Ten days of Christmas
Dec. 26th, 2006 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustIn theory, I adhere to the principle that Christmas begins on Christmas Day (though certain preliminaries are permitted on Christmas Eve, and help to set the mood) and runs for twelve days. New Year falls within the festive season, but is not really part of it, coming from a different system of measuring time and the world. Celebration does not end until Twelfth Night - and if we are partying on Twelfth Night, I graciously give myself permission not to take down the decorations until the following day.
This year, though, we have had such a busy Advent, and so full of distinctly seasonal treats, that it's barely Boxing Day and I'm ready for a break. It has all been good, and better than good, and now it's time for few quiet days with no particular plans.
We started with Neil and Jan's annual carol evening. We reckoned afterwards that there had been seventeen people there, which is about the maximum that you can squeeze into their big front room and everone still has a chair: so they limit invitations to people who will enjoy an evening of singing and playing carols. One or two old friends couldn't be there (including the High Commissioner to Cameroon, who phoned from Yaounde to say he couldn't make it), and there was at least one first-timer. Since Francis wasn't there, Neil and I made the mulled wine from memory, and were relieved when it was approved by J., who tasted it cautiously with a spoon, and then felt the need for several more spoons full, just to make sure.
We sing the same carols each year, from booklets which Francis collated, long ago, from the old loose sheets - but this year I learned, what I had not known, that it was Francis who had inserted O come, Emmanuel because he likes it, rather to Neil's bewilderment: I like it, too, though I can't give it the same booming treatment that Francis can, and put in a bid to sing it first, in future, taking the Advent song before the Christmas ones. We dropped the version of While shepherds watched that we learned at school, and sang it straight away to the tune Cranbrook (also known as On Ilkley Moor baht'at), which makes a glorious sound - and again later in another setting as Silver Bells.
We came home from London on Tuesday, and it felt as if we were no sooner unpacked than we were off into Newcastle for the Christmas ghost story session at the Lit & Phil: there were mince pies and mulled wine in the library, and three new ghost stories, written for the event and read by their authors. Sean O'Brien produced with a flourish a completely new, newer than new story, not the story he had read the previous Monday at the first sitting, a story called The Silence Room and set in that room of the Lit & Phil itself. It was dry and witty, and very entertaining, but curiously unspooky: it created a sense of apprehension, and a desire to yell "Don't do it!" to the protagonist, as he did all the things which would so obviously lead to his destruction - but perhaps because of the detatched tone of the narrative, I felt no chill. Gail-Nina Anderson revived the character of Mr Duffy from her The Dust Jacket, and introduced him to the Church recorders, in whose company he discovers a curious tomb and A Wreath with Gloves: she created an atmosphere of gloom and foreboding in which the ghost - if it was a ghost - was one of the brighter presences, and then triumphantly brought out a conclusion which pointed out that it is possible, after all, to relish gloom and foreboding. Finally, Chaz Brenchley's The House of Mechanical Pain - as anyone who follows![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
desperance's LJ knows - concerns an orrery: also a country house, which was not, but might well have been, called Desperance, a disfunctional family and a large collection of photographs. This was scary, but even more overwhelmingly sad.
After which we bought as many copies of the book of the Second Proceeding as John, the publisher, had brought with him, and adjourned to our various places of refreshment.
More to follow - but it's time for lunch.
This year, though, we have had such a busy Advent, and so full of distinctly seasonal treats, that it's barely Boxing Day and I'm ready for a break. It has all been good, and better than good, and now it's time for few quiet days with no particular plans.
We started with Neil and Jan's annual carol evening. We reckoned afterwards that there had been seventeen people there, which is about the maximum that you can squeeze into their big front room and everone still has a chair: so they limit invitations to people who will enjoy an evening of singing and playing carols. One or two old friends couldn't be there (including the High Commissioner to Cameroon, who phoned from Yaounde to say he couldn't make it), and there was at least one first-timer. Since Francis wasn't there, Neil and I made the mulled wine from memory, and were relieved when it was approved by J., who tasted it cautiously with a spoon, and then felt the need for several more spoons full, just to make sure.
We sing the same carols each year, from booklets which Francis collated, long ago, from the old loose sheets - but this year I learned, what I had not known, that it was Francis who had inserted O come, Emmanuel because he likes it, rather to Neil's bewilderment: I like it, too, though I can't give it the same booming treatment that Francis can, and put in a bid to sing it first, in future, taking the Advent song before the Christmas ones. We dropped the version of While shepherds watched that we learned at school, and sang it straight away to the tune Cranbrook (also known as On Ilkley Moor baht'at), which makes a glorious sound - and again later in another setting as Silver Bells.
We came home from London on Tuesday, and it felt as if we were no sooner unpacked than we were off into Newcastle for the Christmas ghost story session at the Lit & Phil: there were mince pies and mulled wine in the library, and three new ghost stories, written for the event and read by their authors. Sean O'Brien produced with a flourish a completely new, newer than new story, not the story he had read the previous Monday at the first sitting, a story called The Silence Room and set in that room of the Lit & Phil itself. It was dry and witty, and very entertaining, but curiously unspooky: it created a sense of apprehension, and a desire to yell "Don't do it!" to the protagonist, as he did all the things which would so obviously lead to his destruction - but perhaps because of the detatched tone of the narrative, I felt no chill. Gail-Nina Anderson revived the character of Mr Duffy from her The Dust Jacket, and introduced him to the Church recorders, in whose company he discovers a curious tomb and A Wreath with Gloves: she created an atmosphere of gloom and foreboding in which the ghost - if it was a ghost - was one of the brighter presences, and then triumphantly brought out a conclusion which pointed out that it is possible, after all, to relish gloom and foreboding. Finally, Chaz Brenchley's The House of Mechanical Pain - as anyone who follows
desperance's LJ knows - concerns an orrery: also a country house, which was not, but might well have been, called Desperance, a disfunctional family and a large collection of photographs. This was scary, but even more overwhelmingly sad.After which we bought as many copies of the book of the Second Proceeding as John, the publisher, had brought with him, and adjourned to our various places of refreshment.
More to follow - but it's time for lunch.
