In the co-op in Delph this morning they were playing Christmas songs. One of the shop assistants was complaining that it’s too early for Christmas songs. One of her colleagues retorted that they’ve been selling mince pies for at least 6 weeks. Some places have had them on sale for even longer. However, according to something I read Advent, the period of waiting for the coming of Jesus, is supposed to start on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, this year, November 30th. So Christmas has officially begin and when I thought the across-the-road neighbours were being a little premature in decking their house and garden with lights and baubles last Sunday I was mistaken. They were just keeping to a good old tradition.
Their garden is regularly decorated for Christmas with baubles fixed onto the fence, and Christmas lights attached to every possible surface. At the same time, their living room window is filled with an enormous Christmas tree. Quite how they have room to move in their living room is a mystery. They do this every year and as a rule it all comes down on Boxing Day, by which time they are probably heartily sick of all the glitter and glimmer.
We don’t yet have a Christmas tree. I need a very small tree that can stand unobtrusively in a corner of the living room, taking up as little room as possible and allowing access to the music system. I found an ideally sized one at Sainsbury’s yesterday but we already had bags to carry. The tree can wait until my daughter can give us a lift and put the tree in her car boot. Then on December 19th my own personal elves, aka the three smallest grandchildren, will decorate it for me. Plenty of time then!
Here’s another bit Christmas trivia, with an engraving to boot:
The royal Christmas tree is admired by Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and their children, December 1848. A Christmas tradition stemming from Saturnalia was the Christmas tree: During the winter solstice, branches served as a reminder of spring - and became the root of our Christmas tree. The Germans are credited with first bringing evergreens into their homes and decorating them, a tradition which made it's way to the United States in the 1830s. But it wasn't until Germany's Prince Albert introduced the tree to his new wife, England's Queen Victoria, that the tradition took off. The couple were sketched in front of a Christmas tree in 1848 - and royal fever did its work.
But there are conflicting views:
“Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort, is usually credited with having introduced the Christmas tree into England in 1840. However, the honour of establishing this tradition in the United Kingdom rightfully belongs to ‘good Queen Charlotte’, the German wife of George III, who set up the first known English tree at Queen’s Lodge, Windsor, in December, 1800.
Legend has it that Queen Charlotte’s compatriot, Martin Luther, the religious reformer, invented the Christmas tree. One winter’s night in 1536, so the story goes, Luther was walking through a pine forest near his home in Wittenberg when he suddenly looked up and saw thousands of stars glinting jewel-like among the branches of the trees. This wondrous sight inspired him to set up a candle-lit fir tree in his house that Christmas to remind his children of the starry heavens from whence their Saviour came.”
There you go!
I was out and about yesterday with Granddaughter Number Two, which is how I came to spot suitable trees in Sainsbury’s. We established a Christmas shopping tradition a few years ago now but we still need to attack Manchester, rather than just our local Marks and Spencer. But we did quite well. Our return journey was more than a little chaotic.
Granddaughter Number Two is very efficient at tracking buses and trams on her mobile phone. As we left the shops to walk back to the local bus station, she calculated that we were about to miss a bus to my house but should be in time for one to hers. Once we arrived at the bus station we discovered mayhem in action. The bus to her house appeared to be broken down, blocking the bus bay. According to the announcement board all buses were running at least 30 minutes late. People were milling around, berating the poor driver of the broken down bus, as if he were personally responsible.
After about three quarters of an hour we abandoned that particular bus and caught an alternative, one which runs hourly and calls in at every possible small estate on it’s convoluted route from Ashton Bus Station to Oldham Bus Station. But we were on a bus, warm and dry, avoiding the icy wind which was making the rain (which had just begun to fall) horizontal.
That’s how it goes.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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