Tuesday 16th December - Christmas Preparations and The O Antiphons

Our Christmas Tree is out, but not up.

We've a fair way to go yet. The two green storage bags of decorations are down ready, plus sundry other bags and boxes, condensed from what seemed like hundreds to just four.

Compared to years gone by, when we used to cut the top off the real tree to fit into the corner, this is a tiddly little one, and artificial at that, but so much easier to manage. 

I don't know why we never had a problem with the cats, even when they were kittens. Maybe we had already convinced them that 'NO!' was an absolute and non-negotiable command... 

We didn't that a problem the first Christmas once our children had grown from babies to toddlers. We just stuck the Christmas tree on a little table inside the playpen, and childproofed the bottom 2-3 feet of the house. Plus the 'look don't touch' rule was already established from visits to shops. 

One child was left-handed, and the other right-handed; I don't know whether it was me or BB who had the bright idea of arranging it so they held hands in such a way that the left-handed one used their left hand to hold the other's right hand; 'now, hold hands please, look after each other,' we'd say, and for some reason that was very effective and stopping them from touching everything on the shelves.   

.....

It's been a marathon effort, or so it seems; but 50 cards made it to the post today, and four parcels are wrapped and almost ready to go. The next batch of cards are all to be hand delivered locally later this week, or maybe early next week. 

The Notebook and stitching swaps will not make it in time for Christmas, but he, it's always good to have something to brighten up the 'in between' days after Christmas and before New Year.

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The O Antiphons; I blog these almost every Christmas; it's a part of my Advent and I'm always a bit annoyed with myself if I forget the start date which is actually 17th December, or tomorrow.

You can read a fuller description here. There are 7 Antiphons, or short prayers, traditionally used at the evening service using words taken from the Bible. They are thought to originate from Italy in about the 6th Century.

It occurred to me that if I wait to share today's Antiphon until tomorrow, you might not read this until the next day, so here is tomorrow's antiphon today.   

O Antiphon for 17th December;

Wikipedia

Monday 15th December - procrastination - organ playing

 The art of doing other slightly useful things that could be perfectly well done later in order to avoid doing the really useful things that need doing now.

But I've nearly run out of slightly useful things to do...

BB has very busy; the corner by the red chair was piled with boxes of papers and photographs retrieved from my father's flat, and the chest under the window equally laden with books and old magazines and - well - stuff! He's carted it all away upstairs somewhere (tra-la-la, I'm not going to look) and  replenished the rechargeable batteries in the candles and switched on the lights in the windows.

Another mini-step towards Christmas...

This is very pleasing; 

Thomas Tomkins (1572–1656): Voluntary (Musica Britannica no. 24) played by Silas Wollston on the 'St Teilo' 'Tudor' organ. From the CD 'In Chains of Gold - the English pre-Restoration verse anthem, volume 3', recorded in September 2023 and to be released on February 28th 2025 on Signum.

Played on the organ at St Jude on the Hill, Hampstead Garden Suburb

I see it takes three people to play this! One to work the bellows, and one to watch the music and operate the stops to change the organ sound (on the other side of the bellows-man), and one to actually play the notes. It's such a tiny keyboard; as well as being only a couple of octaves long I'm sure the keys aren't as big front to back as a modern keyboard.

Back in the 1960s I occasionally played the organ on Sundays at my grandmother's church in a tiny village in Northamptonshire, and once, memorably, for the Australian opera singer Joan Carden. She was interested in Family History and had joined a great gathering of the Carden Families in a small village in Cheshire organised by my father (he was hugely involved in tracing the Carden family tree). She sang the Faure Pie Jesu while I quiveringly accompanied her.

Both times I was playing very elderly and poorly maintained 'tracker action' organs, where the keys were directly connected to the organ pipes by complex systems of levers making them stiff and and difficult and uneven to manage. Quite a challenge to keep going, but thankfully the bellows had been electrified. As long as I didn't use too many stops there was enough air to supply the pipes.

There was another Family Gathering several years later, and once again I played the organ for the celebration service in the Parish Church. This was an all-singing, and probably all-dancing too, given half a chance, fully electric job, with lots of indicator lights and a row of buttons just under the keyboard (called presets) where you could catch them with your thumb to change the sound between verses. I can't remember what the last hymn was, all I remember was that I accidentally flicked one of the presets partway through the final verse; the organ lit up like a Christmas Tree and every stop seemed to have been activated. The sound was tremendous, and I was laughing so much I could hardly concentrate, while at the same time so thankful that this had happened right at the end, and not, say, in a verse like 'And though I walk through death's dark vale'. That would have been so embarrassing. Give me a proper piano every time!

Well, this won't buy the baby a new frock, as they used to say (probably in the Miss Read books). Or, in other words, back to getting on with the Really Useful Things that I should be doing NOW!  

 

Sunday 14th December - Advent 3 - Joy

 Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice greatly; the Sixteen singing this aria from Handel's Messiah 

And Sean McCann and friends singing The Seven Good Joys of Mary

Advent 3; the third candle is glowing

The theme for this Sunday is Joy, following on from Hope and Peace.

Christmas approacheth apace; only ten more drawers left in the Advent calendar, only ten more pieces to add to my tree house

It's looking full of life and interest now;

I heard about the online calendar from the Ashmolean Museum the other day. Too good not to share.

Here's wishing you all many joyful moments this week.

Saturday 13th December - ho hum

Not every day is packed full of excitement. 

Some days are just bits and bobs, this and that...

How about some Beethoven Bagatelles op 33 played by Alicia de Larroccha 

You might recognise no 3 as the music for the original BBC radio programme 'A book at bedtime'.

Friday 12th December - My tomorrrow self will be so pleased with me.

 Fully supported by a pot of tea and suitable music playing, I persuaded myself to make a start on the Christmas Cards. This is an old box, one ones inside are a mish-mash of cards left over from previous years, and quite a few salvaged from my father's flat. Waste not want not...

I've discovered it's not going to be as much of a task as I feared; four pages of names and addresses, means about 80 cards, around 10 to be emails, about 15 to be hand delivered locally. I cracked on and gor halfway down the second page. So far so good; the target is to get them done ready to post on Monday. More tea, more music, and possibly more cards required!

I am grateful to 'Fat Dormouse' for sharing this link with me in the comments to yesterday's post;

It's a clip from 'Song of Praise', where Kate Rusby talks about the tradition of Pub Carols in the North, and sings one of the carols.

It reminds me of a Christmas a long time ago now when our Canadian friends were over in the weeks leading up to Christmas. We went for a celebratory meal at a local traditional pub in a very old building near to where we live. To our great joy, the carol singers came in, and started singing all the old favourites, including, of course, The Sussex Carol. Everyone in the pub joined in, even visitors like ourselves were welcome at this village event. It was such a joyous end to the evening.

I remember my friend and I had a solo line in the Twelve Days of Christmas - we had to keep our wits about us to remember to come in!

 I've chosen a Maddy Prior/Carnival Band recording again - like the Kate Rusby 'While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night' above these carols are meant for dancing. The choirs of Kings College etc just don't have that feel! 

 

Thursday 11th December - Preparations gathering momentum

 But not for Christmas... for my latest quick knit...!

I've been wearing a favourite jumper, knitted up in this wild and wacky yarn called Bamboozle. I don't know if that yarn is around any more; it's a while since I made it.

This is a picture of my tummy! The problem is that the jumper has a rather low neckline, which is a bit chilly in this weather. What I need is a(nother) cowl or scarf. However it is really difficult to match the jumper another yarn.

I tried this;

Which sort of works, but really needs to be on bigger needle to get a looser fabric. It's going to shade through to oranges and yellows soon which could look good.

And now I'm I'm experimenting with this;

It's a chunky soft acrylic yarn, which I'm knitting on 8mm (instead of 6.5mm) needles over about 21 stitches. Every time the blue colour appears, I cut that length out, hence the couple of small balls sitting on top waiting for another knitting adventure. This is dead quick to make; I only started today and I'm already about halfway.

The pattern goes something along the lines of 

knit a few rows of garter stitch to start

For the rest of the cowl, starting on the right side; knit 3, invent some kind of pearl and plain pattern for the centre stitches, until last three stitches, knit 3     

Adjust number of stitches in the centre as you go along to make the pattern work out.

When you are bored with a pattern, knit a few rows of garter stitch and try something else.

If a pattern isn't going well, abandon it, knit a few rows of garter stitch and try something else.

Stop when you have reached the required length, and join the two ends somehow. 

I've done 12 inches today and I reckon another 12 or a few more should do it.

Writing cards? Wrapping presents? Buying/Ordering presents? Tomorrow is another day...

........

Look after yourselves; the news here was full of the current flu, a particularly unpleasant version, which appears to be spreading around the country. I will probably be avoiding shops and other places full of people for a while. 

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Here are the Fisherman's Friends from Port Isaac in Cornwall singing a traditional Cornish Carol. 

When we went to stay with my parents in Falmouth over Christmas, we would go into the town on Christmas Eve to hear the local fishermen singing the traditional carols through the town. We always left at lunchtime though; they sang outside  and inside every pub; things could get rowdy as the day went on!