Christmas in
the Author Bank
A lot of people nowadays wonder when exactly the fabled “twelve days of Christmas” fell. Is our Christmas Day the last of them? the first? somewhere in the middle? For once, a simple question about history has a simple answer! 25th December is the first day of Christmas; its twelve days run through 5th January inclusive, and a collection of saints’ days and stories are scattered over each of them—from the grim tale of Childermas which gave rise to the Coventry Carol, to the traditional feasting and masquerades of Twelfth Night. We’ve selected twelve readings from our Author Bank suited to each of these old-fashioned days of Christmas—we hope you enjoy them all!
Christmas Day {25th December}
In the middle of winter when fogs and rains most abound they have a great festival which they call Exmas, and for fifty days they prepare for it in the fashion I shall describe. First of all, every citizen is obliged to send to each of his friends and relations a square piece of hard paper stamped with a picture, which in their speech is called an Exmas-card. But the pictures represent birds sitting on branches, or trees with a dark green prickly leaf, … or houses with snow on their roofs. And the Niatirbians1 are unwilling to say what these pictures have to do with the festival, guarding (as I suppose) some sacred mystery. And because all men must send these cards the marketplace is filled with the crowd of those buying them, so that there is great labour and weariness.
But having bought as many as they suppose to be sufficient, they return to their houses and find there the like cards which others have sent to them. And when they find cards from any to whom they also have sent cards, they throw them away … But when they find cards from any to whom they have not sent, then they beat their breasts and wail and utter curses against the sender; and … they put on their boots again and go out into the fog and rain and buy a card for him also. And let this account suffice about Exmas-cards.
—C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock, “Exmas in Niatirb: A Lost Chapter From Herodotus”
The Feast of Saint Stephen Protomartyr {26th December}
We have already noted that this paradox appeared also in the treatment of the early Church. It was important while it was still insignificant, and certainly while it was still impotent. … It was resented because, in its own still and almost secret way, it had declared war. It had risen out of the ground to wreck the heaven and earth of heathenism. It did not try to destroy all that creation of gold and marble; but it contemplated a world without it. It dared to look right through it as though the gold and marble had been glass.
—G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man II.1, “The God in the Cave”
The Feast of Saint John the Apostle {27th December}
Also in this He shewed me a little thing, the quantity of an hazel-nut, in the palm of my hand; and it was round as a ball. I looked thereupon with the eye of my understanding, and thought: What may this be? And it was answered generally thus: It is all that is made. I marveled how it might last, for methought it might suddenly have fallen to naught for little. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasteth, and ever shall, for that God loveth it. And so All-thing hath the Being by the love of God.
—Dame Julian of Norwich, Revelation of Love, “The First Showing”
Childermas, or the Feast of the Holy Innocents {28th December}
All of the sadness of the city2 came suddenly with the first cold rains of winter, and there were no more tops to the high white houses as you walked but only the wet blackness of the street and the closed doors of the small shops, the herb sellers, the stationery and the newspaper shops, the midwife—second class—and the hotel where Verlaine3 had died where I had a room on the top floor where I worked. …
I walked down past the Lycée Henri Quatre and the ancient church of St.-Étienne-du-Mont … and finally came out on the lee side of the Boulevard St.-Michel and worked on down it past the Cluny and the Boulevard St.-Germain until I came to a good café that I knew on the Place St.-Michel.
It was a pleasant café, warm and clean and friendly, and I hung up my old waterproof on the coat rack to dry and put my worn and weathered felt hat on the rack above the bench and ordered a café au lait. The waiter brought it and I took out a notebook from the pocket of the coat and a pencil and started to write. … But in the story the boys were drinking and this made me thirsty and I ordered a rum St. James. This tasted wonderful on the cold day and I kept on writing, feeling very well and feeling the good Martinique rum warm me all through my body and my spirit.
—Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast, “A Good Café on the Place St.-Michel”
The Memorial of Saint Thomas Becket {29th December}
“And my name is,” said the king, “Pelles, king of the foreign country, and cousin nigh unto Joseph of Armathie.”4 And … so they went into the castle to take their repast. And anon there came in a dove at a window, and in her mouth there seemed a little censer of gold. And therewithal there was such a savor as all the spicery of the world had been there. And forthwithal there was upon the table all manner of meats and drinks that they could think upon. So came in a damosel5 passing fair and young, and she bare a vessel of gold betwixt her hands; and thereto the king kneeled devoutly, and said his prayers, and so did all that were there. “O Jesu,” said Sir Launcelot, “what may this mean?” “This is,” said the king, “the richest thing that any man hath living. And when this thing goeth about, the Round Table shall be broken; and wit thou well,” said the king, “this is the holy Sangreal6 that ye have here seen.”
—Thomas Malory, Le Morte d’Arthur Book XI, ch. 2: How Sir Launcelot came to Pelles, and of the Sangreal, and of Elaine, King Pelles’ daughter
The Feast of the Holy Family {30th December}7
“Peter darling! the sweep’s here!”
“Oh frabjous day! I am coming, my own, my sweep.” He pattered down briskly. “What a genius you have for saying the right thing! All my life I have waited to hear those exquisite words, Peter darling, the sweep’s come. We are married, by God! We are married. I thought so once, but now I know it.”
“Some people take a lot of convincing.”
“One is afraid to believe in good fortune. The sweep! I crushed down my rising hopes. I said, No—it is a thunderstorm, a small earthquake, or at most a destitute cow dying by inches in the chimney. I dared not court disappointment. It is so long since I was taken into anybody’s confidence about a sweep.”
—Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman’s Honeymoon ch. IV: Household Gods
New Year’s Eve {31st December}
…O Holy Ghost, whose temple I
Am, but of mudde walls, and condensed dust,
…And being sacrilegiously
Halfe wasted with youths fires, of pride and lust,
…….Must with new stormes be weatherbeat;
…….Double in my heart thy flame,
Which let devout sad teares intend; and let
(Though this glass lanthorne,8 flesh, do suffer maime)
Fire, Sacrifice, Priest, Altar be the same.
—John Donne, The Litanie III: The Holy Ghost
You think me reckless, desperate and mad.
You argue by results, as this world does,
To settle if an act be good or bad.
You defer to the fact. ...
It is not in time that my death shall be known;
It is out of time that my decision is taken
If you call that decision
To which my whole being gives entire consent.
I give my life
To the Law of God above the Law of Man.
... Now is the triumph of the Cross, now
Open the door! I command it. OPEN THE DOOR!
The Solemnity of the Theotokos {1st January}
O Virgin Mother, Daughter of thy Son,
Lowliest and loftiest of created stature,
Fixed goal to which the eternal counsels run,
Thou art that She by whom our human nature
Was so ennobled that it might become
The Creator to create Himself His creature.
Thy sides were made a shelter to relume
The Love whose warmth within the timeless peace
Quickened the seed of this immortal bloom;
High noon of charity to those in bliss …
—Dante Alighieri, Paradiso XXXIII.1-10
The Feast of the Three Holy Hierarchs {2nd January}
Moses led the people out of Egypt … Those who follow the leader to virtue must, I think, not lack the wealth of Egypt or be deprived of the treasures of the foreigners, but having acquired all the property of their enemies, must have it for their own use. This is exactly what Moses then commanded the people to do. …
The loftier meaning is … more fitting than the obvious one. It commands those participating through virtue in the free life also to equip themselves with the wealth of pagan learning by which foreigners to the faith beautify themselves. Our guide in virtue commands someone who “borrows” from wealthy Egyptians to receive such things as moral and natural philosophy, geometry, astronomy, dialectic, and whatever else is sought by those outside the Church, since these things will be useful when in time the divine sanctuary of mystery must be beautified with the riches of reason. Those who treasured up for themselves such wealth handed it over to Moses as he was working on the tent of mystery.
—St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses chs. 112, 115-116
The Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus {3rd January}
There are accounts in pagan history of certain monstrous races of men. … Some of those monsters are said to have only one eye, in the middle of their forehead … Then there are men without mouths, who live only by inhaling through their nostrils; there are others whose height is only a cubit—the Greeks call them “Pygmies” … There is also a story of a race who have a single leg attached to their feet; they cannot bend their knee, and yet they have a remarkable turn of speed. They are called Sciopods (“shadow-feet”) because in hot weather they lie on their backs on the ground and take shelter in the shade of their feet. … What am I to say of the Cynocephali, whose dog’s head and actual barking prove them to be animals rather than men?
… But if we assume that the subjects of those remarkable accounts are in fact men, it may be suggested that God decided to create some races in this way, so that we should not suppose that the wisdom with which he fashions the physical being of men has gone astray … The accounts of some of these races may be completely worthless; but if such peoples exist, then either they are not human; or, if human, they are descended from Adam.
—St. Augustine, The City of God Book XVI, ch. 8
The Memorial of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton {4th January}
Learn how to be patient in enduring the faults of others, remembering that you yourself have many which others have to put up with. If you cannot make yourself be what you would like, how can you expect another to be as you would like? … We want to have others strictly reprimanded for their offenses, but we will not be reprimanded ourselves. … It is seldom that we consider our neighbor equally with ourselves. If everyone was perfect, what would we have to endure for the love of God? God wills us to learn to bear one another’s burdens. No one is without faults, no one without a cross, no one self-sufficient, and no one wise enough all alone.
—St. Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ I.16: On Bearing With the Defects of Others
Twelfth Night {5th January}
Hail Eärendil,10 of mariners most renowned, the looked for that cometh at unawares, the longed for that cometh beyond hope! Hail Eärendil, bearer of light before the Sun and Moon!11 Splendor of the Children of Earth, star in the darkness, jewel in the sunset, radiant in the morning!
—J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion ch. XXIV: Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath
1This is a selection from a light satire; to identify its object, simply spell Niatirb backwards.
2The city in question is Paris, where Hemingway lived for most of the 1920s.
3Paul-Marie Verlaine was a French poet associated with the Decadent movement; he died in 1896, at only 51 years of age (chiefly due to substance abuse).
4Armathie here is a Middle English adaptation of Arimathea.
5A now-obsolete spelling of damsel (cf. the French honorific mademoiselle).
6I.e., the Holy Graal—the prefix san-, like the word saint, comes from the Latin adjective sanctus, “holy.”
7Strictly speaking, this is inaccurate: The Feast of the Holy Family is celebrated on whatever Sunday falls between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, unless those are Sundays (in which case it is observed on the 30th). We have taken the liberty of listing it here in order to give a fuller sense of the twelve days’ panoply.
8A now-obsolete spelling of lantern.
9This is a play about St. Thomas Becket (Archbishop of Canterbury 1162-1179), who was martyred by four knights in Canterbury Cathedral, while praying Evensong. Eliot here gives a stylized and embroidered version of Becket’s words; nonetheless, eyewitnesses recorded that he really did say—reacting to monks who tried to barricade the doors to keep the assassins out—”It is not right to make a fortress out of the house of prayer!” (However, although Murder in the Cathedral is profound and fitting reading for his memorial, this passage could not be placed there because, alas, T. S. Eliot is not on our Author Bank!)
10In Tolkien’s legendarium, Eärendil was a hero of the Elder Days, the greatest of the Half-Elves and father of Elrond. He sailed to the land of the Valar (“the Powers,” similar to gods), which no one had been able to reach for centuries. Once there, Eärendil begged them to take pity on Elves and Men, who had been driven to the brink of extinction by Morgoth (a rogue Vala, and Sauron’s original master). The Valar assented and came to Middle-earth to wage war on Morgoth, finally driving him from the world.
11This refers to the Silmaril, a holy jewel that Eärendil bore: the three Silmarils were the only objects which preserved the sacred light from before the sun and moon, out of which they were originally made. Morgoth had stolen the Silmarils, and Elves and Men had been waging war on him to reclaim them; they had recovered only this one. It was afterward made the morning star.
If you liked this piece, you might also enjoy our post from 2022 on the Icelandic tradition of Jólabókaflóðið (“the Yule book-flood”). In honor of Christmas, the New Year, and (this year) Chanukkah, our offices will be closed until after said New Year begins; happy holidays to all our readers, and thank you for supporting the Classic Learning Test!
Published on 20th December, 2024. Page image of The Adoration of the Magi (1902), a tapestry designed by Edward Burne-Jones, photographed by Dr. Alexey Yakovlev and used under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license (source).
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