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Monthly Archives: December 2013

Omigosh!

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I totally forgot it was Monday!

It was a lovely Christmas! I hope yours was, as well.

Northanger_Abbey_CE_Brock_Vol_II_chap_IXI’m just back from Williamsburg, visiting the in-laws. We had a gathering of our whole family, including the cutest grandson EVER. He’s now 6 mos old and the current love of my life. So please excuse me for forgetting my blog day.

It has been a holiday season with almost no Regency tie-in. I have been re-reading Northanger Abbey in preparation for Kathy Gilles Seidel’s annual Austen workshop for Washington Romance Writers on January 11.

Tomorrow I’m anticipating two parties – lunch and an evening party. For the evening party, I’m supposed to bring something. Wouldn’t it be funny if I brought a Regency dish?

What should it be??

(Happy New Year, everyone!)

Posted in Jane Austen, Risky Regencies | Tagged | 3 Replies

Happy Childermas

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Lincoln's Inn Great Hall

Lincoln’s Inn Great Hall

As we close out the year and prepare for a new one, I thought I’d take a look at Hone’s The Every Day Book to see what was going on on December 28. Today is Childermas and, in regard to the title of this post, it’s probably quite likely that Childermas (or Innocents) Day was not a happy event.   But it was commemorated on December 28.

According to Hone, “This is another Romish celebration preserved in the church of England calendar and almanacs.  [It is] conjectured to have been derived from the masses said for the souls of the Innocents who suffered from Herod’s cruelty.  It is to commemorate their slaughter that Innocents or Childermas-day is appropriated.”

As to “Happy Childermas” being an inappropriate greeting, consider that “It was formerly a custom to whip up the children on Innocent’s day morning, in order ‘that the memorial of Herod’s murder of the Innocents might stick the closer, and so, in modern proportion to the act over the crueltie agin in kinde.'”

Festive, heh?

On the brighter side Henry VIII enjoined that the king of cockneys (a master of the revels chosen by students of Lincoln’s Inn) should sit and have due services on Childermas-day. In other words, it was “a day of disport for sages of the law.”

So, I guess the festivity of Childermas, like many things, depended upon who you were.

(By the way, as the images for Childermas were really depressing, I’m giving you one Lincoln’s Inn Great Hall because – why not?)

Good Childermas to you. I hope you are disporting yourselves properly and not being whipped up in memory of Herod.  Indeed, I hope you are all happily preparing for the New Year.  I see that Elena is planning a Jane Austen Marathon, which sounds like an excellent idea.  What about you all?

Posted in Risky Regencies | 2 Replies

Jane Austen Movie Marathon

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I hope everyone enjoyed Christmas. Having had to drive 350 miles through the snow to visit family and dreading the same for the return trip today (I didn’t order this weather!) I’m looking forward to celebrating New Year’s at home.

It’s been a long standing tradition for us to make a special dinner, trying at least one new recipe. This year the new recipes are Chicken Kiev (accompanied by potato puffs and green beans almondine) and chocolate peanut butter pie for dessert. Then we’ll settle in to watch movies. This year it’ll be the Sherlock Holmes movies with Robert Downey Jr.

mrdarcyelizabethMy daughters have delighted me by agreeing to a Jane Austen movie marathon on New Year’s Day. So far we’ve agreed on the Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle Pride & Prejudice. We’re still discussing which other films we can fit in. I’m thinking the recent Northanger Abbey with Felicity Jones and JJ Feild (whose name is so much fun to write, breaking that “i before e” rule). Maybe Sense & Sensibility, but which one? Maybe the girls would enjoy seeing Professor Snape as a romantic hero.

We’re still thinking about food. Should we go period or would that make things too complicated? The point of this day is to relax. I’m away from my period recipe books so will have to check later today if there’s something easy I can make.

Any suggestions about films and food for our Jane Austen movie marathon? How are you all planning to celebrate the New Year?

Elena
www.elenagreene.com

Posted in Frivolity, Jane Austen | Tagged | 16 Replies

Happy Boxing Day

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(or, as we call it here, Thursday). I hope everyone is enjoying the post-Christmas glow, or if you had to return to work, that your colleagues brought in the leftover cookies.

bcSinglisanta was good to me this year, although I cannot guarantee it had anything to do with behavior–among my loot was Lucy Inglis’s Georgian London and The Black Count by Tom Reiss, and yes, Jane Austen bandaids! I am blessed.

And now on to the term Boxing Day. What does it mean? Let’s hear it from you history buffs.

1. It was the day that servants were given their Christmas boxes by their kindly employers. Jolly good, John Potboy. Here is three shillings and sixpence and a suet pudding, less five shillings and eleven pence in fines for drunkenness, swearing, and eating left over bread without permission, leaving you with a balance to be taken from your wages of two shillings and five pence. You may keep the suet pudding.

2. It was the day that misrule ruled downstairs in the house. Wild games of football using suet puddings as the ball, amateur drag shows where the butler dressed up as the housekeeper and sang popular songs, and rolling naked in the snow were just some of the charming local customs.

3. Ladies Day at Gentleman Jackson’s Saloon. Ladies of the aristocracy would have the run of Jackson’s famous boxing establishment to settle such affairs of honor as Almack’s vouchers,  slights, snubs, and stealing of fashion secrets, suet pudding recipes, or servants.

4. Black sheep disposal. Troublesome family members were lured into a box with only a suet pudding for sustenance and loaded on a ship going to the Americas. Those who survived frequently turned up to claim the title to the dukedom and display dreadful American manners in the drawing rooms of the ton.

Happy holidays everyone! Don’t forget to enter my contest at goodreads.com.

 

Posted in Frivolity | 1 Reply
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