the original Victorian Christmas
the original Victorian Christmas
Christmas is very nearly here and I’ve still not contributed anything towards it. I must like the last-minute panicking or something, or perhaps its just inertia. When I think of some of the great exciting (to me) Christmas’s I’ve put on (like a pantomime), now it seems just a farce. I can’t seem to get the enthusiasm for it any more.
making pomanders, they last ages too
In the past I would think of a theme, and plan for it. One year it was Medieval Christmas. We had spiced beef in wine, with cloves spiked in it. I made pomanders out of oranges with cloves and ribbon, sprinkling them with orris root, wrapping them, then unwrapping in a few weeks when the oranges and the fruit had shrunk and re tieing the ribbons. We’ve had Victorian Christmas with a massive real tree smothered with decorations. I’ve made crazy patchwork stockings with ribbons and velvet to hang near the fire. I’ve made tiny dough fruit and glazed it, wired cones and smothered a bower for the fireplace with trinkets, until it resembled Beecher’s Brook in the Grand National.
making pomanders, they last ages too
And now, well I suppose it will be the usual, a few lights on the bottom of the front windowsill, lights round the kitchen door, so we can do our ‘Tonight Mathew – I am going to be…..very drunk indeed). We’ll have an open fire and burn all the wrappings. Beyond that, I can’t really think…but I still believe in Father Christmas so anything can happen, so you never know!
