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The Write Way 23 December 2005 Ah Christmas! Greetings, Wherever you are and whatever you believe in, stand by to receive lots of good vibes from Down Under, because I'm sending you my warmest and best wishes for Christmas. Have a wonderful time with your family and friends! As a regular reader, you already know that Christmas is one of my favourite times of the year ... Regardless of personal religious beliefs, most people seem to make a bit of an extra effort to be nice to each other, and you encounter little Christmas miracles everywhere you go ... Shop assistants look up from their private phone conversations long enough to acknowledge your existence. The recording of White Christmas that's been playing ad nauseum since early November throughout the Shopping Centre is replaced by Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.
And that little plastic bag of giblets butchers thoughtfully tuck inside the poultry (that you couldn't find this morning after you prepared the chook) suddenly turns up when you carve the bird! Have you ever wondered why we do these things? I mean, cook a chook for Christmas dinner, tie mistletoe over the doorway and drag a Christmas tree into the house and decorate it with bits of aluminium foil wrapped around egg carton segments that the kids made in preschool? (What's that? You mean I'm the only one who hangs on to things like this? Everyone else has colour co-ordinated decorations for their puce-themed Christmas this year? Sigh ...) I've found some fascinating stories to explain these traditions and more. There are too many to put in the newsletter, so you can read them here. Some of them are really bizarre and others downright gruesome! One tradition many of us will encounter this weekend is the clinking of glasses. This one has an interesting origin ... Our ancestors were a superstitious lot (not like us!) and were always worried about evil spirits possessing them and the devil knocking on their doors. They recognised the potential of alcohol to leave them open to attack, so every time they had a drink, they used to clink glasses to make a loud noise and frighten away the devil! And now you know why, girls and boys, there's so much loud clinking at office Christmas parties! On a completely different note ... I found this lovely story on a Scots teaching site on a page titled, Never Work with Children! An infant teacher was putting on
the annual Nativity with her Last week, I pondered the origin of the Digby Chick, and while we tracked down the Digby part, we were left furrowing our brows over the Chick. Well, furrow no more, my little lovelies, for Sue has found the answer! "To quote a Digby Nova
Scotia website, "Chick" was added "because [herring] once
replaced chicken for Christmas dinner for impoverished early Digby
settlers." Now you know the rest of the story!" Some celebratory terms this week ... just to keep you in the festive mood! advent, carols, epiphany, Yule, Frankincense, manger, secular, wassail, nativity, baubles 1. secular songs to accompany dancing during communal celebrations 2. a trough or box used to hold food for stable animals 3. the four week period preceding Christmas which serves as a time of reflection in preparation for the celebration of the Nativity (from the Latin adventus 'coming') 4. the custom of toasting to each others health, a custom that has woven itself into Christmas traditions 5. an aromatic resin from the Boswellia Thurifera tree and used in incense, perfume and embalming fluids. One of the gifts presented to Jesus by the Wise Men 6. the birth of Jesus 7. a life changing event; the last of the 12 days of Christmas, this celebrates the revelation of Christ to the gentiles, as represented by the visiting Wise Men 8. shiny trinkets and ornaments, traditionally made from glass, used in Christmas decorations 9. ancient pagan festival celebrating the Winter Solstice and the coming spring around the 21st of December 10. not religious Thanks to Dave Wagner for passing this along:
A
woman goes to the post office to buy stamps for her Christmas cards.
She says to the clerk, "May I have 50 Christmas stamps?" The clerk says, "What denomination?" The woman says, "God help us. Has it come to this? Give me 6 Catholic, 12 Presbyterian, 10 Lutheran and 22 Baptists." Last week's quiz: borage, rue, chamomile, hake, confection, verjuice, farce, lamprey, rocket, sandalwood 1. the juice of green or unripened fruits such as grapes and (more commonly) crab apples; a popular ingredient in cookery which often replaced vinegar - VERJUICE 2. any of various edible sea fishes resembling or related to the cod - HAKE 3. stuffing; after the Middle Ages became the generic term for short dramatic pieces "stuffed" with buffoonery - FARCE 4. mildly pungent plant grown like spinach and eaten in salads - ROCKET 5. a blue-flowered plant with hairy leaves that taste somewhat like cucumber; used primarily in salads - BORAGE 6. the pulverized wood of an East Indian tree used primarily to color food dark red - SANDALWOOD 7. a plant with yellow flowers whose bitter-tasting leaves were used mostly in herbal cures but occasionally in salads - RUE 8. the sugar paste in which whole spices were dipped; used as garnishes and eaten at the end of feasts, to aid digestion - CONFECTION 9. any of several plants of the aster family, with scented leaves and small daisy-like flowers; the dried leaves and flowers were used in herbal cures - CHAMOMILE 10. any of a group of eel-like water animals with a funnel-shaped, jawless, sucking mouth - LAMPREY Never-Ending Story Add your tuppence worth to our Never-Ending Story here: http://write101-never-ending-story.blogspot.com/ Just click on the Comments button at the end of the entry. If you have friends who fancy themselves as writers, invite them to contribute (just forward this newsletter in its entirety to them). Map of the World I often trawl this for comments to post on my site ... so if you say something about the newsletter or site, be warned, you may end up being read by one of the 2,000+ unique visitors who visit Write101 every day! Make your Mark on the World. Then stop by our Map of the World and read the messages. (Just click List) and add your mark: http://pub37.bravenet.com/guestmap/view.php?usernum=3170114826 A Little Something Extra Here's a site that shows you how to say Merry Christmas in many languages from Afrikander to Welsh. Word of the week: Kiviak (n) "a gastronomical Christmas treat from Greenland which, for some reason, hasn't been adopted by many other nations. It's made from the raw flesh of an auk which has been buried under a stone in sealskin for several months until it's achieved an advanced stage of decomposition. Apparently, it smells like old blue cheese and tastes very pungent" Now do you feel better about eating your Christmas dinner? Oxymoron of the week: quiet Christmas And here's a Latin phrase I bet you won't hear much over the next few days: Non mihi, perdo pondus. [NOHN MEE-hee, PER-doh POHN-doos] (Not for me, I'm trying to lose weight.) Kind regards, Jennifer P.S. Want to donate to the upkeep of this newsletter? Here's how: 1. Pay by PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/affil/pal=jennifer@write101.com OR 2. Click here to subscribe for a full year OR 3. Use your credit card on my secure order form: http://www.write101.com/fund.htm (You can also access the PayPal subscription link from this page if the link above didn't work for you. With PayPal, you can use your credit card, PayPal account or pay online using your own cheque account.) OR 4. Send a cheque (made payable to Jennifer Stewart): http://www.write101.com/fund.htm To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: mailto:WritingTips-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com or go to the web site, at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WritingTips This menu will also let you change your subscription between digest and normal mode. Copyright 2005 Jennifer Stewart Individual articles copyrighted by
their authors.
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