Christmas memories

 

Sixteen years ago my now husband and I spent our first Christmas together.  We were living in a mobile home while we hunted around Leinster for our forever home.  Obviously a Christmas tree of any size whether real or fake was not an option for us but I really wanted us to have some class of a tree.  Shopping in Dublin one day, himself found this wee tree in a shop.  I loved it. and it just suited our slightly crazy living arrangements perfectly.

By the following Christmas we were living in our little new to us but old to the world home.  We bought a real tree for the living room, but I couldn’t part with this one, I put it up in the window of the spare bedroom and when that later became our daughter’s room, it became her Christmas tree.

Sixteen years after its first outing, our little Christmas tree is showing its age.  Every year it loses a few more fronds.  Every year another light or two stops working.  Every year the star is a bit wonkier.  But I’ll never be able to part with it because when I look at that tree, I remember our first Christmas living together, when we cooked a full Christmas dinner for hours on the little cooker and turned our mobile home into a sauna.  That was the year we made soup for starters and it was so filling we could hardly eat the dinner.  That was the year the winter was so cold in the mobile that condensation caused by our breath dripped onto our heads from the bedroom ceiling as we slept.  That was the bedroom that was so teeny that to get any of our clothes from the cupboards we had to climb on the bed.  That was the first home we owned.  It was cramped, it could be cold.  It was ours and it was fun.

Its the little things that bring back memories.  Every Christmas we make new memories and as we get older, reminiscing becomes more and more pleasurable, even if it can be bittersweet at times.

After a very hard 18 months or so, I’m looking forward to spending this Christmas with the two people I love the most, curling up in front of a warm fire with a glass of red, watching classic movies and discovering new favourites, cooking and eating great food,  playing with our daughter, having quality downtime together.  And every evening as the sun goes down, I’ll switch on our little Christmas tree and remember.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

nd is put up in her bedroom every year.

Sixteen years on from its first outing

 

Written in stone? Who decides what’s tradition?

As someone who is passionately interested in history, myth, folklore and ritual, I sometimes find myself musing on tradition. (I’m referring to what the OED calls its mass noun usage) Its a much used and abused word, it can be used to justify a certain behaviour or practice “well its traditional” or in an attempt to prevent sometimes much-needed change. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it thus: “the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way”

So in the way that I’m thinking about it here, a tradition is a custom or belief. Some customs/beliefs/behaviours do not survive terribly long in the whole of human history. Others persist and some that are generally perceived as being old and traditional are often a lot more recent than is widely thought. For example, roast turkey is widely considered to be the traditional Christmas dinner in England and Ireland (they are the only countries I’ve spent Christmas in so I don’t feel qualified to comment on others) but my readings tell me that it didn’t become commonplace until the eighteenth century, with goose or beef being the previously traditional dish.

The reasons why some traditions survive while others don’t are as varied as the traditions themselves but I feel that each generation should feel able to pick and choose from the assortment of traditions they have grown up with. Traditions can change and develop too and some elements of any given custom or practice may alter from how it was originally carried out. I’m thinking particularly this evening of an Irish tradition of Nollaig na mBan or Women’s Christmas. Debates pop up each year around this time on various social media as to whether or not it was practiced throughout Ireland, and as to what form it took. Needless to say there is never agreement! My understanding of Nollaig na mBan is that it was a day when the men took over all the household chores to give women a rest after all they had done to make the Christmas festivities happen. Nollaig na mBan, for those who don’t know, is celebrated on January 6th – the feast of the Epiphany, Twelfth Night. In more recent times, the celebration has consisted of groups of women coming together to have a meal – usually in a restaurant from what I can make out – and have some of what we would now call downtime. I’ve read reminiscences of women talking about their mothers greatly looking forward to this one night in the year when they got to dress up and go out with other women. (These mostly date from the 1960’s and 1970’s).

In my community, a group of us are keeping this tradition alive. A very dear friend of mine throws her house open for Nollaig na mBan, invites loads of women friends with the proviso that we all bring something from our Christmas leftovers to eat and drink. Often things are made especially too. Its always a great night, good food, lots of music and plenty of laughs. Yes we have altered that tradition somewhat but it works for us and we’ll pass it on to the next generation. And they can make of it what they will, if its not for them, so be it. Traditions should be living things, not something preserved in aspic. If a tradition isn’t right for any given person or group of people then they shouldn’t feel compelled to maintain it. I like traditions, learning about them and in some instances trying to live them, but I like even more that they reflect the community who developed them. If they can’t be adapted or even discarded if need be, then what does that say about society? That we never want anything to change? Perish the thought.

I’m off now to get ready for tonight’s Nollaig na mBan party. Yes its Jan 4th not the 6th, but hey, traditions can change, right? Nollaig na mBan faoi mhaise dhaoibh!