Oct
27
Posted by dodo
When Mary heard she was to be the mother of Jesus she went and sang the Magna Carta.
Schoolboy Common Entrance essay Christmas approaches. Realising that the children will soon be breaking up, Scarlett O’Aga steps up her panicking. Buckling under Christmas shopping, she staggers past boutiques pounding out sexy pop music, and wishes that she had a salary to blue on party glitter and was at an office party being propositioned. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct
22
Posted by dodo
There came wise dogs from the East bearing bones, and being wise they ate them.
Many English people won’t go away at Christmas because they can’t bear to abandon their animals. They hate the thought of putting the dogs in kennels, where they won’t get any turkey left-overs or a paper hat to wear at Christmas dinner, or leaving the cat in a cold house, with a neighbour coming in every day to top up the untouched Whiskas.
Other people have to work hard looking after farm animals. I remember one farmer’s wife telling me that she was going to have a lovely Christmas, because for the first time in thirty years of marriage they didn’t have cows to milk. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct
22
Posted by dodo
How exciting! the children are breaking-up from school today. Scarlett has already collected little Nicholas and Carol from their primary schools, and is driving down to Berkshire to collect Holly from boarding school. Noël has taken the afternoon off to collect Robin from his boarding school. As usual, the end-of-term carol service takes twice as long as scheduled, and even the sight of pretty mothers in fur coats coming out of chapel doesn’t cheer up Noël, who’s been champing outside in the Volvo for forty minutes. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct
18
Posted by dodo
Man is born free but is everywhere in paper chains.
In a pathetic attempt to be more creative last year I got a book on Christmas decorations out of the library. I could have Christmas at my fingertips, the author advised me brightly, by learning how to make a simple evergreen corsage, how to decorate an outdoor tree, how to make my own candles, and, worst of all, how to give a gala air to breakfast on Christmas morning. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct
07
Posted by dodo
Lovers open their presents together before Christmas; the neglected open theirs when they arrive in the New Year. The Germans open theirs around six o’clock on Christmas Eve. The Royal Family, being largely of German ancestry and because they spend most of Christmas Day going to church, also open theirs on Christmas Eve. An eighty-foot-long trestle table in the Red Drawing-room is used to pile up the presents which are handed out by Prince Philip. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct
03
Posted by dodo
Another very good game which can be scaled down to any age group is Twenty-one Aces. The party sits round a big table with a set of poker dice. The person who throws the seventh ace, suggests a drink, Bovril and Bourbon perhaps, or Horlicks and Heineken. The person who throws the fourteenth ace mixes it, usually in sherry glass quantities, and the unfortunate person who throws the twenty-first ace drinks it, to howls of mirth. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct
03
Posted by dodo
One of the best ways to stop things going flat after Christmas dinner is to play games. If you have teenage children from different families staying, who don’t know each other well, break the ice after supper on Christmas Eve by playing Consequences, which invariably gets lewder and lewder, followed by Charades. Read the rest of this entry »
Sep
23
Posted by dodo
The role of a mother has long been revered, with Mother Earth being worshipped in many forms. The origins of Mothering Sunday, known in the USA as Mother’s Day and celebrated later in the year, are therefore unclear. It may have very early pagan origins but it is probable that it began with the medieval practice of visiting the cathedral of the diocese or Mother Church on the fourth Sunday in Lent. Read the rest of this entry »
Sep
23
Posted by dodo
The shortest day (21 December in the northern hemisphere) was the time when the Vikings revelled in their Juul or Yule festivities for the worship of their god Odin, burning log fires to help the fading sun. English Druids on the other hand, held the festival of Nolagh. Ancient Romans used a seven-day period around the mid-winter date for their festival of Saturnalia when gifts were exchanged. Wealthy men gave money and clothing to poorer neighbours and in return received garlands, tapers and grains of incense. But their new year celebration of the Kalends (first day of the month) of January was when gifts were exchanged between families, relatives and children. The roles are reversed in France, where presents to the family are exchanged on the December date of Christmas Day, but gifts to friends and others are given at New Year. Read the rest of this entry »
Sep
21
Posted by dodo
The men and women sailed narrow boats along the waterways of England created a unique style of painted enamelware, said to be the oldest folk-art in the country. Today only a handful of narrow-boat painters are still at work, yet a novice can apply a simplified version of the classic narrow-boat designs to dull household items, and transform them with the colours and vitality of the original ware. Canal traditions are also popular in France as well as Holland where distinctive styles of decoration have evolved over the centuries. Read the rest of this entry »
