Catching up yet again: Christmas at Stony Hall
Yet again, there would have been so much to talk about last month, but the posts didn't happen. But as picspams always seem a good way of remembering stuff and rambling about it, I'll do a holiday picspam! While the holiday season isn't entirely over yet, so this is still relevant! That way, we'll also catch up with the kids? I hope
( Read more... )
Comments 15
What is a Krampus? See Christoph Waltz explaining it:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nDK1suWouG4
Reply
I know Krampus - my mom's Swabian, so I got some Alemannic folklore from that side - but seeing Christoph Waltz explain it is a special treat, of course.
We have a similar custom around here, only our Krampus equivalent is a human chimney sweeper called Hans Muff. Then you've got Knecht Ruprecht further north, and the Zwarte Piet in the Netherlands. (There's been a huge Racism debate going on about the Zwarte Piet in past years. I can't help but wonder whether he didn't start out as a chimney sweeper like Hans Muff?) Anyway, but these don't exist in chocolate. However, whenever St. Nicolas actually manifests, he is often accompanied by Knecht Ruprecht or Hans Muff.
God, you could probably do a dissertation in Cultural Anthropology on this crap! (Well, probably somebody already did it...)
Reply
I have to wonder: suppose Krampus came for the Banks family, what would Mary Poppins do about it? The chimney sweeps vs. the Christmas cookies would be an epic battle.
Maybe their cousins the Darlings would be there for the holidays too.... ^^
Reply
I have to say that I love the wreath; it's very different (in a good way) from anything I've seen over here.
Yay Felix!!! Because audiences are terrible, terrifying things.
This is going to sound a bit strange, but boxes were some of my favorite things to play with as a kid twice his age. Dad once, right after we moved into a new house, made a fort out of them in the backyard for my sister and me.
Reply
Audiences are the WORST. And you have to deal with them so much!
Now that you mention it, when I was in grade 8 or 9 - so already well into Acting Like A Proper Grown-Up territory - a friend's parents got a new fridge. Which came in a huuuuuuge box. Initially, it just stayed in her room and got scribbled with pubertary post-modern graffity, but after a while, it became a cave that sparked weeks of research expedition play. So you're right, boxes are awesome toys.
Reply
My housemate got a new arm-chair this season, which came in a beautiful big heavy box. How reluctantly I cut it up to be recycled, having no kids around to fill it up with imagination.
Reply
Reply
Reply
We don't have moon cut wood here. I guess we'd say" gold plated" in the same context.
Reply
Hmm... gold plating lacks the esoteric aspect, though. :)
Reply
Love your nativity pyramid! I've got my mother's angel candle-bells; watching it spin is one of those childhood thrills one never really grows out of.
"He always acts like he isn't listening (and certainly not comprehending a thing), but later you'll notice that he actually heard quite a bit."
....LOL, and as he gets older, you may notice that he is hearing everything, even a couple of rooms away, and remembering it word for word, despite appearing so oblivious as to be functionally invisible. My daughter was that way: at Christmas at her grandparents' house, her chosen sleep-space was the stairway landing, from which she could eavesdrop on literally every room in the house, including the garage. We had the very Dickens of a time trying to sneak Santa's offerings past her spying little elf-ears every year ( ... )
Reply
Very true! The fond memories just add up. Even better when there's a new generation to share them with, of course!
LOL, and as he gets older, you may notice that he is hearing everything, even a couple of rooms away, and remembering it word for word, despite appearing so oblivious as to be functionally invisible.We've already got that regularly, yep. But when you say something directly (or even when he asks you something and you answer that question), he'll give you a blank stare and ask for you to repeat it. Based on the latter evidence, I'd think he's got listening comprehension issues, but then he'll prove capable of word-for-word quoting something he can at best have overheard in passing ( ... )
Reply
Interactive verbal communication is a different kind of listening from passively hearing and remembering. I have this same trait: I remember what I hear, whether words or music, but 'remembering' isn't the same as 'comprehending'.
In interactive communication, one has to comprehend what the other person is saying, and doing so requires a lot more than just knowing what words they spoke. There's all the non-verbal context to process simultaneously, and non-verbal context has a terrible noise-to-signal ratio. One could sum up the problem as, "I know what you said, but I'm not sure what you mean."
Heh, I fell down the rabbit-hole of research on moon-cut wood - or rather the lack of it, as I found no peer-reviewed studies. There is a strong folklore tradition claiming that wood dries best when cut in the Moon's waning, but the Moon's documented effect on vegetation is only ( ... )
Reply
That is true, but it doesn't seem to be the problem that's at work here. Although who knows, maybe the signals I'm sending non-verbally don't match my words, and that's what confuses him? I'll have to watch out for that.
Of course wood cut in the cold months does dry better, because the sap's out of it.
Yep, and that's basically the relevant aspect! But that would lengthen the harvesting period from one week to at least four months, so, no more justification for quite such high prices! (Although wood, especially "better" wood than fir, is crazy expensive anyway. Anything that you can slap a "natural" or "organic" label on is crazy expensive, of course!)
Sure, if you're starting to involve magick, the exact timing becomes important, as does the act of creating an item - which you presumably shouldn't do immediately after having a major row with your significant other, even if the moon is in the perfect phase, unless you're really good at ( ... )
Reply
Leave a comment