bold as love’s Neighborhood

"I love it that I'm the dream girl for geeks. That means smart men like me."

For all those early travellers (is such a thing possible this year?) - In those famous words ...

My husband and I wish you a Merry Chrstmas!

Best Wishes from Mr FD, and more importantly, Best Wishes from Flamingo Dancer! 

I was following a mother with a small child sitting in the shopping trolley around the supermarket aisle. The little girl, about 3 or 4 years of age, was singing "Jingle Bells" as her mother shopped. Mum stopped and said "That is some very nice singing that you are doing"

The little girl replied very seriously, "Yes, it's a gift!"

I looked closely at the little girl, wondering if she was a Flamingo Dancer relative, but couldn't see any family resembelance. Love that attitude!

leaping lords, drummers drumming - I think I feel a headache coming on

Twelfth Day and Night – Twelve Drummers Drumming / Lords a leaping.

January 5^th. – Feast of Fools

Twelve - The 12 points of doctrine in The Apostle’s Creed

Leaping dancers were only performed by males and in pagan times were performed for the purposes of fertility, and for war. A good leaping dance was thought to psychologically prepare the men to go into battle. I don't know what it did for their fertility!

The Roman god of vegetation and war was Mars. Roman priests, with swords, performed a Satii ritual in which they leaped high to ensure that the corn crop grew.

In English tradition the leaping lords were probably morris dancers who performed between banquet courses. Twelve morris dancers, also armed with swords, would form dance patterns that ended with the swords coming together to form a Lock or Nut over the head of the Lord Of Misrule.

Other lords a leaping performed a dance, the gavotte, accompanied by a bagpipe and a drum

The day begins, like Christmas, with a dramatic religious service featuring the coming of the Three Kings. It had become traditional for the English king to make offerings at Mass of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to symbolize his connection with those kings and with Christ. This custom survived the Reformation.

The festivities were the most sumptuous of the year, filled with royal balls and parties. For Twelfth Day and Night among the common fold, a bean was baked into a cake and pieces distributed among the children and servants. Whoever found the bean was pronounced King of the Bean, and reigned for the rest of the day and night. If a pea was used as well, whoever found it became (or chose) the Queen of the Pea.

The Epiphany, the oldest of the Christmas feasts, is also known as Three Kings Day for the three magi who found the Christ Child after following a star to Bethlehem. It is celebrated on Jan. 6 and is the major holiday of the Christmas period in the Eastern Church.

Time for the Christmas tree and greenery to come down too. St. Boniface chopped down an oak tree, regarded as sacred by the Germanic pagans in an attempt to convert pagans to Christianity , and a fir tree sprang up from the stump, with its branches pointing heavenward. The apparent miracle and its interpretation gave the evergreen family of trees an unquestioned and permanent place in the constellation of natural Christian symbols.

The Twelve Days of Christmas song is a Twelfth night song  and sung by children as a "memory and forfeits" game. Whoever first forgets a line is out.

In many homes, they also played flapdragon or snapdragon. Players took turns picking raisins out of a dish of flaming brandy and popping them into their mouth. There were wagers on each person's chances of success – on surviving, I suspect!

Ordinary rural people enjoyed feasting, dancing, card playing, carol singing, storytelling, party games like hot cockles and shoeing the mare and attempting to bite an apple with a candle stuck in it hung on a string from the end of a stick. Oh how they loved dicing with immolation those hearty folk!

The twelve days of Christmas was a most welcome break for rural workers , which in Tudor times would have been the majority of the people. All work, except for looking after the animals, would stop, restarting again on Plough Monday, the first Monday after Twelfth Night.  Maybe that is also why we all hate Monday so much  - I mean Plough Monday, yippee!

The 'Twelfths' had strict rules, one of which banned spinning, the prime occupation for women. Flowers were ceremonially placed upon and around the wheels to prevent their use.

During the Twelve Days, people would have visited their neighbours, sharing and enjoying the traditional 'minced pye'. The pyes would have included thirteen ingredients, representing Christ and his apostles, typically dried fruits, spices and of course a little chopped mutton - in remembrance of the shepherds.

That’s it folks – over for another year! Diets start January 6th and the credit card balance will be due in February.

• 12:10 Not feeling so great. Wish I could be sleeping in bed. #
• 13:27 @dearbarbz Christmas isn't even over! #
• 13:32 Not sure if this is genius, or wrong: This is a diabolically effective app. appadvice.com/app/340455202 (via @amalah) #
• 13:32 The app, not @amalah. #
• 18:10 Haircut tomorrow. Need to decide what I want. Bangs: yes or no? That's the real question. #
• 18:27 @meghanthefox I'm tempted to t ry it since I can grow them out. I'm just not sure if I'll get tired of them in a week or two haha #
• 18:28 @christinaheart I k ow they take SO long to grow out. That's the one thing that makes me hesitate to try them. #
• 20:22 When did 8 pm start sounding late to me? #
• 20:43 Mom of screaming child: maybe you could try consoling your child instead of threatening to leave her @ the store. I dont think thats working #
• 21:35 As of now, I think i'm going to go with getting bangs. I wonder if I'll chicken out tomorrow. #
• 22:39 @meghanthefox one of my friends is exactly the same way. Even seeing pictures of pregnant people bother her #
• 22:41 Getting hungry since I haven't really eaten all day. But really don't want to have to cook. Dilemma. #

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and I'm not ready!  I worked again today, so nothing accomplished on the home front.  I did buy the last present I needed last night.  My daughter's father-in-law died Saturday night, so we will be going to the wake tomorrow.  My hubby did put the tree together this morning, but I don't know how he is going to get it up the stairs. I'm going to have to move some more stuff out of the dining room so we have a place to put it. 

I'm going to post the photos from Saturday, even if the quality isn't what I had hoped it would be.  I may try editing them again to see if I can fix them.  Here goes!

IMG_0120.JPG - Vox3

Well, this is a bit better.  I had changed it to black and white, and really like the effect, but it was too fuzzy.  I lowered the saturation and brightness on this one for a similar effect.  It is still fuzzy instead of crisp, but not as bad as it was in black and white. 

IMG_0145.JPG - Vox2

Well, you can sort of get an idea.  Wish I could show you a good shot.  I sent a "help" message to Vox, but haven't heard anything back.  I am really disappointed.  I'll try to find something to take a picture of tomorrow and see what happens. 

So, the winter wonderland may be somewhat melted or iced over by Christmas, but this latest snow storm was GLORIOUS.  Okay, so maybe it is obvious that I haven't lived in a snowy place for a while, but I love the cold and the snow.  Always :)  And here we are.  First winter in Massachusetts and we get the storm of the decade.  Brilliant!

Mostly self explanatory pics.  Not much in the way of artistic.  That fourth pic in is poor Frodo, totally covered.  He got rescued today, no worries.  Then today (pics 6 and 7), all nice and sunny, I decided that I wanted to see what a snowy beach looks like :)  While I didn't trudge through the snow to get to it, I could still see it from where I was.  Pretty awesome!  Snow right up to the water!  Not something I've seen before.

Anyway, I quite enjoyed my first Massachusetts snow storm (not my first storm, I lived in upstate New York, this was NOTHING to that, but still quite awesome!).  Nothing when I went to sleep and a foot+ when I woke up!  Very fun.  And the streets are still totally covered, which is neat looking.  Makes me feel like we traveled back in time and don't have paved streets. 

But eek, the sun today means ice tomorrow morning.  That'll suck.

~Nikki

Waiting for our Holiday Special at Swiss Chalet. It's a tradition with us now, every year after the Christmas Pantomime, we head here for our quarter chicken meal and Lindor chocolate truffle dessert treat! Simple pleasures.

* I got my Food For Boobs cookbook today in the mail! I love it. Great job Melanie! Lovely wee gift and the money goes towards BustaMove too. Bonus! Chockfull of yummy recipes. I am looking forward to trying Mexican tabouli, Fried feta & marinated pear salad, Chicken with Thai noodles and Peanut sauce, Tognetti's Bolognese, Maple curry pasta, English toffee.....nom, nom, nom, I think I had better stop now. You can order it from the sidebar on the right if you are interested.

* Here's a fun thing to do. My friend Mary, decided to collect pennies last year. She made a  decision last December and kept a lookout for pennies all year. She rolled $129 dollars worth this month! She did it in half hour increments while watching Coronation Street! I'm thinking it might be fun to do the same thing. I'm going to keep a big pot and write today's date on it and start from right now. See how much I can collect by Dec 21, 2010. Mad money!!

* I got a Christmas card in the mail last week from a pal whom I've only met once. We met in Greece at a place called Claire's House where everybody sits together for breakfast. I was a young thing on my way to the Islands and he was on his way back to the US or it might have been the other way round can't remember now. We had a really great chat and exchanged addresses as travellers do. Well, over 25 years later, we are STILL exchanging Christmas cards!  That's all, just a card and hello each December  but it is another tradition I look forward too:) He is a poet named George Ellenbogen. I have yet to get my cards out this year (I know, I know) but I will manage a few.

* Just made a loan this morning via Kiva to the Pure Joy Group in Ghana. Don't you love their name?? 62 other Kiva lenders and I made the $1,775.00 loan and it will be used to buy goods in bulk to expand business. This is my 11th loan and I must say it is an easy way to make a difference and learn about the world. It is interesting choosing who to help. I tend to pick women to help. You can do it in $25. increments which is great. It gives me a lot of joy.

* Hooray! Daylight will start to reclaim it's territory starting tomorrow. Winter has officially started. Longest night of the year tonight. Light a candle and enjoy.

I am keeping this here on my blog until Dec 30th. The BustaMove BIG PRIZE DRAW , hoping that you might be interested in donating $10 to help purchase a digital mammogram machine & be entered in our fabulous draw. Help make the boobs of Nova Scotian women merry! Thanks to all of you who have done so already:)) Prizes are continuing to be added:) Latest is a CD by Shannon Quinn! Winner takes all. Great odds!

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