Tuesday November 29th, 2016
Yesterday: I worked on the continuing bright work reconditioning in the cockpit. So far I have 4 coats on the port combing and three on the companionway. I can’t scrape or sand other areas until the cetol is dry on the other areas (good planning). I also worked on the stern ladder, one teak step was missing from the swing down ladder and the teak step came off the 1st step mounted to the boat. The ocean does everything it can to dissolve your boat.
Mary Lynn worked on bringing Christmas to FRACAS. We have a tree that is made of tree coloured colored netting. Decorations include flotsam and jetsom, lights, ornaments and dead sea creatures. Sprigs of this and that have appeared here and there… It looks pretty good.
Why do we bring trees into our homes at Christmas? Even before the beginnings of Christianity people were fascinated by trees and plants that remained green during the winter. These plants if brought into the home could help ward of witches and evil spirits. (So far so good on that count here on FRACAS). Prior to the religious celebrations of Christmas folks celebrated the winter solstice.
In the Northern hemisphere, the shortest day and longest night of the year falls on December 21 or December 22 and is called the winter solstice. Many ancient people believed that the sun was a god and that winter came every year because the sun god had become sick and weak. They celebrated the solstice because it meant that at last the sun god would begin to get well. Evergreen boughs reminded them of all the green plants that would grow again when the sun god was strong and summer would return.
So we bring netting in and decorate it to look like a tree to remind us that the sun god’s recent health issues will end….aahhhhha. Google scholars credit the Germans with decorating trees at Christmas time. Martin Luther (some guy from Germany) is credited with putting candles on their decorated tree. The 16th century fire Marshalls’ office (Deutsches Feuerwehrhaus) determined the cause of the fire was candles on the tree, the rest is history.
Queen Victoria and her German Prince Albert had a tree in 1846 then everyone had to have a tree. If they were 4 feet tall in Britain they were 8 feet tall in North America. It was a good time for this Christmas tradition to start because pretty much everywhere was a Christmas tree farm.
In the mid 1600’s those puritans made it a crime to do anything other than to go to church on Christmas. Puritans were obviously poor spellers and spoke in a weird dialick. Early Christmas parades were to the jail house I guess. Thank heavens the Irish arrived in the 19th century and put an end to that crap and Trees were Ok. Thank the Irish for Christmas as we know it.
I guess I should add a disclaimer. Since so much of what is on the internet or outernet (depending on your persuasion) is false news, lies and or bullshit. Perhaps the false news, lies and bullshit is specific to the ‘twits’ on twitter (or is it tweakers or twitterers?) I can’t keep up.