Apology for Christmas

Calvinist Cath, whose Christian example is very dear to my heart, has written an annual brief against Christmas to relieve her conscience. Personally, I am so confused by the changes to the British mainstream Reformed traditions, their enthusiastic (if sometimes shallow and misplaced) embrace of Catholic ritual on the one hand, and their compete slide into unscriptural insanity on the other, that I have arbitrarily decided that Cath's is the authentic voice of, at least, Scottish Presbyterianism. And I would happily send my husband off to work on Christmas morning if the non-Catholic Scottish majority were all like Cath.

For, as a matter of fact, the celebration of Christmas was suppressed/rejected in Scotland at the start of the Reformation, and December 25 was a normal working day in Scotland until 1958. As there is no Scriptural references to celebrations of the anniversary of Christ's birth, the Reformers thought that no-one ought to celebrate it--except every Sunday, of course. Cruel bosses took a special delight in working Scottish Catholics particularly hard on Christmas Day, and so presumably kind bosses gave them a break. The religious freedom of Catholics was not a major priority in Scotland, since it was felt that Catholics themselves would be a threat to the religious freedom of Protestants if they were not sufficiently sat upon. In the 1930s, the Church of Scotland (by then no longer the church of Cath, by the way) tried to get Catholic Scots of Irish birth or descent deported to Ireland, but Westminster said "No", for which I am grateful. If it had been otherwise my pal H's father would have been shipped off in the cattle car boat and there would be no H.

But I am getting away from the subject of Christmas, distracted by Cath's reference to religious freedom. As a matter of fact, I am sympathetic to poor Cath having to explain again and again that Scottish Presbyterians do not celebrate Christmas, especially when she has to explain this to people who think they are Presbyterians. I had to explain over and over again to confused Scottish doctors why I have no interest in IVF, so I know the agony and the embarrassment of these little social martyrdoms.

More annoying for Cath, I suspect, are the Christmas créches because they involve artistic representations of Our Lord, which Presbyterians believe are blasphemous and idolatrous. I do not believe that, of course, but I do believe they tempt sinners to vandalism and I would rather that in countries without a Catholic majority to love them, they were kept safely indoors in beautiful churches. The same goes for artistic representations of Our Lady. Would you want a picture of your mother in public where people might scribble on it or steal it as a joke? And would you really want a cheap statue of your mother outside that sink of iniquity that is City Hall? Meanwhile, even if there was no risk to them, I would gladly relinquish public Christmas créches if that meant the non-Catholic majority would become just like Cath.

Cath, being Presbyterian, objects to public créches on the grounds that they are blasphemous, and I, being Catholic, object to créches on the grounds that they invite blasphemy. Cath objects to Scottish Christmas on the grounds that it (in her view) unjustly regards a non-Sunday as holy, and I object to Scottish Christmas on the grounds that it makes the great Feast of the Nativity unholy.

The origins of the Feast of the Nativity, which is to say the celebration of the anniversary of Christ's birth, are a bit lost in the fog of antiquity, but it would seem that in A.D. 200 theologians of the Church of Alexandria had reasoned out a date for it. Our witness, Clement of Alexandria, notes further that they celebrated the Epiphany on January 6, and the Catholic Encyclopedia surmizes that they also celebrated the Nativity on that occasion. Thus in this case (as in so many) what Presbyterians tend to call "the errors of Rome" (although Cath does not use this annoying if everyday expression in her post) could be duly ascribed also to the most ancient churches of the Middle East. But of course many of the Eastern Churches have stuck with January 6 for their celebrations. Rome has celebrated the nativity of Christ on December 25 since before A.D. 388.

Incidentally, the official beginning of the Scottish Reformation (1560) is farther away from today than A.D. 388 was from the Incarnation itself. This reminds me that Saint Augustine was born only about 355 years after the Incarnation, so why we think modern Scripture scholars know more than he did about Scripture is a question my BC Scripture prof failed to answer. Was Saint Augustine celebrating Christmas? You bet your new Christmas socks.

Celebrating the Nativity of Christ fostered a devotion to the Infant Christ, and theologically this was very important at a time when people were so in awe of Christ's divinity that they sometimes doubted that He shared their humanity. The annual celebration of the Nativity puts Christians of East and West mentally and spiritually in the same place as the shepherds: on their knees before the Babe, hearts full of joy and wonder. Non-Protestants have very visual traditions, and most of us didn't know how to read until yesterday, so we need some visual prompting, thus the créche. We also enjoy grabbing the best paganism has to offer, so just as the Early Church Fathers regarded Virgil as a pre-Christian prophet, we have taken the concept of songs-not-psalms and made Christmas carols out of it. There are traces of early Christian hymns in St. Paul and (I seem to recall) the Gospel of John, and they are not from psalms. Neither is the Magnificat, by the way. Ah! What Catholic does not love Our Lady's great hymn of praise? No wonder we celebrate the Annunciation, too, and fight tooth and nail for the rights of the unborn in the name of the Child of Mary's womb.

But back to Christmas. Admittedly Christmas in majority-Protestant countries is crass and materialistic, and it is hard to get children to think about the Christ Child rather than, in my case, the Consumers' Distributing catalogue. The Christmas songs are treacly, and the hypocrisy of playing Catholic/Anglican hymns in shops full of rubbish made by Chinese near-slaves has bothered me for some years. Women unrooted in reality demand that people who hate each other sit around a table covered with knives and pretend to be a happy family. I myself have stressed out so much over Christmas cooking that I have cried hysterically on the kitchen floor on at least two Christmas mornings in the past four Chrismasses. However, I fully acknowledge that this is my fault, not the fault of Christmas.

Besides, I love cooking for Christmas. I love baking for others and cooking extravagant feasts, especially as B.A. enjoys doing the ordinary day-to-day cooking. I love recalling the wonderful Christmases of my childhood, and the loving care which went into my parents' efforts on their children's behalf and, indeed, still does. I love going out to get the Christmas tree with my husband because sometimes I went out to get the Christmas tree with my father. I love baking the Christmas cake and the Christmas bun because I watched my mother bake the Christmas cake and take the Christmas bun from the oven. I love being awake until two or three on Christmas morning, wrestling with the bun, because I am reminded of my mother's sacrifices of sleep on her family's behalf. I don't much like Christmas shopping because I am not sure what everyone at home would like, and so I feel like a lemon, and I never touch the gifts we buy them online. But I love that our friends and family touch and see and read the Christmas cards we send. I love that the extended holidays allows my husband to potter about, free from the office, and that they send friends to Edinburgh to stay in the Historical House.

I love all this because of love. If you didn't celebrate Christmas as a child, or as a child surrounded by love, a lot of the "joy of Christmas" passes you by, and it would be difficult and perhaps artificial for you to try to create it for yourself now. You just can't, and I'm sorry, but presumably there are other celebrations (e.g. Communion Sundays, your birthday) that remind you of the unbridled joy of childhood and, with adult reflection, the astonishing unselfishness of others on your behalf. This unselfishness and gift-giving--and I am not thinking about the wrapped-up stuff taking center stage under the tree (a distant cousin of the Cross, and whose green branches signal everlasting life)--mirrors, insofar as humans can mirror this, the unselfishness, gift-giving and affectionate love of God for us, which first publically manifested itself on the day of Christ's Nativity. (John three:sixteen.*)

Meanwhile, I would like to stress my great affection for Cath, and wish her in advance a happy Hogmanay. I am not a Scottish Nationalist--I firmly support the Union--but I do not applaud the wholesale imposition of the English Yuletide holiday (which is something quite apart from the truly Roman Catholic celebration) upon the Scots. That said, neither do I like the growing revival of truly pagan customs, complete with torch processions involving people dressed as drumming demons, during the solstices. Unbaptized cultic customs, be they consumerist or "Celtic", should be resisted by all Christians. On this I am sure Cath and I will agree.


*The number three no longer works on my keyboard.

Art, Not Propaganda

I have been terribly busy feeding Pretend Sons, sneaking vitamins into their food, and removing their towels from radiators, and whisking their sharp-edged objects from the repro Georgian table before B.A. can see, and generally admiring their youthful good looks and excellence.

Therefore, the only post I had time to write today was this one. Enjoy!

What the Brain Can Do

I love constructive criticism, although rarely at the time. This is a latter development; I used to fly right off the handle, especially if it was about something I wrote. Writing a column in a weekly paper cured this, however. When I get a personal letter from CR readers saying that I am a heretic or I forgot deacons or what would I say about the celebrity of Fulton Sheen, I read it with interest and keep it in a box with the Christmas cards. In six months, I might agree with them, or at least, have come to a more nuanced position. This even worked for Ceremony of Innocence. In that case a writer I really respect suggested I chop out something or other, and some months later I did chop it out because I saw that he was right.

Occasionally I get criticism on the internet, which I won't link to but do enjoy finding, even if it is just outrageous insults or (worst of all) speculation on my sins by so-disant orthodox Catholic men who, if they were really orthodox, Catholic, or men, would not be writing such things about a married Catholic woman. At least once someone American has suggested my artistic failings might be chalked up to my being a Canadian, which perhaps she thought was a charitable assumption. All that did though was ruin any chance that I might take her critique seriously and profit from it.

I do indeed profit from critique of my writing, although don't take this as permission to write any in the combox: just tell me when you think my ideas are out to lunch and why. Here is not the place to tell me my font is horrible or my typos are annoying or my interest in Poland unfathomable. You can do that elsewhere. Someone was once so cleverly cruel on some message board about the pink--which was there to dissuade Eavesdroppers--that I decided to get rid of the pink. The pink had done what it was supposed to do.

Sometimes critique is very amusing, like worries that I am anti-gay, by which I think they mean I do not support the redefinition of marriage, which of course I do not do. I enjoy saying so now, for as yet saying so is not illegal and I don't have a 9-5 job to lose anyway. I may enjoy saying so rather less in ten years, but let's cross the Alec Salm*nd Memorial Bridge when they build it. Meanwhile, it is not the approximately 2% of the population that identifies with their SSAs that I'm worried about, it's the statists, dull but power-hungry nannies that they are.

Sometimes critique encourages me to remember what this blog is for, which is to remind women that the Single Life has many graces, freedoms and opportunities, which is why yesterday I was reminded that women who really have no interest in marrying men and wish they would just sit down and be quiet can wear whatever they like (within community standards) and good luck to them. We can enjoy their flair and freedom without demanding that the kind of men we like prefer women with facial tattoos and pink mohawks or, better yet, women who insist on Elizabethan dress at all times and quote long passages from Shakespeare at the drop of a pomander.

One of the freedoms of a Single woman in Europe is that she can go to Częstochowa for six months and become fluent in Polish. My Polish Pretend Son told me yesterday of a woman who did that, and after expressing envy and delight, I looked at B.A., sitting on the couch chatting happily with someone about something. There is absolutely no way B.A. could or would ever move to Częstochowa for six months, and naturally as a married woman I cannot say, "Just popping off to Częstochowa! Back in June!" You see how it is.

Someone online does not understand about my interest in Poland, so I will explain briefly that when my first book came out, Americans wanted to buy the American rights, which made my publisher (a very good chap) happy, and then Poles wanted to buy the Polish rights, which again made my publisher happy, although that time I think we were both surprised. I believe Novalis books usually get published into Spanish next, or French. But nobody wanted it in Spanish or French; they wanted it in Polish. So my publisher sold off the Polish rights, and I offered to promote the Polish book because life has left me geographically closer to Poland than to either Canada or the USA. Also, I was flattered that Polish people wanted to publish my Canadian book, especially as Poland is still rather Catholic and the land of John Paul 2. I felt I owed them some appropriate thanks and support.

However, I don't like going to countries where I don't speak ANY of the language (except Spain if I am with somewhat Spanish-speaking B.A.), so I declared that I would like to learn Polish. And a very nice Polish girl said something like, "Darling, you cannot learn Polish. It is too hard for English-speakers." So naturally I had to learn Polish after that.

To make a long story short, I have been working at it for over two years, and it really is hard. However, I have not quit, which is the important thing, and eventually I will speak fluent Polish--unless I die first, of course. If the end comes the next time I am in Poland (or on Edinburgh's Leith Walk) at least I can say "Muszę rozmawiać z kapłanem teraz. Szybko! Szybko!" (I need to speak with a priest now. Quick! Quick!) And that fact that almost every Pole alive would understand my concern is a principle reason why I love Poland so much.

Anyway, this next bit is not to show off but to prove that your intellect can do what you want it to if you work hard enough and long enough and get help to do whatever intellectual thing you want it to do. I don't include "stopping being Single" in this although with a good dose of humility, your intellect may be able to grasp what it is that is preventing you from winning husbands and influencing children. (Historically, it has been "carnage of World War I", "carnage of World War 2", etc.--circumstances the women could do little about.)

Okay, so I wrote a short story in Polish. It is 3,000 words long. I wrote it in 500 word chunks and sent it to Marta to correct the grammar. Then I sat down with my Edinburgh tutor, so she could explain to me my errors in style. And so it is done. My Polish Pretend Son says it is an amusing random mix of formal and informal language, but I don't care. My first short story in English was only 50 25 words or so.

Here is my first short story in English:

"A Winter Wonderland Tale" (1978)

The little snowflakes. The little snowflakes come lightly down. On a cold winters day. All the little children go to play in the snow. P.S. I bet the children have fun!

Oh how Canadian. Man's relationship to environment. That's so old-school Canadian. Utterly 1970s. Margaret Atwood would be proud.

Here are the first 213 words of my first short story in Polish, presented specially for my Polish-speaking readers. (The vast anglophone majority may wrestle it into Google Translate, if you like.)

"Bajka Edynburska" (2013)

Dawno temu żył na Dolnym Śląsku młody i przystojny student. Na imię miał Gabriel i był najmądrzejszym studentem w Polsce. Niestety nudziło mu się.

—Nie znoszę innych studentów — powiedział. —Oni są głupi. Profesorowie też. Muszę opuścić Polskę i pojechać na Zachód.

—Ach, nie, mój Gabryś, mój kochany syn! —powiedziała jego matka. —Na Zachód? Tak daleko? A do tego tak trudno jest dostać wizę do USA.

—Ależ skąd —powiedział mądry student. —Chciałbym pojechać tylko do Wielkiej Brytanii. Tam nie potrzebuję wizy.

—Ale Anglicy są zdradzieccy — powiedziała płacząca matka. —Czy nie pamiętasz już o Zdradzie Jałtańskiej?

—Ależ skąd —zaprzeczył Gabriel. —Nigdy o tym nie zapomnę! Ale nie pojadę do Anglii; jadę do Szkocji. Tam jest lepiej i taniej, i Edynburg będzie dla mnie dobry. Miasto jest eleganckie, tak jak ja.

Kiedy Gabriel przyjechał do Edynburga, odkrył że język angielski jest trudniejszy w Wielkiej Brytanii niż na jego polskim uniwersytecie. Nie rozumiał szkockiego akcentu. Smutny student pojechał więc do kościoła, gdzie ksiądz był Amerykaninem i Msza Św. była odprawiana po łacinie. Po mszy Gabriel zobaczył z tyłu kościoła bladą Cygankę.

—Dziwna osoba! — pomyślał. —W Polsce Cyganie zawsze mają ciemną skórę. Ta Cyganka ma bladą twarz, ale ma na sobie kolorowe cygańskie ubranie. To chyba szkocka Cyganka. Może mi pomoże.


Naturally, this story involves migration, Romany culture, Catholicism, Polish nationalism, guilt, the tortures of love, suicide, violins, character development, crime, coded political commentary and magic. And football. Naturally.

A Clarification About Clothes

Well, it has come to my attention that there has been some grumbling on the internet regarding my attitude to clothing and girliness. It occurs to me that I have perhaps been a too bit "wear this, wear that" so I will try to make up for it.

If you are a Serious Single, and honestly, hand on heart, would just rather not be bothered with men, let alone get married, you go ahead and wear any old thing. Obviously, you'll need to wear professional clothes to work, and I can think of many modern nuns who look very professional. They have short professional hair, sturdy professional glasses, professional pantsuits, sensible shoes, and maybe a pin that signals to those in the know that this is a Sister [of community X]. Naturally they don't wear makeup, perfume or sparkly earrings. They look tidy, capable, comfortable, professional, no-nonsense, and if a man ever tried to chat them up on the bus, I would fall over from shock.

If, however, you are a Searching Single, you might just want to consider telegraphing "Hello, I am an attractive woman who would love to get married one day" through your clothing.

Again, really, honestly, truly don't care what men think? Then practical haircut, pantsuit, denim overalls, mohawk, shaved bald, nineteenth century ballgowns with denim jackets, days-of-the-week tracksuits --whatever. Go for it. And good for you--Saint Augustine, were he still alive, would totally approve. Saint Augustine thought that trying to attract a man was the worst part about being Single, if you couldn't become a nun, which naturally he thought was the best person you could be. After a martyr, of course. Presumably Saint Augustine would have extolled Elizabeth Taylor had she, at the last minute, proclaimed the Gospel in Tahrir Square and been shot.

Ah, Elizabeth Taylor. Now there was a gal who dressed for men. She claimed all those jewels were presents, although apparently she sometimes gave her husbands the money to buy them. Sparkle, sparkle, sparkle!

Now, as I wrote not too long ago, one of my teachers counselled my punker classmate Kathleen that if she persisted in dressing like that, she'd attract punker guys. He thought this a terrible fate. Kathleen thought it wonderful. I think it one of the few sensible things that teacher ever told us.

If you are interested in attracting and marrying traditional men, e.g. men who are willing to get married without a test drive, then I recommend dressing in traditional women's clothing. This does not necessarily mean the dreaded denim jumper of doom. I mean blouse & skirt or dress, tights, cute shoes. In the UK, a nice tweed jacket would not go amiss, if you're looking for a tweed-wearer. In the USA, a string of pearls sends a message pleasing to the eye of Young Republicans and not so much to the Young Democrats, apparently. (One of the useful things I learned at Boston College.)

That said, I have known tall, slim young women who looked great in denim jeans, pairing them with rather more hello-I'm-a-girl stuff, like pink scooped-necked T-shirts and silk scarves.

Again, I am addressing Searching Singles here. Serious Singles don't have to care. Except on the job, naturally. On your off-hours, anything. Star Trek uniform. Actually, I bet you could meet guys, especially computer programmers, if you wore a Star Trek uniform in public. So if you don't want to be bothered, comfy sweatpants. College hoodie.

If you love poetic beatnik guys, go to an Open Mic and see what the popular girl poets are wearing. Get the general idea and make it your own. If you love athletes, see what girls popular with athletes are wearing and, if you aren't flat-out embarrassed by their outfits, get the general idea and make it your own. If you love male feminists--the kind who actually read Kate Millet, Gloria Steinem, Naomi Klein et al--then dress like a teenage boy. This probably works best if you have the figure of a teenage boy, mind you.

The whole point of this piece is not to TELL you what to wear but to REMIND you that men can see you and that your clothes send a message. Whether you want them to or not, your clothes gossip about you to complete strangers. They say "She belongs to your club", "She's a real professional--24/7", and "Ideally, she'd like to be invisible." Naturally, your clothes might be lying about you. There are probably a lot of soccer moms who are goddesses at heart and are puzzled as to why no-one can see this. And the girls of Edinburgh who wear tight blue denim shorts with black tights are probably not trying to show off their bottoms, although that's what their lying shorts are telling me.

I earnestly believe, that as the differences between men and women are ignored more and more, one key to attracting men as suitors is reminding them, primarily visually(since men are extremely visual), that women are different from them. And since religious women naturally dislike doing this through clothes that scream I HAVE BREASTS AND BUTTOCKS, clothes-or-accessories-that-straight-men-would-never-wear strike me as the way to go.

Incidentally, your clothes gossip about you most loudly in uncrowded churches, e.g. at the Trad Mass. Woo! During my EF Mass, the tight jeans simply do not shut up. The priest is, like, "Oremus" and the congregation is like, "What did you say, jeans?" Don't get me started on the sports bra that spelled out "Sexy" in rhinestones. Fun at that nightclub no-one will take me to, no doubt, but not good for making friends at a church people travel two hours to get to because their parish mass depresses them in its modernity.

By the way, I haven't finished reading it, but I finally got my hands on a copy of Verily. Verily does not airbrush models and photographs clothes on non-models, so ordinary women can see how the clothes under discussion might look on them. It treats women as if we have both brains and limited budgets. It is a breath of fresh air, but more on it anon.

Happy Anniversary to the Aged Ps.

It's St. Lucy's day, the anniversary of the founding of this particular blog, and my parents' 40+ anniversary! Happy anniversary to the Aged Ps, and now I am going back to housework. I have been shopping for paté, crisps and gin, for that is what pretend sons like to eat and drink.

Make Way for Ducklings!

Super Busy

Today I wrote a Christmas column and had a Polish writing style lesson and the house is a mess and my Pretend Sons are coming... You get the picture. I shall return anon.