Word Wenches

A Christmas Tree's a Tree for A' That

This is a slightly idealized version of the family Christmas tree

Joanna here, and again we're talking Christmas trees. Yesterday's post was about the many Wench trees of Christmas. Today's post is about my own trees of Christmas past.

We always had full-sized trees when I was little. I've decorated a few Big Trees in my adult life. But most often it's been little trees.

Most often, in fact, it's been 'make do with what you can get'.

I remember the Christmas tree of cut-and-taped construction paper in London. That was that year they flew me in to take up work on December 24. (And sent all my luggage, including the presents, off to spend the holidays who knows where.)

I taped my paper tree to the wall. We made chains from red and blue and yellow construction paper. Made flat circles to be the Christmas tree balls.

We gave each other gifts we could buy at the drug store, since that was the only store open on Christmas Eve.

In Germany ... Oh, they do Christmas trees with flair and vigor in Germany, that being more or less where the whole Christmas Tree  idea comes from.  I bought my trees from the Boy Scouts, who were very kind about putting them on top of the car. I bought hand-carved and painted decorations in the Christmas Market. I still have some of those. And I followed the local custom of buying the tree just a day or two before Christmas.

I like that idea of the tree being special for the day. I still put up and decorate my tree just ahead of the Solstice.

In Paris we bought small trees. Chic urban trees. Trees you could balance precariously on the top of your wheelie shopping cart and roll home through the streets, up and down curbs and stairs. Apartment-sized trees. Trees from the town Marché, only a little larger than the huge bouquets of flowers everyone was carting around pour présenter and sold by the same deft and flattering young men.

Nigeria was to Christmas trees utterly unknown. I mean, conifers are a concept pretty much alien to the equatorial ecosystem. So we had a 'Christmas branch'. We'd swipe a fringy palm leaf from the nearest scrub brush area. This would arch in an un-Christmas-tree-like way but was pretty and satisfying unless you have the unshakable conviction that Christmas trees are supposed to stand up straight . The way you do it is you put long strings on the baubles and let them hang down at artistically satisfying lengths.

In the beach market I bought lovely carved angels about two inches high made from the wood of the local thorn trees. 

Saudi Arabia was a bit of a challenge, since the sale of Christmas trees was officially forbidden. The garden shops, however, just happened to do a roaring business in potted evergreen landscape shrubs at that time of the year. The proprietor would show us to the selection way out behind the potting sheds. We'd drive around back to discreetly load up our landscape spruce in the jeep and toss a tarp over it on the way home.     

Here in the US, I've sometimes bought living trees. I'd dig a hole -- or get one of the kids to dig a hole -- in September or October. Then pick out some baby evergreen, celebrate it for the holidays, and then plant it in the ground after the holidays. Very satisfying.

If I was feeling less proactive I'd take my handsaw and wander up into the woods, of which we have quite a wide selection in this part of the country, and collect a nice little conifer. Best place is some construction site, one jump ahead of the bulldozers. I would think of it as pre-recycling.

And this year, it's been a rosemary Christmas. I bought a rosemary bush and celebrated with tiny trimmings. The smell is wonderful. Just wonderful.

What's your very favorite life-affirming plant for the winter season?

O Christmas Trees

Susan here, with more greetings of the season -- Christmas is done and the New Year not quite here, but the merry bright glow of Christmas lights, holiday decorations and Christmasy feelings are still warming our hearts and our homes. It's traditional to keep the Christmas trees up until Twelfth Night, so we thought we'd share ours with our readers -- so here's an array of Wenchly Christmas trees from around the world...  

 In Australia, Anne's Christmas decor combines silver-sprayed eucalyptus branches and red felt hearts --

       

In England, Nicola's red-and-gold Scandinavian tree overlooks a garden (and stays neatly out of reach of doggies) while Jo's tree magically lights up the night -- 

 

 

               

In New England, Cara/Andrea's perfect evergreen twinkles while an elf watches from the shelf . . . 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

In the Mid-Atlantic region, Mary Jo's tinseled tree is guarded by a brave kitty . . . 

       

 Not far from there, Susan's tree glows with angels and snowflakes . . . 

 

 

While a little farther south, Joanna's rosemary plant is strung with baubles beside a creche scene on the mantel . . . 

 

      

 

 

 And out on the West Coast, Pat's podocarpus tree stands in for an evergreen to give Christmas decorations a fine home . . .

 

 Wishing you all the joys of the season and a wonderful, prosperous, happy New Year! 

 

 

 

Pudding or not?

Anne here, hoping everyone has been enjoying their holidays, whether or not you celebrate particular days.

I had a most enjoyable Christmas. I started the day joining a group of friends for an outdoor breakfast of crepes and fresh fruit (it being summer here) and yoghurt. I took along these strawberry santas as my contribution, and they were the perfect appetizer while the crepes were being cooked. They're just strawberries and whipped cream stiffened with a little icing sugar (powdered sugar in the US). They should have tiny chocolate eyes, but I had no suitable choc bits and I was in a hurry as the breakfast started at 8.30am.

Later I had a delicious roast dinner of lamb and baked vegetables, which we finished with fresh cherries and coffee and a sweet treat some call Christmas Crack -- salt crackers, toffee, chocolate and nuts. The recipe is here (made with Matzoh crackers but I used saladas or saltines. I also top it with flaked, toasted almonds.) I often used to make it for my dad when he was alive, because he had a real sweet tooth and loved it. I still make it most Christmases, also Easter and whenever I want to make a sweet treat gift for someone. It's delicious and very more-ish.

It was only the next day I realized that for the first time in years, I hadn't had any Christmas pudding (aka plum pudding.) It's not something most Americans have at Christmas, I think, but it's still very popular here (and in the UK of course) and the Christmas Pud was a big part of my childhood. (if you want to read more about Christmas pudding here's a post I wrote on it some years ago.) I've always loved the taste, but even some of my cousins, who didn't, still ate it greedily, because Christmas pudding always contained money -- silver money, and when money stopped being silver, we saved the old money and the lucky recipients "sold" it for current money. Some families use silver charms in the same way.

This year one of my friends gave me this — a Victorian-era style "pudding doll" which is a tiny ceramic doll that goes into a pudding as a lucky charm for whoever finds it in their serving. This particular one is "Frozen Charlotte" after a US story and song about a girl who underdressed for a sleigh-ride, wanting to show off her pretty dress. Readers, she froze to death on the ride. Sounds like a cautionary tale to me, rather than actual history — and I'm not sure why she should be lucky. Anyway, this cute little dolly is going into my pudding next year. Hope nobody breaks a tooth on her.

So what about you? Did you celebrate the holidays? What did you eat, and what kind of dessert did you have?

An Edible Yule Log

by Mary Jo

As my first contribution to our Wenchly Yuletide posts, I want to talk about the Yule log, which was a special, usually very large, log brought into the home to burn for the Christmas holidays. The custom is found in a number of European countries.  Probably it was originally a pagan Germanic tradition that was repurposed for Christmas.  I suspect the original meaning had to do with light and warmth in the depths of winter, and celebrating the winter solstice and the return of the sun.  

But the French go one better: their Bûche de Noël--Yuletide log--is a spectacularly decadent log-shaped holiday cake.  A sponge cake is baked in a shallow pan, then rolled into a cylinder with lavish amounts of butter cream icing inside and out.  The outside is usually textured to look like bark, and the bûche is decorated with seasonal symbols such as meringue mushrooms or berries or little miniature trees.  

I photographed these cakes at a local but very authentic French bakery called Bon Jour.  The classic version is yellow cake with chocolate butter cream, but as you can see, variations are easy.  Feast your eyes!  And if you can find a good bakery that makes a Bûche de Noël, feast your taste buds as well.  <G> 

Happy holiday delights!

Mary Jo, who bought two of their miniature bûches for self and Mayhem Consultant. 
  

 

 

Eat, Drink and Be Merry

I don't know about you, but I'm still recovering from Christmas Dinner! My brother and his family are vegetarian, and everyone is a gourmet cook (including his son)—so the making the feast has everyone in the kitchen (I contributed the Guinness chocolate cake—alas, it didn't last long enough for a photo!)

We started with an assortment of local artisanal cheeses,then moved on to carrot-ginger soup, risotto patties, kale salad and stuffed mushrooms. Somehow we all managed to find room for the cake and traditional Swiss cookies made of gingerbread filled with marzipan!


 

 

 

 

 

The evening was overflowing with laughter and love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope your table was also filled with goodies and good cheer.
Happy Holidays, everyone!

Boxing Day

Hi, Jo Bev here. I'm not going to get into what Boxing Day means, as there's considerable debate, but it's definitely the day after Christmas Day. I hope it finds you well and happy.

For my "box" to you I offer this image from The Graphics Fairy, a wonderful site for old time images.

I'd love to know where it was created and for what purpose, but how could I resist a Georgian monkey, obviously of a studious, genial disposition, about to delicately take snuff!

 

Christmas isn't over yet. It continues until Twelfth Night, so may the merriment continue.

Jo

Merry Christmas!

Hope your stockings are full this morning!

If you're interested in how Saint Nicholas became revered as the spirit of Christmas, I'd like to recommend his story on this site. 

 

So to you and yours, may you have a generous Christmas in the true meaning of the holiday!

Christmas Fun and Games!

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Ashmolean Museum Christmas Party in Oxford. The Ashmolean is one of the most famous museums in the UK and one of my absolute favourite places. It was there that I first saw the 17^th century engraved Bohemian glass that gave me a key idea for my book House of Shadows. I also set one of the scenes in the book there, so it was wonderful to revisit and celebrate with canapés and champagne, followed by carols in the sculpture gallery.

After the speeches and buffet we were divided into groups and given a short lecture by one of the curators on an item in the museum that had a connection to Christmas. In our case it was the snakes and ladders board in the oriental gallery. Snakes and ladders is of course a traditional Christmas game that has been played for hundreds of years. I’m told that in the US it’s called Chutes and Ladders, apparently because when it was launched in the 1940s, children didn’t like the snakes. The object of the game is to navigate one's game piece, according to the roll of the dice, from the start (bottom square) to the finish (top square), helped or hindered by ladders and snakes respectively and it is based on pure luck.

However, the game in the Ashmolean was quite different. It is an 18^th century version of the game as a morality tale. Based on the idea of karma, it teaches the players all about their spiritual path to enlightenment. The snakes have names like “greed” “envy” and “pride” and represent the pitfalls for man as he or she struggles upward towards heaven. This particular board is painted on British watermarked paper and was made for a British patron in the East India Company. The instructions on the board are written in Persian and English. It’s a beautiful and very rare artefact.

Snakes and Ladders became popular in England in the 19^th century when families returning from colonial India brought it with them. It was the perfect game for reflecting Victorian ideas of morality.  Squares of Fulfilment, Grace and Success were accessible by ladders of Thrift, Penitence and Industry and snakes of Indulgence, Disobedience and Indolence caused one to end up in Illness, Disgrace and Poverty. While the Indian version of the game had snakes outnumbering ladders, the English counterpart was more forgiving as it contained each in the same amount. This concept of equality signifies the cultural ideal that for every sin one commits, there exists another chance at redemption.

In modern versions of the game the idea of morality has faded and it has become a game of chance although it still embodies the idea that for every ladder you hope to climb, there is a snake waiting around the corner! The phrase “back to square one” derives from the game.

Snakes and Ladders was one of my favourite Christmas games as a child and perhaps this association with Christmas has its roots in toe northern UK because each year there is a snakes and ladders championship held at Christmas in the city of Sheffield. This year we are doing the Christmas jigsaw, another game with a fascinating history. What about you? What are your favourite Christmas games?

Malta

Hi, Jo here, having just returned from a week in Malta. So of course I'm going to tell you about it!

I've wanted to visit for a long time, in part because it features in Dorothy Dunnett's The Disorderly Knights, the third book if her Lymond Chronicles. In it, Francis Crawford, all around genius (but especially militarily) at a loose end, is drawn into the world of the Knights of Malta, aka the Knights of St. John or the Knights Hospitaller. The Knights are struggling internally, and against the Ottoman Empire.

The nation, Malta, is just south of Sicily, which is just off the southern toe of Italy. It is composed of three islands -- Malta, Gozo, and Camino, and it is one of the smallest countries in the world, being only about 122 square miles, and with a population of about half a million, it's one of the most densely populated. I didn't know this, and I confess I'd expected something a bit more rural and quaint.

In fact it has a scarcity of water and thus few trees, and nearly everything is built of limestone, from the simplest house to a magnificent cathedral. It also has a fascinating and complex history, as it's been occupied by nearly all European forces at one point or another.

This pattern of building with the local limestone goes way back. Way, way back, to before 3000 BC when stone age people were already moving large blocks of the rock and carving others in most interesting ways. It seems that the people living on Malta then were cutting edge -- if you'll pardon the expression when their only edge was on flint tools.

One site we visited, at Hagar Qim, is now covered to protect it from the elements. That doesn't take away from its complexity and sophistication, with its walls, passages and chambers. (Picture on the right.)

Think about it. No metal tools. Much more impressive than Stonehenge!

Buttons and Bows

My research lately has centered on the 1830s election for the UK Prime Minister that threw out Wellington’s conservative party and voted in Earl Grey’s reformist party—does that sound like history repeating itself? Of course, the series focuses on romance, my magical Malcolms, and recalcitrant Ives, so the books really are about people and not politics. What can be more about people than fashion?

It's called WHAT? Thoughts on Titles

by Mary Jo

Titles are an important part of how books are perceived, so this month's Ask a Wench Question was:

How do you come up with titles?  How hard is it? Do titles matter? Have you had your publisher give your books a title you didn't like?  And if that's happened, did it sell well?  <G>

Pat Rice:

I’ve written over sixty books and a dozen novellas and coming up with a title only gets more difficult, because by now, I’ve used up every romantic word that can be put on a front cover. And over the last three decades, every possible title has surely been used at least three times, so finding a unique one... requires help, lots of help. (Fresh Christmas title, anyone?)

Before self-publishing, my editor and I used to create long lists of romantic nouns and adjectives and try to piece them together when we couldn’t agree on a title. We’ve come up with the perfect title and been shot down because another author came up with that same title sooner. Now that I’m out here on my own, I call on friends and fellow authors, and when times get desperate, I have social media to fall back on. My new Unexpected Magic series and the first three books were titled entirely by readers, because my friends and I had simply run out of Magic ideas.

If you think that making up titles sounds like fun, sign up for my newsletter http://patriciarice.com/ and see what you’re in for!

 

The Chimney Sweep Cometh

Here's the chimney sweep, doing his thing

Joanna here.  I've had the sweep in. This is something chimney owners must do every year. It was particularly necessary in my case because the chimney had got itself all blocked up with hardened soot of some kind and would not, could not, draw — which is discouraging in the extreme for thos who heat with wood.

Anyhow, I called the chimney sweep and in somewhat less than a month, he arrived, complete with long brushes under his arm and expertise in his noggin.


"Peter darling! the sweep's here!"

"Oh. frabjous day! I am coming, my own, my sweep." He pattered down briskly. "What a genius you have for saying the right thing! All my life I have waited to hear those exquisite words, Peter darling, the sweep's come."
          Dorothy Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

To make my chimney-sweeping experience vaguely relevant — I love the word 'relevant'. It was very popular when I was in college — to the holiday season, let me remind everybody that Santa has to come down the chimney and he certainly doesn't want to do that until the thing's been thoroughly swept.

Santa, very clean. Before chimney

The basic idea of a chimney came to folks independently in many times and places when they noticed the smoke from the fire they'd lit in the middle of the floor was hanging about the place and making them cough before it finally found its way out through the thatch or louvers up near the pitch of the roof.

"We'll chop a hole in the roof and the smoke will go out that way," they said. And indeed it did, but then the rain and snow and passing birds came in and none of this was satisfactory.

However Santa doubtless found entry a snap in those days.

As I drew in my head, and was turning around,

Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

         Clement Moore, A Visit From St Nicholas

 

An open hearth 

In round about the Sixteenth Century, which is to say maybe four or five thousand years after wattle and daub was the great innovation in the British Isles, folks moved the smoke-escape hole to the side of the dwelling place and ran a masonry chimney down to coax smoke to the outside world. The fireplace lost its central position but remained an area wide open to the room. Folks sat real close, sometimes on benches right in the hearth itself. Most of the smoke escaped up that vent hole. So did most of the heat.

But we're talking about cleaning the thing, aren't we?

If you look up a chimney nowadays and wonder how anyone could possibly wriggle through like a climbing boy — as who among us has not — it's because you're not looking at an Eighteenth Century or earlier wood-burning chimney. Chimney design changed in the Late Georgian period, in part because of . . .  coal.

Industrial expansion from Tudor times onward, (and folks would heat their houses,) had made wood scarcer and more expensive, especially near cities. Better transport made coal cheaper. Folks began to keep a scuttle of coal handy to pile on the open fire. Eventually middling folk gave up

A coal hearth with its grate filled with coal

their roaring open wood fires altogether, especially in cities like London, and installed grates, piled with coal.

 

The sweep cometh

Coal worked efficiently in a smaller fireplace with a smaller chimney. Folks refitted wood-burning chimneys to make them narrower and built new chimneys to a slimmer standard. This changeover was taking place around the Regency, so you can have wood burning in the parlor of some grand house in Grosvenor Square but a cozy coal fire in the governess's room upstairs.

Santa doubtless adapted. He always does.

And chimney sweeps started using stout rods and brushes to clean the flues.  That's what my sweep is carrying in a long bag over his shoulder. His set of brushes.

Spies under every Tudor rock! An interview with Kathy Lynn Emerson

by Mary Jo

I'm delighted to welcome my friend Kathy Lynn Emerson today to talk about her newest historical mystery, Murder in the Merchant's Hall.  Though best known for the mysteries she writes under her own name and as Kaitlyn Dunnett, Kathy has also written Tudor historicals as Kate Emerson, and her long and distinguished career has also included romance, children's stories, and non-fiction.  She won the Agatha Award in 2008 for best mystery nonfiction for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and has been an Agatha finalist for her fiction as well.  

Currently she writes the contemporary Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries (The Scottie Barked at Midnight) as Kaitlyn and the historical Mistress Jaffrey Mysteries as Kathy (Murder in the Merchant’s Hall). The latter series is a spin-off from her earlier “Face Down” series and is set in Elizabethan England.
 
And in the spirit of the season--Kathy's Liss MacCrimmon mystery Ho-Ho-Homicide is now available in paperback, and she lives on a Christmas tree farm in New England. <G>  Kathy, thanks so much for joining us today.  Tell us about the new book!

Kathy Lynn Emerson: As an avid reader of novels written by the good folks here at Word Wenches, I’ve noticed that many of them have plots that deal with espionage. I have a weakness for such stories myself.

This turns out to be fortunate, since I write mysteries set in the Elizabethan era. Not to put too fine a point on it, but you couldn’t turn over a rock during the late sixteenth century without uncovering some treasonous scheme to undermine the government, assassinate Good Queen Bess, or otherwise wreak havoc.

Heyer Walk With Pictures, Part 2

Anne here, continuing the delightful walk through Georgette Heyer's London, conducted by my friend, author Sophie Weston. The first part of the tour is here.
But first, a photo of the scales on which Byron used to weigh himself. It was mentioned in the previous post, but the photo came to me later from a friend. Notice the lead weights neatly stacked beside the scales.

St James’s Palace  (below)
Even today Ambassadors present their credentials to the Court of St James's. During the Regency, the King lived mostly secluded at Windsor or Kew and the Queen restricted her Drawing Rooms, so there were few opportunities for debutantes to be Presented. Even so, Jenny from A Civil Contract managed it and so did Arabella, who was much impressed by Princess Mary.

The Prince Regent’s marital difficulties prevented him from formally running an alternative Court at Carlton House and when the Hanoverian Jubilee was in full swing in 1814, he received the Crowned Heads in St James Palace – getting seriously annoyed when the Czar, for whom rooms had been refurbished especially, refused to stay there. He preferred to join his sister, Grand Duchess Catherine, already ensconced in the Pulteney Hotel. Oh the lure of the flushing loo!

Hedgehog Pie—or What's Cooking for the Holidays!

Cara/Andrea here, The holiday season always get me in the mood for firing up the oven. I especially enjoy baking at this time of year, but am always on the lookout for new recipes to share with family and friends. You know—cookies, chocolate confections, fruit studded cakes, or . . . um . . . hedgehog pudding.

Yes, hedgehog pudding. (from a c. 1750 English cookbook)

Before you start turning green around the gills, allow me to elaborate. (I assure you it’s NOT what you think!) I happened to see a special blog on historical holiday cooking on the Yale Library website and I just had to delve in for a bite. (Clearly, they know how to get a reader’s attention with their headlines—and though the ingredients aren't listed, the blurb promises that it does not contain hedgehog.) So, as we head into the season where we all tend to eat and drink to excess, let’s whet the appetite with a few of their wonderfully arcane cookbooks.

We Need to Talk - The Art of Conversation

I read last week that the art of conversation is dead. This is the era of the text and the tweet where we give and receive information in small doses. We communicate more but we talk less. Digital communication also lets you plan what you want to say whereas in real time we don’t know where a conversation is going to lead, and that makes us nervous.

Such claims are nothing new. Technology has often been blamed for having a detrimental effect on face-to-face communication. In 1889 a newspaper article suggested that telephones should not be allowed in private houses for fear of the damage they could do to “real” conversations. Way back in the 4th century BC Socrates was complaining that writing ideas down was not as good as talking about them one to one because the way to learn was through debate.

Cold weather

Hi, Jo here, and as it's December now I thought I'd blog about cold weather in fiction.There's a picture of me looking surprisingly cheerful when I'm ready to venture out into freezing temperatures.

As an aside, the Met Office here now breaks the seasons by months, not by the sun, so winter begins on the first of December. I'm not keen on this. I like tradition and also accuracy. The sun's solstices are a fact of nature; the division of the year into 12 month is merely a human device that we could change tomorrow if we wanted to. I'm sure some people are itching to get rid of February at least.

I also don't like winter starting weeks before it should, but I console myself with the knowledge that spring will come early next year.

Do you like winter? By that I mean the cold, frosty, possibly snowy, short-day time of year? I don't. I used to see some of the romance of frost feathers on the windows and a landscape dusted with white. That was before we emigrated to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the snow started falling as winter began, in late December, and pretty well stayed until way past the beginning of spring. But it could be fun, I admit, especially for the children.

Then we moved to Montreal and then Ottawa, where the depth of snowfall tended to be less, but that was because it was colder. Much, much colder. The average low January temp in Ottawa is given as -14 C, or 6F, but that's an average. -20 or more wasn't unusual.

The end result is that I don't like winter, and that affects my writing.