it every time I  look at my holiday tree. Admittedly, it is not as pretty as it used to be since the flower faded. But I remember what it looked like when it was new, and that's what I see, a delicate purple and white violet. Violets, in the language of flowers, have many meanings: friendship, love, remembrance, resurrection, rebirth... an un-ending promise. The ancient Romans laid violets on the graves of loved ones to denote continued affection after death. This is what enters my subconscious every time the little ornament catches my eye. It tells me that our friendship has endured beyond the veil and is still present even today. It says that the relationship not only continues, but will bring us back together at another time and place.

Another wonder of this magickal season, where Mystery reminds us of the fragility of Life and Love.

My Reason for the Season

We do not live isolated from one another, nor does our society exist in a vacuum. We are a nation of people from many countries and religious backgrounds. We all have a constitutional right to celebrate and worship as we so choose.  It is in that spirit that I firmly believe that no single group or religious entity has sole sovereignty to dictate how we greet one another in the spirit of goodwill.

Crammed into the period we celebrate as the winter holiday season, there are four weeks of Advent... Ashura...Ramadan ... Feast of St.Nickolas...Feast of Santa Lucia...Enlightenment of the Buddha(Bodhi Day)...Pearl Harbor Day...Hanukkah...Feast of Guadalupe...Winter Solstice...Yule...Los Posadas...Festivus...Christmas...Feast of Mithras...Saturnalia... Winter Skoal...Boxing Day...Kwanzaa...New Year's Day...Feast of Janus...Epiphany...Three  Kings Day...Orthodox Christmas...and a few I'm certain I've forgotten. It's not an all inclusive list and there are many ancient feast days being reconstructed as quickly as this list is printed.

The point is that there are many holidays in December--Christmas being only one of them. Jesus is  the "Reason for the Season" for only a select group in the population. Non-Christians and those who declare no affiliation but are spiritual out-number Christians by two thirds in the world population. That should tone the herald trumpets down just a tad. I admit that I am disheartened and slightly disgusted by the yearly outbreak of  the 'my religion is the reason for the season' hubris. To begin with, the actual, scientific reason for the season is the tilt of the Earth which creates the solstice. Everything else is a matter of faith, dogma and conjecture heaped up by humans. It's all mythology -not a bad thing because our ancestors used folklore to explain natural events. Weaving a metaphysical tapestry to wrap themselves in was comforting. The natural world was less merciless and frightening if there was something humans could relate to in a story.

I will continue to greet my Christian friends with " Merry Christmas", but I will not insult my non-Christian friends- who are Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Baha'i, Pagan, Atheist, Humanist and a various mixture of undeclared spirituality-by intoning "Merry Christmas". I will wish those loved ones a tiding of good will that encompasses their faith tradition without compromising my own: " Happy Holidays"

In the same breath I will admit that I have a knee jerk reaction to reply "Merry Christmas" to anyone who says it to me...purely out of doing so for so many years. The issue I have is with individuals who deliberately force the blessing of their God upon others maliciously and knowing full well there is a hurtful connotation to the recipient. There is a difference between an innocent expression of your faith and intentionally using that expression as a theological weapon. My friend Moz is a Rabbi, and as such always wishes me a "Happy Hanukkah ", meant as a lovely gesture which shares the essence of the Festival of Lights between friends. It is not an attempt to force the tenants of the Hebrew faith on me or co-opt my personal religious beliefs. I take it in the spirit that he means to wish me a similar blessing reflected by the story of how a single day's worth of oil continued to burn for eight days. I gratefully accept his wish for prosperity and unexpected abundance, which is exactly how he means it. He is not trying in anyway to make me a Jew or to assault me with a notion of Jewish superiority. The same goes for the majority of my Christian friends who only wish to share the good tiding and great joy of the birth of their God. I can relate to their excitement, because that is happening in my own faith tradition with the return of Sol Invictus. Neither of us are speaking words of conversion, only joy. That is how I believe it should be.

What does raise my hackles is the in-your-face, chip on the shoulder attitude of some overbearing fundamentalist Christians who have been recently using social networks as a means to spout off to anyone within hearing distance about how an imaginary  unnamed authority is trying to force everyone to give up their God-given right to say "Merry Christmas". This victim mentality causes me to have an urge to puke no matter who or which group is doing the whining, because it is unsubstantiated and maliciously conspiratorial. It plays on the public's emotions in an unethical and immoral manner because it is simply another version of the psychological game of "Someone one is out to get me, ain't it awful?", done purely to elict a gut reaction from others who always cheer the underdog. As if this pathetic grab at attention-getting wasn't enough, it also has an underlying selfishness. It is nothing more than a self-serving cry of false victimization.

This is not the message of peace and brotherhood as told through the story of the birth of Jesus. I will name it what it is: a childishly manipulative attempt to force others to submit to the will of another and it is the providence of bullies.

I'll share a little secret here: I personally hated this nattering bit of bullshit  when I was ministering in the Episcopal Church, and a majority of mainstream Christianity feels the same way I did then and still do now.  The braying of jackasses does not contribute to the song of the heavenly chorus. If saying "Happy Holidays" instead of " Merry Christmas" takes Christ out of Christmas for you it's because you allow it.

We live in a diverse world full of celebration, joy and wonder. Being considerate and respectful of religious holidays  observed by others is a way to begin healing our divisions. It is an authentic way to further dialogue in the mainstream faith community. It's the right and loving thing to do, and it is such a small step to take.



HAPPY HOLIDAYS ! ! !
 

And a Partridge (sort of) in a Christmas Tree...

This is a true story- I swear it. You can't make stuff up like this....It seems this afternoon, after  my house mate decided to open the door to let in a bit of air, a tiny bird found it's way in, also. I was typing away at the previous blog when I heard a commotion behind me in the plants...on the floor between the flower pots was a little brown bird, wide-eyed and panting, scared half to death. It was a Carolina wren, which looks a bit like a common sparrow. The wren was frantic and trying to escape- it had found it's way in through the open door, but  was confused by the floor to ceiling glass windows and kept flying into them. The door to my make-shift bedroom opens into the same mud room, and the door was open....you guessed it. The wren made a bee-line into my room before I could gently direct it out the door.

The Aggressor

 It flew around the room, landed on a book self, then, as if suddenly finding a recognizable perch with some safety...it flew straight into my Christmas tree!

The tree is only four feet tall, not much of a safe place for a frantic little bird, and I began looking through the branches for the poor little critter, intending on grabbing it and putting it out the door. The wren, it seems, had other ideas. It had made friends with a small, brown artificial partridge, the last survivor of a box purchased at a floral supply house at the end of the 1980's.It was sitting very still-trying to hide- next to it's new friend. Truth be known, the artificial avids never actually looked much like partridges...and now that I think about it, peering in to the branches of the tree, it does look a lot like a Carolina wren.

The Victim

The Carolina wren must have though so, too because he deftly stepped up on the artificial bird's back with both feet. Obviously he's not a Rick Springfield fan and has never heard the song, Don't Talk To Strangers. He was friendly...and amorous. 

I had a fleeting, OMG moment when I realized what was about to happen. Mr.Wren thought he had a girl friend. The origin of the word 'bird brain' crossed my mind just as the wren, now frustrated that the object of his affections was not only a tease, she was the bird equivalent of a blow-up doll. His reaction was to begin pecking at the artificial bird until he had pulled all the feathers off it's head and back-"Take that, you phony!" The tree was shaking violently and dried feathers were flying everywhere. There was a lot of flapping and ripping noises.

While he was busy denuding my partridge, I reached in and grabbed him. He let out a surprised little squeak.

He didn't make a sound as I lobbed him out the door. ( I was tempted to hum the Air Force Anthem, Off We Go Into The Wild, Blue Yonder. There were no appropriate Rick Springfield songs for this moment, except maybe, Love Somebody. Well, to be honest, he did try... the feathered little freak.)

I now have a twenty plus year old sad-looking, bald, yellow plastic partridge and a small pile of loose feathers. I'm sure a little Tacky Glue will take care of the problem, but neither the lovely little partridge or I will be the same. Neither will that Carolina wren, I'll bet.

Three Kings and a Bambino Shed

I was serving in what turned out to be my last parish as an Episcopal minister, and it was late Advent. I was the assistant rector in a Revolutionary War era church built of river rock at a cross roads which sat back far enough off the road that the roar of combustion engines was lost to birdsong and organ music. A beautiful building, with white-washed, gated pews and a slave gallery (balcony) just up a winding staircase. It had changed little since it was built, and things were rather cramped by today's standards. I remember it now as a kind of dollhouse/church,the appointments much too low and small for modern men and women.

Father Mark was known around the diocese as a bit of a character: he'd been a university chaplain and when he wasn't appointed a canon by the Bishop in his home diocese (whose politics he was diametrically opposed to) he somehow managed to not only be appointed to that position in the Philippines, he picked up a Doctor of Divinity along the way as well. at one point he was nominated as Diocesan Bishop and his wife told him that " You'll win because people know you." or, " You'll loose because people know you." I thought it was a very Buddhist way of looking a things. Well, Mark lost the election, and he immediately became the rector of the Church at Mill Creek Hundred.

Like all churches that had been in existence for a period of time, Mill Creek Hundred had an eclectic assortment of holiday decorations- things purchased by the Altar Guild for a specifically themed event, or things donated from family clutter. The Nativity set was composed of the latter.

Every Episcopal Church has a Nativity set- Mary, Joesph, the Babe Jesus, a manger, and some hay. The set at Mill Creek Hundred had been expanded over the years by the addition of various odd pieces-Shepard's, angels, animals, birds and many, many sheep and several camels. None of these additional pieces matched the original set and many were of a different scale, which made it a yearly logistics challenge for the dear ladies of the Altar Guild to position figures twice the size of the Holy Family far off in the background so when viewed from the front, they all appeared to be the same size. My favorite piece was a Shepard who looked exactly like Charleston Heston in the role of Moses; at some point he had been dropped and decapitated, and his head hastily glued back into place, only with his Adam's apple on the side of his head so it resembled a goiter. Recalling my first year of Old Testament studies, I determined that Moses had not been present at the Nativity, so this guy had to be a Shepard by process of elimination. Summoning my  art conservation skills honed at NYU, I took him home, decapitated the figure with a Dremel tool,sanded down the offending goiter,and repositioned his head. At the same time I made a couple of cuts through the legs to foreshorten them so he didn't tower over the Manger when positioned at the back among countless sheep of every size and color (including pink and mauve, don't ask...I didn't.)

While I was performing surgery on Moses lost twin, Father Mark was crawling far back into the basement of the church to retrieve what he termed, " The Bambino Shed". (Both Mark and I have a wicked sense of humor and played well off one another; we could make nearly anything into the subject of irreverence and satire, for which we both were brought before the Bishop and warned many times, ha ha...) The Bambino Shed had been recycled out of an old wooden orange crate, the whole outside of it wrapped with 1 inch holed-chicken wire so greenery could be lovingly tucked in by the Altar Guild. Attached to one of the upper cross beams (which had begun it's life as a # 2 lead pencil) was a rather large, out of proportion spun-cotton dove, whose left wing was shortened by the silverfish who also resided in the church basement.)

On December 15th, my job was to take the entire cast of the Nativity home and clean/repair or discreetly dispose of things too unseemly to represent the birth of Jesus.
I patched a camel, a few sheep, and tossed out what I believe might have been a boarder collie, but resembled an anteater by the position of it's snout ( No anteaters at the Holy Birth, either. Sorry. Although the elephants used by one of the Magi had to have come from Africa by the size of their ears...maybe I was hasty throwing out that anteater, er, dog...)

The six elderly ladies who made up the Altar Guild always did a magnificent job of decorating and wasted nothing...The Bambino Shed containing the Holy Family and now covered by greens was lit by a small electric bulb disguised as an angel...The Magi were placed on the opposite side of the Sanctuary and moved daily toward their quest following the star (e.g.,the table upon which the Bambino Shed sat) ...three Magi, a horse, a camel and an elephant, accompanied by servants and chests of gold, frankincense and myrrh, inched their way across the sanctuary floor toward the Bambino Shed, until they all hopped up onto the table holding the other figures on January 6th, the Feast of the Epiphany( an assumption on my part; I never actually saw them do this, although I did inadvertently drink too much communion wine during the three Xmas Eve services that year and teetered dangerously against the Altar Rail, nearly falling over backwards. After that, I learned to pull rank on the ushers and make them finish the blessed sacrament left in the cup, LOL.)

The daily journey of the intrepid Magi, aided by the Altar Guild, was dramatic and quaint. I must admit, however, that I was stymied by the two additional Magi peaking out from beneath the poinsettias surrounding the Lectern ( Who were they? Did someone on the Altar Guild uncover a forgotten text of the Old Testament? Were they the second string-just in case one of the first three didn't make it during the journey following the star to Bethlehem? I wondered, but the wisdom I had gained over the years as a minister told me not to question the mysterious ways of the Altar Guild, and the additional two Magi, their camels and slaves, remained in hiding under the poinsettias until well past the Epiphany.)

At the appointed time on December 25th, at the end of the first service on Christmas Eve, the occupants of the Bambino Shed came alive. There was an audible gasp as the lights were dimmed and the string of white lights positioned among the rocks and trees and cut greens were lit...it was magic.Everything took on a golden glow. The single angel, wearing a tinfoil reflector disguised as a robe lit the inside of the manger, and the Holy Family and visitors were illuminated by the Glory of the Lord (and Edison Electric). I'm pretty certain this was what St. Francis had in mind when he created the first Creche so many Christmases ago to tell the sacred story to the masses.

Love was born once more at Christmas, the Divine Child shone in the rapture of the Sun as the Son once again....Hallelujah!

Peace and Grace of the Season be yours today and everyday....

Merry Christmases Long Ago

This afternoon I bought an artificial Christmas tree at Family Dollar. It was on sale because the box was torn but all the parts were in it, so for $3, it went home. I was already resigned to the pot of bare branches like I had last year, which-if the truth be known- wasn't so bad looking after I they were trimmed with all the garland, tinsel and ornaments. In fact, you could hardly see any of the bare branches, and where they peeked through, it gave the whole thing character in a Charlie-Brown-Xmas-Tree kinda way...right up until the branches dried out and began to break off bit by bit and the oasis they were shoved into split in two and half the 'tree' fell on the floor before New Year's Eve.

There won't be that problem this year, because I have a 4 ft. genuine Noble Fir artificial tree, which the instructions packed with it assured me was made of real PVC ( Oh, goody!) The Noble Fir-named no doubt for it's fine heroic bearing and NOT because it is representative of any strain of fir tree named after anyone with the moniker Noble- is presently sitting on a card table wedged in the corner of my make-shift bedroom while it awaits trimming. I hastily cut a tree skirt from a yard of Xmas fabric covered in toy soldiers and holly on a cream-colored background and tucked it around the foot of Noble Fir to cover up its scrawny green  PVC legs, then got the stationary paper box full of Christmas ornaments off the top shelf of the closet where  they've rested since this time last year.


The box of ornaments is a wondrous assortment of things I've acquired from friends and my own habit of collecting through the years. Most of us have at least a few fragile ornaments from our childhood- mine are a couple of pine cone clowns made in China in the 1950's, two hard white plastic reindeer that I inherited after Aunt Laura Pote died in 1985, and a handful of peeling glass gee-gaws from my grandparents. The reindeer are always placed first on any tree of mine since I rescued them from the garbage when Aunt Laura's son was cleaning out the house after she died-she always placed them first on her own tree, and this sacred act was obviously lost on her only child who had tossed them into the trash can around the back of the house. They aren't particularly pretty, but they hold a lot of good memories for me of the next-door neighbor who was my adopted 'aunt' for 18 years.

Then there are the things I have made over the years from various phases of crafts- painted ceramics, counted cross-stitch,plastic canvas, bead kits, pain-by-number wood, assorted glued glitter items. They are joined by various Muppets, the Peanuts Gang, a 4 inch fully dressed Beefeater doll from England, cats, mice, cotton and feather birds and an assortment of stuff from friends-Jeff's grandmother's blue and white beaded Star of David and  bell; Gretchen and Mark's clothes pin bird's nests, Kay's hand-crocheted Xmas stockings and the Kermit the Frog in a Santa Hat JD stowed out of sight in his luggage and brought back from London for me when he filmed John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together. My step-sister Elizabeth found a porcelain and cloth Scrooge doll in the Christmas Room at Ronnie's Garden World in Smyrna, DE ( Which I miss, by the way, because they had the best selection of  decorations anywhere.) There are a dozen or so formerly white plastic glitter- dipped snowflakes that just make the tree, in my opinion, even though they have now aged to a yellow patina.


Presently, it's all laying in a jumble under the tree sitting on the table awaiting the big moment-as soon as I find the fluffy white and silver garland and a few strings of white lights I've shoved inadvertently in another box...meaning I will have to search through all of them tomorrow until I find said missing items. I will not be able to trim the tree without them, it's in violation of the 'The Rules'-I bet you know which ones, because you have them at your house, too. You know, the Rules that dictate what goes on the tree in which order to a specific Christmas CD, or which ornaments are traditionally placed on the tree by whom, or that the lights must be on while the garland and ornaments are being added. Things that we don't even think about but do out of habit because they are such ingrained traditions.( And isn't that yet another wonder of Christmas?)


Meanwhile, as I position each ornament in its proper place and adjust it to hang just so, all the Christmastimes I have ever lived through will come flooding back in my memory in the blink of an eye,and I will be living them again...as I happily sing along in each of the Muppet's voices that I learned while working on the above mentioned Christmas special...abet, slightly off key.

Take that, Charles Dickens...even YOU can't create Christmas Past like a tiny ball of spun cotton atop a pine cone from China with spindly pipe cleaner arms and legs can!

"Xmas and Christmas: A Lost Chapter from Herodotus" by C.S.Lewis

“Xmas and Christmas: A Lost Chapter from Herodotus,” by C.S. Lewis
And beyond this there lies in the ocean, turned towards the west and north, the island of Niatirb which Hecataeus indeed declares to be the same size and shape as Sicily, but it is larger, though in calling it triangular a man would not miss the mark. It is densely inhabited by men who wear clothes not very different from the other barbarians who occupy the north western parts of Europe though they do not agree with them in language. These islanders, surpassing all the men of whom we know in patience and endurance, use the following customs.
In the middle of winter when fogs and rains most abound they have a great festival which they call Exmas and for fifty days they prepare for it in the fashion I shall describe. First of all, every citizen is obliged to send to each of his friends and relations a square piece of hard paper stamped with a picture, which in their speech is called an Exmas-card. But the pictures represent birds sitting on branches, or trees with a dark green prickly leaf, or else men in such garments as the Niatirbians believe that their ancestors wore two hundred years ago riding in coaches such as their ancestors used, or houses with snow on their roofs. And the Niatirbians are unwilling to say what these pictures have to do with the festival; guarding (as I suppose) some sacred mystery. And because all men must send these cards the marketplace is filled with the crowd of those buying them, so that there is great labour and weariness.
But having bought as many as they suppose to be sufficient, they return to their houses and find there the like cards which others have sent to them. And when they find cards from any to whom they also have sent cards, they throw them away and give thanks to the gods that this labour at least is over for another year. But when they find cards from any to whom they have not sent, then they beat their breasts and wail and utter curses against the sender; and, having sufficiently lamented their misfortune, they put on their boots again and go out into the fog and rain and buy a card for him also. And let this account suffice about Exmas-cards.
They also send gifts to one another, suffering the same things about the gifts as about the cards, or even worse. For every citizen has to guess the value of the gift which every friend will send to him so that he may send one of equal value, whether he can afford it or not. And they buy as gifts for one another such things as no man ever bought for himself. For the sellers, understanding the custom, put forth all kinds of trumpery, and whatever, being useless and ridiculous, they have been unable to sell throughout the year they now sell as an Exmas gift. And though the Niatirbians profess themselves to lack sufficient necessary things, such as metal, leather, wood and paper, yet an incredible quantity of these things is wasted every year, being made into the gifts.
But during these fifty days the oldest, poorest, and most miserable of the citizens put on false beards and red robes and walk about the market-place; being disguised (in my opinion) as Cronos. And the sellers of gifts no less than the purchaser’s become pale and weary, because of the crowds and the fog, so that any man who came into a Niatirbian city at this season would think some great public calamity had fallen on Niatirb. This fifty days of preparation is called in their barbarian speech the Exmas Rush.
But when the day of the festival comes, then most of the citizens, being exhausted with the Rush, lie in bed till noon. But in the evening they eat five times as much supper as on other days and, crowning themselves with crowns of paper, they become intoxicated. And on the day after Exmas they are very grave, being internally disordered by the supper and the drinking and reckoning how much they have spent on gifts and on the wine. For wine is so dear among the Niatirbians that a man must swallow the worth of a talent before he is well intoxicated.
Such, then, are their customs about the Exmas. But the few among the Niatirbians have also a festival, separate and to themselves, called Crissmas, which is on the same day as Exmas. And those who keep Crissmas, doing the opposite to the majority of the Niatirbians, rise early on that day with shining faces and go before sunrise to certain temples where they partake of a sacred feast. And in most of the temples they set out images of a fair woman with a new-born Child on her knees and certain animals and shepherds adoring the Child. (The reason of these images is given in a certain sacred story which I know but do not repeat.)
But I myself conversed with a priest in one of these temples and asked him why they kept Crissmas on the same day as Exmas; for it appeared to me inconvenient. But the priest replied, “It is not lawful, O stranger, for us to change the date of Chrissmas, but would that Zeus would put it into the minds of the Niatirbians to keep Exmas at some other time or not to keep it at all. For Exmas and the Rush distract the minds even of the few from sacred things. And we indeed are glad that men should make merry at Crissmas; but in Exmas there is no merriment left.” And when I asked him why they endured the Rush, he replied, “It is, O Stranger, a racket”; using (as I suppose) the words of some oracle and speaking unintelligibly to me (for a racket is an instrument which the barbarians use in a game called tennis).
But what Hecataeus says, that Exmas and Crissmas are the same, is not credible. For first, the pictures which are stamped on the Exmas-cards have nothing to do with the sacred story which the priests tell about Crissmas. And secondly, the most part of the Niatirbians, not believing the religion of the few, nevertheless send the gifts and cards and participate in the Rush and drink, wearing paper caps. But it is not likely that men, even being barbarians, should suffer so many and great things in honour of a god they do not believe in. And now, enough about Niatirb.