Christmas Mysteries of Childhood 12-22-17

MORE OLD TIMEY STUFF

Back in those days, there was not much distance between the secular and religious sides of Christmas like today.  No one cared about being politically correct or even accurate.  It was not uncommon to see both Santa with Reindeer and the Nativity on the same lawn side by side, together with a jolly snowman!.

Christmas was FULL of mysteries.  How did that fat Santa get down our chimney.. or even our skinny stovepipe?  How big was an Elf anyway? And did Rudolph really have an electric nose to light the way?  Did Santa really eat the cookies we left out for him?  And were Elves and Fairies cousins?  Did Tinker-bell drink hot cocoa with Santa's Elves at the north pole do you suppose? Why did Santa lay his finger beside his nose to go up our stovepipe?

Now along with the Santa mysteries were some religious ones and here are two stories we were told..

here is ONE in a NUTSHELL...

Now it came to pass that the Baby Jesus was born in a stable in Bethlehem at exactly midnight on Christmas Eve!  Angels, Shepards, Wise Men, Kings and a multitude of animals were present to witness the event. At exactly Midnight, all the animals were given the power of speech to join in praise of the Heavenly Babe.

So children, if you go out to the barn and be there at exactly midnight on Christmas Eve, you will here the animals talking and telling the wonder of the Christmas story to one another!

Around 11.40 PM On Christmas Eve I would crawl out of bed and stand in my 'long-johns' pull on boots and overcoat and, at temperatures of around zero, trudge with my cousins out to the barn to try and witness this mysterious event!  We would wait around until the cold drove us back in the house to huddle by the wood stove to toast our bottoms, while grownups said comforting things like... "well the clocks are different over in Bethlehem dear", "they probably don't have daylight savings time", to which we replied "It aien't even daylight yet anyway!".  The clincher was, "well they saw you come in and they don't speak if anyone is around!"    Muttering we would go back upstairs to bed.

Now One particular animal was the star of the evening.. not the star in the sky.. at first I got them mixed up and thought a donkey was flying above the manger.. like the cow that jumped over the moon!

"It's NOT a donkey anyway", said skinny Jimmy. "It's an ASS!.. Says so in the BIBLE!" I looked at him aghast.. "You wanna get our mouths washed out with soap?" whispered Peter.. and  we all agreed that DONKEY was safer.

Anyways, this little Donkey, Ass or Jackass or whatever got himself turned into the only HOLY ANIMAL at Christmas forever, because He Carried Jesus three times in the Bible!  In Mary's tummy on the way to Bethlehem (a mystery we did not want to think about), and to Egypt to escape mean 'ol Herod who killed all the little baby boys, and last into Jerusalem on Good Friday when people waved palm trees at him.  So the Angels made the mark of the cross over the little Ass's shoulders and every one of them has it to this day.  You can see it on his descendants, every Mexican Burro has one!

He was first in the Bible to talk too!  He told old Baalam in the Bible the Christmas story when they were riding to see the baby Jesus at Bethlehem, and they were met by a big angel on the way who pointed down the right road!

There used to be a thing on Saturday Morning TV called "Fractured Fairy Tales" and our stories were right up there with them!

Fairy Tales got mixed up with Christmas stories and turned into real mysteries.

Now we heard how Elves came in at night and worked and helped the old shoemaker make his shoes, so some people did not put up the tree in advance.  We would awake and come downstairs and see the tree in all its glory and be told "Santa brought his Elves and they all put up the tree in a flash, before leaving the presents under it! (and eating the cookies and milk.. don't forget that!)  We would run outside and look for reindeer tracks in the snow from the night before.

On Christmas day if you were Hispanic or Italian (or had an Italian minister like we did), you would get a sweet bread called Roscón de reyes or rosca de reyes (kings' ring) is a Spanish and Spanish American king's cake pastry.  It is  traditionally eaten to celebrate Epiphany, but sometimes served at Christmas day.  In Western Christianity, the feast commemorates mostly the visit of the Magi to the Christ child in Bethlehem.

The bread is shaped in the form of a wreath and usually has candied fruit on top, and a figurine of a baby baked inside. It's often simply called "rosca."  We were told "The baby Jesus is inside the cake so if you get the piece with him in it DON'T SWALLOW THE BABY !
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Christmas day was over now and the evidence was overwhelming with tattered scraps of wrapping paper and cleaned dessert plates.  The grownups were standing and saying their good-bys.

"Well its time for us to go boys" said Jimmy's mom. "Click your red shoes and say time to go home!"  We all looked down at our black, brown, and green farm boots. "But I don't got no red boots!" wailed skinny Jimmy.  "Dumbass" said Peter whacking him on the back of the head.  "It's just another of them Christmas stories!"  We smirked and went into the living room to play "Chinese Checkers" that I had received that morning! We were having a 'sleepover'.

© Copyright 2018 by Daniel Blankley. All rights reserved.

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