Here's a fun article about that "twelve days of Christmas" carol. From the Telegraph: A very merry equation.
Whenever I hear this carol being sung through my letterbox by some bedraggled band of Christmas revellers, I can't slap down the math nerd in me who keeps shouting: "So ask them how many presents my true love got for Christmas. That will keep them busy. Tell them you'll give them some money when they worked that one out! Ba, Humbug!"
Of course the carol singers could start just adding numbers up on their calculator. The second day brings three presents: two turtle doves and another partridge in a pear tree. But this is soon going to become an extremely laborious task as the presents mount each day. Even calculating how many presents will arrive on each day is a non-trivial question. Is there some clever way to calculate the total number of presents that will avoid the tedious job of using a calculator? [continue]
From csmonitor.com: Christmas Eve the Italian way.
Usually at the hair salon, the customer does all the talking. As the stylist executes a buzz, bob, or blunt cut, he or she simply listens, nods, and utters an occasional "Oh, really? Tell me more." But the other day, as Leon deMagistris trimmed my layers, I was all ears.
It all started when I asked him about his plans for the holidays.
"I am originally from Avellino, Italy, just outside Naples," began deMagistris, who still speaks with an accent despite 40 years in the United States. "During the holidays, we celebrate just the way we did with my mother, especially on Christmas Eve."
That's when Leon, his three sons, and his nephew cook a 12-course, all-white seafood meal for a crowd of about 28 relatives. The family sits down to dinner at 7, and unless they're part of this team — which both cooks and serves — they don't get up from the table until 1 or 2 a.m.
This tradition is not unique to the deMagistris family, I learned later. Many Italians celebrate Christmas Eve with 12 courses, which represent the 12 apostles, and an all-white menu and table (linens, candles, plates), symbolizing the purity of Christ Jesus. But in Italy, the dishes vary slightly depending on one's region, one's town, and one's own family recipes. [continue]
From Veritatis Splendor: The Other "Five Ways".
Objection 1. Presents may be given to us by the good elves, and so there is no need for Santa Claus.
Objection 2. If Santa Claus existed, there would be no chimneys too narrow for him. But there are chimneys too narrow for him, and sometimes none at all. Therefore, Santa Claus does not exist.
On the contrary, Kay Starr says, "I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus."
I answer that the first and most manifest way of proving the existence of Santa Claus is the argument from the existence of Christmas trees. It is certain and evident to our senses that some things in this world are Christmas trees. Now no fir tree becomes a Christmas Tree unless it is trimmed. But to be trimmed means that one receives an ornament. And since one cannot go to infinity in the passing on of Christmas tree ornaments, there must be a First Untrimmed Trimmer, and this everyone understands to be Santa Claus. [continue]
Link found here at the Shrine of the Holy Whapping.
Related:
Thomas Aquinas - Wikipedia
St Thomas Aquinas' Five Ways - P. Weiss-Janes' Christian Philosophy Made Simple site
Thomas Aquinas: his proofs for the existence of God - Wikipedia
From Yahoo News: Goat Is a Popular Gift With Britons.
It's hairy and smells and will butt you, given half a chance. But the humble goat is one of Britain's most popular Christmas presents, with several charities offering the chance to do something for others by buying one of the animals for an impoverished family in the developing world.
The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, or Cafod, said Thursday that in the past five weeks donors paid for 13,000 of the creatures at 25 pounds (US$47, euro37) each; the beasts will go to poor families in Eritrea, Kenya and southern Sudan in Africa.
"I think people like to know where their money is going and that what they are buying will be put to good use," said spokeswoman Martha Clarke. [continue]
Excellent news. This is what I want for Christmas: a goat, a pig, or a cow. Or chickens, or ....
(Link to the Yahoo article found at the Catholic Spectator.)
Related:
CAFOD (Catholic Agency for Overseas Development)
Have you been naughty or nice? Santa's Nice-o-Meter will tell you. Here's what it said about me:
Nice, but has naughty lapses. High marks in the good deeds department. Better than average manners. Hopefully, thoughtfulness will continue to be as good as last month. Neatness needs improvement!
Heh.
Link found here at Lonita's Links Log. Lonita and I got the same comment, but I bet you'll get a different one. When I put in various friends' names, I got all kinds of different comments. (Note to Brian: what were you doing last Monday?)
Charles Dickens has probably had more influence on the way that we celebrate Christmas today than any single individual in human history except one.
At the beginning of the Victorian period the celebration of Christmas was in decline. The medieval Christmas traditions, which combined the celebration of the birth of Christ with the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia (a pagan celebration for the Roman god of agriculture), and the Germanic winter festival of Yule, had come under intense scrutiny by the Puritans under Oliver Cromwell. The Industrial Revolution, in full swing in Dickens' time, allowed workers little time for the celebration of Christmas.
The romantic revival of Christmas traditions that occurred in Victorian times had other contributors: Prince Albert brought the German custom of decorating the Christmas tree to England, the singing of Christmas carols (which had all but disappeared at the turn of the century) began to thrive again, and the first Christmas card appeared in the 1840s. But it was the Christmas stories of Dickens, particularly his 1843 masterpiece A Christmas Carol, that rekindled the joy of Christmas in Britain and America. Today, after more than 160 years, A Christmas Carol continues to be relevant, sending a message that cuts through the materialistic trappings of the season and gets to the heart and soul of the holidays. [continue]
That's from David Perdue's Dickens and Christmas page, which includes sections on Tiny Tim's Ailment, Ebenezer Scrooge, A Good Humoured Christmas Chapter, A Christmas Carol, Preface to the Original Edition, and A Darker Christmas.
Anyone interested in Dickens will find lots of interesting things throughout the rest of Perdue's site, too. For starters, see Dickens' London and Dickens' London map.
Related
A Christmas Carol - online version of the book.
Quick, what's this?
Hwæt, Hrodulf readnosa hrandeor —
Næfde þæt nieten unsciende næsðyrlas!
Glitenode and gladode godlice nosgrisele.
It's Hrodulf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and it's in Old English. Bonus points if you guessed!
From Reuters: Scary Santa Lurks in Finland's Christmas Past.
The song goes that Santa "knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!" But have we ever sought to find out if Santa's been naughty or nice?
In Finland at least, the unthinkable is true — the jolly old man has a dark past.
The forefather of the portly, bearded man, known in Finland as Joulupukki, was not dressed in red, did not greet children with smiles and he certainly brought no gifts.
Instead Joulupukki, literally "yule goat," donned horns and an animal hide and covered his face with soot or a bark mask. He traveled from house to house frightening children with his wild dancing and singing and expected offerings of food and booze.
The form this Christmas-time character took varied greatly in different parts of the country. According to some versions of the legend he also brought sticks with which to whip naughty children. Stingy households suffered the goat's insults. [continue]
Related:
Finnish Christmas traditions
Christmas in Finland
For 32 years, Loretta Cook has been plagued during the Christmas holiday season by a practical joker, reports the Cincinnati Enquirer. The first time it happened, she found a ballistic shell hanging from a leafless tree on her doorstep. "I had no idea. I called the police. They called the bomb squad," she said. "The next thing I know, I'm in bed watching the [local] news, and there's my tree and [the anchor's] voiceover about threats to an Anderson Township woman. Later, one of the cops told me it was a joke. That's when I came up with ‘a cartridge in a bare tree’." Another year, Ms. Cook found 10 juice cans topped with limburger cheese, in turn topped with a sign reading "100 percent discount." She figured out this was meant to be "free stench tens." She says she comes from a famiy of practical jokers and she's crossing off names from her suspects list as they die and yet the jokes keep appearing.
That's is from the Globe and Mail's Social Studies column, sometime in January, 2004. I've been saving this one for you, and just came across it in my files today.
I hope somebody will tell us what happens in Loretta's yard this year.
From Scotsman.com: Chemists Hope Ancient Pie Produces the Right Reaction.
A mince pie from 1648 will be reborn today at the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Ye olde Christmas treat will be baked according to a recently discovered 350-year-old recipe which includes minced beef among the ingredients. (...)
Sociologist Professor Anne Murcott, who discovered the original minced meat pie recipe in a book called "The English Huswife" by Gervase Markham, said: "Tastes changed, and by the 18th century a division was emerging between 'sweet' and 'savoury' that would be recognised today. Mostly, savoury meat pies lost their sweet flavouring.
The exception was the mince pie, which, instead, lost its meat, though it retained an ingredient of animal origin in the form of suet, which of course still remains today, the reason why strict vegetarians will either not eat it or will search for one made with vegetable fat."
There was a practical reason why the meat was removed, said Professor Murcott.
In the 18th century it was discovered that the spices and fruit mixture in mince pies could be combined with brandy or sack months before Christmas and stored safely in stone jars. But the meat could not be added until the pies were made.
"From this it was only a short step to omitting the meat altogether," said Professor Murcott. [continue]
From csmonitor.com: In Germany, a Christmas-season contest: Santa vs. St. Nicholas.
Peter Hahne does not like Santa Claus. In fact, this German television celebrity is promoting a "Santa Claus Free Zone," calling on people to distribute anti-Santa stickers.
The problem, as Mr. Hahne sees it, is that American-style Santas are crowding out Saint Nicholas, the traditional Christmas icon of this hilly Germany village named after the 4th-century bishop.
"Santa is a symbol of consumption," Hahne says. "Nicholas was a real bishop [who] taught us what's still very true today: giving does not make us poorer. It makes us richer."
To many Germans, Santa's spread is an unwelcome reminder of the encroachment of American commercialism into Europe.
"People are starting to become critical of commercialism in every respect," says Hermann Bausinger, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Tübingen.
Indeed, Hahne's lament has struck a chord: Across Germany, initiatives are sprouting to push commerce out of Christmas. [continue]
Related Mirabilis.ca content:
St Nicholas Day
Now, just in case you're wondering, here's what I want for Christmas: a cow. Or a goat. Or a sheep. Or chickens. Or a piglet.
Thanks to organizations like World Vision Canada, World Vision Australia, Heifer International (US), Send a Cow (UK), you can buy one of these animals on behalf of a friend. Your friend gets a card and a warm feeling; the animal is delivered to people in poor parts of the world. World Vision Canada explains about chickens:
The gift of 2 hens and a rooster can start a whole brood of chicks that will provide eggs, meat and a source of steady income for years to come. This group of breeding chickens can help a struggling family become healthy and self-reliant.
and piglets:
Pigs can grow to 42 kilos in just 3 months, and thrive on eating kitchen scraps. They're a great source of protein and provide "natural" fertilizer for gardens. A pig can produce a litter of piglets every year — and families earn income from the sale of offspring. Buying three piglets can provide a family with everything they need to launch a small business.
For years I've tried to come up with items for a Christmas list (requested by family members) even though I don't actually need anything. So this year my list is easy: barnyard animals for people who need them. What could be better?
Related:
The most important gift catalog in the world - Heifer International (US)
Food for the poor gift catalog
Bòthar.org (Ireland)
Gold topped gifts for Christmas (A unique charity set up 16 years ago by a group of mid Devon farmers has helped thousands of African families escape from poverty.) - BBC
Credit:
Thanks to Laren at The Needles Excellency for picking up on this idea, and for telling me about World Vision Australia.
Good King Wenceslas looked out on the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even.
Brightly shone the moon that night, though the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight, gathering winter fuel.
Today is the Feast of Stephen, so the Good King Wenceslas carol has been going through my head. Who was King Wenceslas, anyway? Here's a bit about him from royalty.nu:
You're probably familiar with this old Christmas carol. But did you know that Wenceslas was a real person? He was born into the royal Premysl or Przemyslid dynasty of Bohemia (located in what is now the Czech Republic).
According to legend, the original Premysl was a plowman who married a Bohemian princess named Libuse or Libussa during the 8th century. Their descendants eventually united the warring tribes of Bohemia into one duchy. The first known Premysl ruler was Wenceslas's grandfather, Duke Borivoy I, who made Prague Castle the family seat. He married a Slav princess named Ludmila, and both eventually became Christians. Borivoy and Ludmila tried to convert all of Bohemia to Christianity, but failed. When Borivoy died he was succeeded by his sons, Ratislav and Spythinev. Ratislav was Wenceslas's father.
Wenceslas was born around 907 in the castle of Stochov near Prague. The castle is gone now, but there is still an oak tree there that was supposedly planted by Ludmila when Wenceslas was born. His nannies watered the tree with his bath water, which supposedly made the tree strong. The church Wenceslas attended also exists today. [continue]
Now for the history of the carol. Cyberhymnal's Good King Wenceslas page says:
Words: John M. Neale (1818-1866); first appeared in Carols for Christmas-Tide, 1853, by Neale and Thomas Helmore. Neale may have written the hymn some time earlier: he related the story on which it is based in Deeds of Faith (1849). The historical Wenceslas was Duke of Bohemia.
Music: "Tempus Adest Floridum" ("Spring Has Unwrapped Her Flowers"), a 13th Century spring carol; first published in the Swedish Piae Cantiones, 1582 (MIDI, score).
Cyberhymnal also offers the lyrics to Tempus Adest Floridum, in Latin and in English.
Merry Christmas!
I imagine you're sitting at your computer with a glass of eggnog, casting about for something to read. Well, then. Here's the Story of the Other Wise Man, by Henry van Dyke.
You know the story of the Three Wise Men of the East, and how they travelled from far away to offer their gifts at the manger-cradle in Bethlehem. But have you ever heard the story of the Other Wise Man, who also saw the star in its rising, and set out to follow it, yet did not arrive with his brethren in the presence of the young child Jesus? Of the great desire of this fourth pilgrim, and how it was denied, yet accomplished in the denial; of his many wanderings and the probations of his soul; of the long way of his seeking and the strange way of his finding the One whom he sought--I would tell the tale as I have heard fragments of it in the Hall of Dreams, in the palace of the Heart of Man.
I
In the days when Augustus Caesar was master of many kings and Herod reigned in Jerusalem, there lived in the city of Ecbatana, among the mountains of Persia, a certain man named Artaban. His house stood close to the outermost of the walls which encircled the royal treasury. From his roof he could look over the seven-fold battlements of black and white and crimson and blue and red and silver and gold, to the hill where the summer palace of the Parthian emperors glittered like a jewel in a crown.
Around the dwelling of Artaban spread a fair garden, a tangle of flowers and fruit-trees, watered by a score of streams descending from the slopes of Mount Orontes, and made musical by innumerable birds. But all colour was lost in the soft and odorous darkness of the late September night, and all sounds were hushed in the deep charm of its silence, save the plashing of the water, like a voice half-sobbing and half-laughing under the shadows. High above the trees a dim glow of light shone through the curtained arches of the upper chamber, where the master of the house was holding council with his friends. [continue]
The book, at Amazon.com:
Story of the Other Wise Man
A bit about Christmas decorations from BBC Antiques:
The woman responsible for filling our carpets with pine needles is Queen Charlotte, the German born wife of George III, the "Mad King". On Christmas Day 1800, she held a party for the children of Windsor, centrepiece of which was Britain's first recorded Christmas tree, a yew decorated with sweetmeats, toys and candles. Christmas trees became a Royal institution, but it was Prince Albert who turned them into a national one. In an early piece of royal PR, he allowed the Illustrated London News to produce an engraving of his and Victoria's Christmas tree in 1848 and suddenly everybody wanted one.
Initially decorations were home made, including gilded walnuts, shaped biscuits and paper chains. It was not until the last quarter century that commercially manufactured ornaments were produced. Early glass baubles (often imported from Germany), "Dresden" trees decorations (animals and figures made from pressed cardboard) and other vintage ornaments are collectable today, although their fragility makes them hard to find. Christmas cake decorations made from bisque or tin also became popular from the Victorian period, though as with all other Christmas decorations, most extant examples date from the 1930s-50s. Look out for snow babies (again often made in Germany), Santas, and pixies and remember that bisque figures (made from unglazed, tinted porcelain) tend to be earlier and more collectable than plaster models. [continue]
Are you planning a Christmas menu and wondering what to have for dessert? We suggest riskrem, a decadently delicious rice-based pudding. It's served with fruit sauce drizzled on top, and —oh my, is very yummy.
IC Wales has an article about Christmas the Viking way today. First there's the content one expects from this kind of article:
If the Vikings had seen pictures of Santa Claus cruising the skies in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, they probably would have assumed he was catching a ride with Thor, the Norse god of thunder.
According to Viking traditions, which carry over into modern Scandinavian Jul - or Yule - celebrations, Thor's personal transport was a flying wagon pulled by a team of horned goats.
"The idea of St Nicholas got very much mixed in with Thor's transport when it comes to the sled with flying reindeer," said Helge Soerheim of the Archaeological Museum in Stavanger. [continue]
Then later on we come to interesting stuff about beer.
Modern Scandinavians would say they celebrate Yule, while the Vikings "drank Jul".
And a key part of "drinking Jul" - today as in the year 1000 - is brewing special Christmas beers.
In Norway alone there are more than 50 kinds of Juleoel, or Christmas beers, ranging in strength from 4.5 to 9.9 per cent alcohol, brewed just before the holidays each year. They are darker and more flavourful than regular beers.
In Viking times, Helge Soerheim said, people thought drinking themselves into a stupor on holiday beer and other alcoholic beverages would create a euphoric connection with supernatural forces. And failure to get drunk at a Viking feast was an insult to the host, implying that his alcohol wasn't good enough.
Because modern Jul is generally a family affair, today's Scandinavians are more moderate in their "drinking Jul".
But the old Viking toast - "to a good new year and peace" - still echoes in the modern Christmas wishes of the North, Soerheim said.
Even after Christianity made inroads, brewing Jul-time beer remained a serious matter. In medieval times, every farmer was required to brew Christmas beer or risk fines and worse.
"Everyone had to make two batches of Christmas beer a year, one for themselves and one for guests, or be fined three riskdollars," Olaug Flakne, 31, Norway's only female brew master, said, referring to the currency of that day. [continue]
If you're a kid and you want to write to Santa, you should know that
a) Santa lives at the North Pole, and therefore
b) Santa is Canadian.
So of course Canada Post delivers Santa's mail. To send regular mail, write to:
Santa Claus
North Pole
HOH OHO
Canada
Santa will reply if there's a return address.
This year Canada Post offers an electronic way to write to Santa, too.
See what you learn on the Internet?
Related info:
Information for grown ups about Santa's mail.
From the Mummering in Newfoundland page:
Sometime during the twelve days of Christmas, usually on the night of the "Old Twelfth", People would disguise themselves with old articles of clothing and visit the homes of their friends and neighbours. They would even cover their faces with a hood, scarf, mask or pillowcase to keep their identity hidden. Men would sometimes dress as women and women as men. They would go from house to house. They usually carried their own musical instruments to play, sing and dance in every house they visited. The host and hostess of these 'mummers parties' would serve a small lunch of Christmas cake with a glass of syrup or blueberry or dogberry wine. All mummers usually drink a Christmas "grog" before they leave each house. (A grog is a drink of an alcoholic beverage such as rum or whiskey.)
When mummers visit everyone in the house starts playing a guessing game. They try to guess the identity of each mummer. As each one is identified they uncover their faces, but if their true identity is not guessed they do not have to unmask.
For a time the old tradition of "Mummering", or "Jannying" as it is sometimes called, seemed to fade, especially in the larger centers of Newfoundland. But in recent years, thanks to the popular musical duo, Simini, who wrote and recorded "The Mummer's Song" in 1982, mummering has been revived. It is just as prevalent and popular as it was years ago and young and old look forward to dressing up this Christmas, knocking on a friend's door and calling out "ANY MUMMERS ALLOWED IN?" [continue]
Lyrics to Any Mummers 'Lowed In song, by Simani.
Simani has a .wav sound clip of Any Mummers 'Lowed In
Mummering in François, south coast of Newfoundland
I keep coming across references to the Old Twelfth celebrations, which take place in mid-January. It turns out that the Old Twelfth is the twelfth day of Christmas according to the old Julian calendar.
The Gregorian calendar page from Weisstein's World of Astronomy has details about why we adopted the Gregorian calendar, and when various countries changed from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian one. An excerpt:
The Julian calendar was switched over to the Gregorian starting in 1582, at which point the 10 day difference between the actual time of year and traditional time of year on which calendrical events occurred became intolerable. The switchover was bitterly opposed by much of the populace, who feared it was attempt by landlords to cheat then out of a week and a half's rent. However, when Pope Gregory XIII decreed that the day after October 4, 1582 would be October 15, 1582, the Catholic countries of France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy complied. Various Catholic German countries (Germany was not yet unified), Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland followed suit within a year or two, and Hungary followed in 1587. Because of the Pope's decree, the reform of the Julian calendar came to be known as the Gregorian calendar. The rest of Europe did not follow suit for more than a century. The Protestant German countries adopted the Gregorian reform in 1700. By this time, the calendar trailed the seasons by twelve days. England finally followed suit in 1752, declaring that Wednesday, September 2, 1752 was immediately followed by Thursday, September 14, 1752 . . . .
In England, some Twelfth Day traditions (like wassailing the apple trees) continue to be celebrated on Old Twelfth (twelfth day after Christmas in the Julian calendar) instead of on the New Twelfth (twelfth day after Christmas in the Gregorian calendar).
I've been saving an excellent Christmas link just for today: The Christmas Story in Art, from the Metropolitan Museum. It's beyond lovely. Go, look!
And Merry Christmas to you all.
In 1643 Fr Jean de Brébeuf, Jesuit missionary to the Huron, wrote the first Canadian Christmas carol. In Huron it's Jesous Ahatonhia; the English version is called the Huron Carol or 'Twas in the moon of wintertime'.
First Nation Help Desk has a Huron carol page which features an .mp3 of the song being sung in the Huron language. Excellent! I've wanted to hear that for years.
Here's the story of Jean de Brébeuf, his mission to Huronia, and his martrydom.
Related links:
harp version of the Huron carol
Huron carol guitar chords
Iesus Ahatonnia⁄The Huron Carol - lyrics, translations, and notes from Bruce Cockburn's website.
There are more than 1,300 species of mistletoe, including the two varieties popularly hung as a lure to sweethearts. All species can grow as parasites on trees and shrubs, stealing their food and water.
Well, who knew? That's from When Mistletoe Attacks: Investigating a Forest Parasite. The article includes the usual sort of stuff about mistletoe traditions :
The exchange of a kiss under the mistletoe is linked back to the ancient times of the Druids. When enemies met under mistletoe in the forest, they had to lay down their arms and observe a truce until the next day.
From this tradition, Christmas historians believe, comes the custom of hanging mistletoe from the doorway or ceiling and sharing a kiss under it as a sign of friendship or goodwill.
Riskrem is a yummy dessert, and it's a one of the traditional Christmas foods in Norway. It involves rice and cream and some other stuff, and is served with a red fruit sauce. Here, my dears, is the riskrem recipe.
A couple of snippets from Medieval & Tudor Christmas Courts:
Medieval and Tudor monarchs made certain the house was packed, summoning not only peers who would provide peerless company, but including anyone with whom the king or queen might want to have a "little word". An invitation to the sovereign's Christmas court was a command performance, one that the nobility and lower-status court hangers-on could not well refuse. Most would not have considered declining - not only would the royal family be royally offended, but the opportunity to be part of the posturing, networking, conniving and gossip was too delicious to miss! Still, the only acceptable excuses for a Christmas "no show" were war, Crusades, grave illness and childbirth. Woe to those who stretched the truth a little when offering their regrets. Queen Elizabeth was particularly adamant that her male courtiers remain at court for the 12 days of festivities. Many a noblewoman must have spent Christmas warmed only by her own wrath at being abandoned in favor of the queen.
...the most extravagant displays of excess during the holiday season took place during the seemingly endless rounds of banquets, balls and sporting events staged to entertain the throngs of guests and on-lookers throughout the Twelve Days of Christmas. This was the court at its most visible - commoners could catch an all-too-rare glimpse of the royal family as they processed to the tournament grounds in their finest fur-lined attire. If they were lucky, the poor could also dine as kings - or least on scraps from the king's great table. Generous, rich scraps they were too! Not only were as many as 24 courses offered at each banquet, but it was expected that the royal kitchens would cook far more than needed for these grand feasts - not only to impress the company, but for the express purpose of feeding the needy when the night's merriment had drawn to a close. [continue]
I bet this Christmas tree is more impressive than yours, and I bet your Christmas tree doesn't go through the roof.
Most Christmas songs are more fun in Latin, and that includes the modern ones. Here, try the Latin version of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer:
Reno erat Rudolphus,
Nasum rubrum habebat;
Si quando hunc videbas,
Hunc candere tu dicas.
[continue]
Or how about Deck the Halls? That one's easy.
Aquafolia ornatis
Fa la la la la, la la la la
Tempus hoc hilaritatis
Fa la la la la, la la la la
Vestes claras induamus;
Fa la la la la, la la la la
Cantilenas nunc promamus
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
These translations are from the Caroling in Latin site, where you'll also find Tinniat Tintinnabulum (Jingle Bells), Tranquilla Nox (Silent Night), XII Dies Natalis (The Twelve Days of Christmas), and more besides.
From Christmas in the Carpathian Highlands:
When twilight arrived on Christmas Eve, the mother covered the table with a white cloth in memory of the swaddling clothes of infant Jesus. She then set the various foods in their proper places on the table. The foods, prepared in or with oil, included fish, herring, bobalki, mushroom sauerkraut soup or lima bean sauerkraut soup, meatless holupki, stewed plums, mashed potatoes, honey, garlic.. etc.
In some villages there were twelve foods on the table, symbolizing the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ.
In the center of the table was a large round loaf of bread which symbolized Jesus as the bread of life. The candle which was placed in the bread symbolized the Star of Bethlehem which guided the shepherds and wise men to worship and adore the light of the world.
While mother prepared the table for Holy Supper, the father fed the cattle a little earlier than usual. He then picked up some straw and entered the hut saying:
"We wish happiness, fortune and health with the approaching Feast Day of the Nativity of Our Lord, and we hope all of us may live to another Christmas, live in peace and happiness and we ask God's blessing upon all of us."
The straw was strewn on the floor and some of it was also placed on the table, symbolizing the fact that little Jesus lay on the straw in the manger.
Continue with the rest of the article, including the part about the honeyed sign of the cross the mother would make on each guest's forehead, the bit about the garlic, what the cattle had to eat after the Holy Supper, and so forth. Lovely details.
The Carpatho-Rusyns
What is a Rusyn?
One link led to another, and that led to this entry at Boing Boing, about what Christmas would be like if it were a Jewish holiday:
This is the fruitcake of our affliction, which our ancestors baked 400 years ago.
All who are in need, come and celebrate Xmas with us.
All who are hungry, come and partake of this 400-year-old fruitcake, as it is written, "Let them eat cake!"
This year we watch football in the living room, next year may the Super Bowl come to our city!
For the whole thing, see Have you ever wondered what Xmas would be like if it were a Jewish Holiday?... (Backup link in case the first is down.) Who can resist the Letter of Approbation from the Kringler Rav?
Hmm! Here's a different sort of shopping website: Monastery Greetings only sells products from monasteries, religious communities and hermitages. They've got fruitcake and preserves made by Trappists, incense from Mt Athos, orthodox icons, and some other stuff as well.
Their deadline for Christmas orders was December 6th, but I figure that's only for people who view Christmas as a one-day thing, and must therefore have everything organized by December 25th. Here we do the full twelve days of Christmas, so not a problem.
Updates:
From zwire.com: Home of the Monastery Fruit Cake. (May 30, 2003)
From Fredricksburg.com: Monks support abbey with fruitcake business - (October 17th, 2003)