Holidays Archives – Page 5 of 19

December 7, 2022December 7, 2022

December Histories: The Wild Hunt on Christmas Eve

Peter Nicolai Arbo’s Asgardreien (The Wild Hunt of Odin), 1872, wikipedia.

Dear Reader: this is one of my favorite holiday posts, so I couldn’t resist a repeat for 2022.

Pretend this is the Jeopardy category: Common Bonds. The Wild Hunt, mind control, and the 1871 Polaris disaster. What do they all have in common? Got it? Add in fan fiction, Zwarte Piet, shoemakers, Martin Luther, reliquary theft…. Yes? Norse mythology? Saving girls from prostitution? Louisa May Alcott, Thomas Nast? How about Shadrack, the Black Reindeer?

It will soon be Christmas Eve, after all.

The mythology–the extensive fan fiction, which is what mythology is, isn’t it?–around the legends of Santa Claus and Christmas have roots that go waa-a-a-y beyond the Coca Cola commercial. Although I dug deep into a comparison of Santa and Jesus back in 2021, there are Santa rabbit holes to be discovered. Even if we just talk about Santa and his helpers, there’s plenty that even that Greek scholar and seminarian Clement Moore didn’t envision.

November 24, 2022November 24, 2022

I Wrote It Already (Turkey Day Version)

Smells good Piggy! It does, doesn’t it… Muppet parody on Norman Rockwell from tumblr.

I was going to write a Thanksgiving-themed post about potatoes, but I realized I had already done that. And yams, too. Yes, they’re different from sweet potatoes. See post.

Cranberries? Check. Turkey? Check check.

In fact, if you want to know a little history about most of the standard American traditional fare served the last Thursday of November, I can probably help you out. Or already did.

How about The Mother of Thanksgiving, Sara Josepha Hale, who helped start the formal holiday? Check. (p.s. those are links to my previous posts, should you want to learn about the history of said items and the somber lady who petitioned Lincoln for an official Thanksgiving holiday)

Gravy? You betcha! (Hint: every culture has it, but they call it something else.)

How about pumpkin pie? well, I did write all about pumpkins although it was more Halloween-y…

Stuffing? Oh heck yes!

I will admit, I haven’t written anything about green beans, corn casserole, or any of those regional/ethnic variations, like macaroni and cheese, lasagna, tamales, or whatever your family does. Maybe next year.

Most importantly, I’ve already created the flowchart. This year, as I went to reprint a new copy–ours is now covered with handwritten reminders and gravy stains–I found to my devastation that I only have a picture, and not the original document. I am in the midst of recreating it, but here is the old version. And the original explanatory post.

I have apparently reached a milestone of sorts. When it comes to Thanksgiving, I may have already written it.

Perhaps for Xmas I will need to research the historical derivation of deviled eggs.

July 4, 2022July 6, 2022

The Truth about the Movie 1776

It’s a masterpiece I say! They will cheer every word, every letter!
from “The Egg”

Adams, Franklin, Jefferson waiting for the chirp, chirp, chirp of an eaglet being born. Photo from Columbia Pictures.

Yep, the movie is full of historical inaccuracies. But as the Columbia Companion to American Film says, “few are very troubling.” The musical 1776 was produced in 1969, during the Vietnam War and the Nixon administration, although it wasn’t especially anti-war or preachy. (Other than the song “Cool Considerate Men,” which was clearly aimed at Republicans, or at least Nixon thought so because he pressured the producer, his friend Jack Warner, to cut it from the cinema version. Warner tried to have the negative destroyed, but someone saved it, and you can see them minuet ever to the right in the restored version. And the anti-slavery part… Anyway…)

The movie was politely applauded at the time, and now it has a cult following. We watch it every year for the holiday. The original musical was more enthusiastically greeted, as it won the Tony for Best Musical, even though the idea of staging the story of Congressional debate over the wording of a political document seemed foolhardy. Where was the romance? Where was the action?

It comes from the moment John Adams bangs open the door to Independence Hall and yells at his colleagues: I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace, that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a Congress! To which they respond:

Sit down, John
Sit down, John
For God’s sake, John
Sit down!
Samuel Chase:
Someone ought to open up a window!

It’s dramatic, it’s bold, it’s operatic, with Congressmen singing back and forth at each other, immediately debating hotly whether or not to let in the flies. Is that historically accurate? Surely, it must be! That’s the beauty of the film. Even if there isn’t proof for every single thing that happens–from Hopkins bullying the aide McNair to bring him rum or the delegates rushing outside when a fire wagon goes by or the stiff argument over about “unalienable” vs. “inalienable” –surely, most of these things happened.