Sheila's LiveJournal

Christmas puddings mixed and steaming on the stove top, Christmas lights up outside (but not operating quite right yet), Thanksgiving goodies assembled to take to family gathering, suitcase ready to be packed for LosCon over the weekend --

Yes, it's beginning to look a lot like the holidays are approaching.

My latest musing on life and science fiction is up:

http://www.nebulaawards.com/index.php/guest_blogs/fantastic_voyages/

Memorial Day always brings back a specific childhood memory for me. I grew up in London during World War II, and as the war progressed, the city increasingly came under attack from the German Luftwaffe. Night after night, waves of enemy planes flew over London and dropped their bombs. At one point, my mother and grandmother got tired of the nightly rush for the (not terribly safe) bomb shelters, and they decided to go to the Essex countryside and stay with my grandmother's sister. My great-aunt lived in a cottage with a thatched roof in a tiny village called Boreham.

There was very little to distinguish this quiet village except for one thing: In 1941, America came into the war on the side of Britain and the Allies, and after a while they began to build airbases in the English countryside. One was a mile or so outside of Boreham. The American servicemen at this base had a big effect on country life in Essex. We called them all "Yanks" even if perhaps they were Westerners or Southerners. And we kids did our best to copy their slang – much to the horror of our proper British mothers. There are many stories I could tell about the airmen – young boys really, but they seemed old to eight and nine year-old me – but there's one particular event I'm thinking of today.

These young men were very good to the English kids. Whenever they had a pass to come into the village, we followed them around chanting, "Got any gum, chum?" and they'd almost always find sticks of chewing gum in their pockets for us, and maybe chocolate. Because of the sad and dangerous conditions during the war, and with my father being away with the British army – and of course food rationing – we don't seem to have celebrated Christmas much. I suppose my family must've given small presents on those wartime Christmases, especially to the younger members, but money was tight and few shops were open to sell things other than food and necessities. Anything beyond the very basic was out of the question “for the duration.” as the adults used to say. The one Christmas I do have a memory of was from that time in Boreham.

The young American airmen gave a Christmas party on the base for the village children. They decorated the mess hut with streamers and served us foods we hadn't seen for a very long time, like Jell-O, and cake and ice-cream. We sang Christmas carols together, and I seem to remember we were each given a small gift to take home. Those airmen were almost all of them in their early twenties, and they probably missed their own families at home in America. Yet they gave their time and paid for everything out of their own pockets so some English kids could have a few moments of peaceful celebration in the midst of war.

What I came to understand once I was an adult was the terrible mathematics of war which ate up young pilots at a horrific rate. How many of those boys who helped the village kids have a semblance of normal Christmas joy never returned to make families of their own?
Today, I don't doubt there are young servicemen and women in Iraq and Afghanistan who find time to pause in the midst of their own danger to be kind to kids who have little to be joyous about. I think about them all on Memorial Day.

Peace in our time, O Lord.

Happy Easter! I hope the weather in your part of the country is good so you can wear your new chapeau. And remember to take off your new white gloves before eating chocolate Easter eggs.

Eight o’clock this morning – cloudy and raining. But the greys have to go out. One of the biggest inconveniences of living in a condo (and maybe the only true one) is that you can’t just open the door and shoo the dogs outside. So I dragged on clothes and shoes and we went out.

It wasn’t so bad really. The air was fresh and cool and the dogs enjoyed all the new scents we encountered by taking a different route. And actually, it wasn’t raining so much as misting. But, being only human, I grumbled about rain on my glasses (I like to wear transition lenses when I’m out in the bright light) and the time it was taking as the dogs stopped again and again to read the doggie news.

At one point, we passed a red-robed monk from the Tibetan Buddhist temple not far from where I live. I did my best imitation of an all-purpose reverent bow (learned from my Tai Chi master), hands on top of each other, brief head nod, difficult with two leashes in my hands, and on we went. We probably did a mile and a half today, far from our record, and had turned the last corner on the homeward stretch. And there was our monk again, almost back to his temple.

This time I dredged up the Tibetan greeting I’d learned in Lhasa. “Tashi Deleg!” I said as we passed each other. “Oh! Tashi deleg!” he said, looking surprised. And his face opened in a big smile.

Coming into our warm condo, I agreed with the dogs. That walk was a nice way to start the day.

... is the title of my new posting at the Nebula blog site:

http://www.nebulaawards.com/index.php/guest_blogs/cymbals_and_ceremonies/

In previous centuries, the twelfth and last day of the Christmas season was an occasion for revelry and hilarity in England, and I finally understand why. Many people think the twelve days lead up to Christmas, but in actuality they only begin on December 25th and end with January 6th, the Feast of the Epiphany when the Magi visited the Christ Child. So the eve of that feast was the last chance to celebrate Christmas, a kind of last fling before returning to the drudgery of the everyday world (rather like these three old men, trudging home by the back route to avoid King Herod).

And it really was a feast in itself with drunken parties and wild goings-on, just what you'd expect from a celebration that had as its “master of ceremonies” the Lord of Misrule. Things were seldom what they seemed on Twelfth Night when the peasants held sway as temporary lords of the manor, and men dressed up in petticoats like women. Shakespeare had a lot of fun with this in the comedy of the same name: a woman (who would've been played by a young man originally) disguised as a man, being pursued in love by the female object of affection of her male employer, a self-righteous buffoon, a couple of drunken knights plotting mischief, a wily Fool egging them on. Easy to imagine how entertained the original audiences would've been, knowing (and perhaps themselves celebrating) the occasion.

Maybe this comic impulse to misrule is what underlay the pantomimes we went to see in January when I was a child in England. The tradition for these re-tellings of fairy tales and legends is that the “Dame” is always played by a man in outrageous drag, and “Prince Charming” is a woman in tights. The Clowns and Fools conspire to make life miserable for a variety of petty villains in the story, and the audience is invited to share in the frivolities by shouting responses at appropriate points in the action.

I knew all that, of course, but this year I realized another reason to be glad of Twelfth Night. The hustle and bustle of the Christmas season, the stress, the rush, the headaches, the overeating and under-exercising, the gaudy decorations gathering dust and the tree shedding needles, the accumulation of bills due -- all this finally over!

Have a happy and blessed Epiphany! (Only 334 more shopping days 'til Christmas '09.)

I recently spent several hours making traditional English desserts for Christmas and got to thinking about the traditions involved It’s not enough to just assemble the ingredients and the equipment or turn on the oven. Rituals have to be observed too.

Take mincepies (no meat, just that rich fruit mixture that Crosse & Blackwell makes available in jars in your supermarket this time of year). When I was growing up in London just after World War II, we had to make enough little individual pies to serve the family on Christmas and Boxing Days, and also all the carolers who might stop by in the week before Christmas. The lore is that you have to eat one mincepie for each of the twelve months of the New Year if you want to ensure good luck. No cheating, either; you have to eat them in different houses. This keeps the carolers busy in the neighborhood and contributes to the friendly visiting that goes on during the holidays. My mother made her own mincemeat ahead of time with dried fruits and brandy, but I’ve never done that.

Christmas Pudding, sometimes known as “plum pudding,” although there are no plums involved (or figs either, in spite of what the carol says), is a holiday treat with serious tradition attached to the making and serving. First of all, if you’re just now making the pudding for this year’s feast, you’re already too late. “Xmas Pud” as we Londoners fondly call it, should be made a year ahead, giving the pudding time to age and mature. But don’t fret; I only made mine at the end of October. A lot of good stuff goes into this steamed pudding – eggs, dark brown sugar, raisins dark and golden, currants, chopped apple, lemon peel, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger, brandy, and a dark beer to mix. My mother’s recipe called for suet as shortening, and as a young bride in Indiana I went looking for the packets of dried, cleaned, shredded suet in the market. When I was finally compelled to ask the butcher for help, he shook his head and offered me a large amount of the bloody, fatty tissue in a sheet of paper, clean and chop it yourself. No charge, because American butchers wisely throw this stuff away. After a couple of years of dealing with this chore, I gave up and switched to vegetable shortening. Actually, I’ve learned butter does as well and maybe better, if you’re not counting calories.

The protocol for Christmas Pudding is that everybody in the house at the time of its making must take a turn stirring the mixture with a wooden spoon and adding a wish.The pudding is hard to stir, but even little kids can grasp the spoon with both hands and move the mixture an inch. The wish is the important part. The puddings will steam for eight to ten hours, then be stored as long as possible until Christmas and reheated. Some families put little silver good-luck charms or silver coins in the pudding, either before cooking or when the pudding comes to the table. Mind your teeth if you do this.

Now comes another ceremony. My dad, who was the holiday cook in our house, used to bring the pudding to the table with a festive sprig of holly on top, but an older tradition – which I use today – calls for pouring brandy over it and carrying the flaming pudding into a darkened dining room. The year I got engaged to an American, my dad decided to impress the Yank by showing off our traditions, so he poured the brandy and lit the pudding. Spectacular! Especially since he’d forgotten to omit the sprig of holly which flamed merrily. (My fiancé was very impressed.)

Luckily, the Christmas Cake doesn’t carry such a burden of ceremony. But it too should be made way ahead of time and allowed to mature. I use the same recipe as the royal bakers use for royal wedding cake, and they allow twelve months for the cake to age before covering it with marzipan and decorating with hard frosting. (No smashing cake into each other’s faces here!)

If this brief account has made you sentimental about Christmas ceremonies, I’ll be glad to share the recipes – for next year’s eating, you understand