Risky Regencies

Christmas Pudding or Omigosh I Missed Stir Up Sunday

Updated on December 5, 2011 by Diane Gaston

Stir Up Sunday is the Sunday before Advent begins, when, according to the Book of Common Prayer, the prayers begin:

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord the wills of thy faithful people, that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Traditionally, the prayer read at Church was supposed to remind cooks that they should mix up their Christmas pudding.

This year Stir Up Sunday would have been on Nov 27, so I am a week late and my pudding will not be ready for Christmas.

To us Americans, pudding is some chocolate or vanilla or banana custard-like dessert, but English pudding is a mixture of lots of different ingredients, including some grain product.

In the Regency, meats such as beef or veal could be added to sugar, raisins, sherry, lemon, orange, prunes (the dried plums that give plum pudding its name), cinnamon, cloves, brown bread, and such unfamiliar (to me) ingredients as cochineal (a food dye made from insects), suet, sack (a wine from the Canary Isles), hock (another wine), and treacle (a sugar syrup).

Into the mixture was stirred a coin (for wealth), a ring (for marriage) and a thimble (for blessedness. Each member of the family stirred the mixture and made a wish. The mixture was then boiled in a cloth for hours, and hung on a hook to dry until Christmas.

On Christmas day, the pudding was covered with warm brandy and set aflame, making it a dramatic and exciting addition to the Christmas dinner.

If you would like to make a Christmas pudding for your Christmas the Regency way, you are too late, because it has to age to get the best effect and flavor. But never fear! Modern technology comes to the rescue:

And while you are waiting for your Christmas Pudding to be ready, you can play the Harlequin Historical Author’s Holiday Giveaway, based on the Advent calendar. We started a couple days after Stir Up Sunday and are going strong until Dec 23. Enter each day for chances to win daily prizes and for the most chances to win the grand prize of a Kindle Fire. If you’ve missed some days, go back and catch up. You’ll miss some prizes but not the grand prize.

What special “pudding” (aka dessert) do you make for the holiday season?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged christmas pudding | 7 Replies

Carols and Winners!

Updated on December 3, 2011 by Elena Greene

In the past, I’ve taken the Unplug the Christmas Machine workshop, designed to help people focus on what is personally meaningful during the holidays, rather than burn out trying to do it all. For me, music is essential. Last week, I attended the “Lessons and Carols” concert with our local Madrigal Choir, who often perform older, less well known carols. If like me, you are tired of “Carol of the Bells” being used to sell cars and electronic gadgets, you might want to check out some of these videos for a taste of an earlier, less commercialized Christmas.

The first Christmas carols to appear in English were in a 1426 work by John Awdley, who listed 25 “caroles of Cristemas”. Carols were sung by wassailers who went from house to house and also as part of mystery plays. The carols were often only loosely based on the Christmas story and considered entertainment more than a religious practice.

Here’s an example, “The Cherry Tree/10 Joys of Mary” performed by Nowell Sing We Clear, a group devoted to preserving these early Christmas carols. I’ve seen them and they put on a great show.

Here is a performance of the Coventry Carol by the Westminster Cathedral Choir. This is part of a 16th century mystery play, depicting the Massacre of the Innocents when Herod ordered all male infants in Bethlehem to be killed. It makes me cry, but I believe stories like these are an important reminder to be compassionate during this season.

Cromwell and the Puritans tried to suppress the singing of carols, but not surprisingly, did not succeed. Carol singing survived into “our” period and carols continued to be composed and recorded. “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” was first listed in a 1760 broadsheet and is probably older than that. Here’s a performance at King’s College, Cambridge.

By the Regency, many Christmas customs were considered rustic and weren’t practiced by the upper classes. Our Regency romance characters gathering around a Christmas tree to sing carols, though not impossible, wouldn’t have been the common thing. While Queen Charlotte did have a Christmas tree at Windsor in 1800, that custom and the singing of carols (especially in church) were more a Victorian thing.

But the process did begin during the Regency. Already, some people longed for simpler, bygone traditions. Some began to create collections of Christmas carols, Davies Gilbert with “Christmas Carols” published in 1822 and William Sandys with “Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern” published in 1833. During that period and later, old carols were revived and many new ones composed.

Here’s “Gaudete” performed by the John Brown University Cathedral Choir. “Gaudete” is from “Piae Cantiones”, a compilation of Finnish and Swedish sacred songs which was published in 1582 but only came to England in 1853. So it’s not Regency at all but I’m including it because I love it!

Another favorite of mine is “Masters in this Hall”. I thought it was older, being fooled by the fact that it is based on an old French dance tune, but the lyrics were written by William Morris in 1860.

What do you think of these? What are your favorite carols? How do you try to “unplug” Christmas?

And congratulations to the following winners of the Kindle ebook of THE INCORRIGIBLE LADY CATHERINE. Please send your email address, and if you wish, the email address of a friend who might enjoy a copy, to elena @ elenagreene.com (no spaces).

Jacqueline Seewald

Keira Soleore

Margay

Shelley Munro

librarypat

Happy holidays!

Elena
www.elenagreene.com
www.facebook.com/ElenaGreene

Wimpy, or Just Overthinking?

Updated on December 2, 2011 by megan

The past 24 hours, I’ve been devouring EL James’s Fifty Shades of Grey, a book that was recommended to me by a reader whose opinion I respect. One of the reasons I thought I’d like it is that even though it is an erotic BDSM book, its characters have issues. Like, serious issues.

In other words, the characters are like me. And I like that.

I think it started with quiet, plain Jane Eyre; I definitely identified with that character, even though I wondered why she didn’t just settle for foxy St. John Rivers. Later on, of course, I was all about the fun of getting Mr. Rochester, external damage added to his internal damage.

But in reading some opinions of Fifty Shades, I saw some people thought the heroine was wishy-washy, insecure, and self-obsessed. Um, again–like me. I like characters like that, characters who don’t make the right choices, think they’re the center of the universe even if they absolutely know they’re not, characters who think and overthink and think again.

Which, being that kind of post, leads back to me. I’ve just sent in a revision for my upcoming book, and in re-reading it, I am guessing many, many people will hate my heroine. I wish they wouldn’t, but they will–she’s self-absorbed, neurotic, self-questioning, insecure, and self-deprecating. Ahem.

That’s not to say I don’t appreciate the feisty, says-what’s-on-her-mind heroine; I do. I just have that much more of a step back in my perspective of viewing her, so it takes that much more for an author to get me into her heroine’s head. Usually, that happens, although sometimes I do wonder what the heroine was thinking to rush into danger like that.

Do you like reading characters who are similar to you? Do you notice?

Megan

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Megan Frampton | 6 Replies

Happy Anniversary Shakespeare!

Updated on November 29, 2011 by Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

How was everyone’s Thanksgiving?? Did you eat wonderful food and spend time with friends and relatives? Did you do any Black Friday shopping? (I did all my weekend shopping online…). Did you read any good books??? I have been writing, reading (The Night Circus, which is terrific), and getting out Christmas decorations. But today I’m taking time out to show you my new covers!! I am so excited about them.

They’re the first two books in my new Laurel McKee series for Grand Central, the Victorian-set “The Scandalous St. Claires,” about a notorious underworld family of gamesters, actors, and rakes, and their centuries-old feud with a ducal family (begun by a romance gone bad, and now ended by new romances):

They will be out in June and December of next year! You can pre-order One Naughty Night here…

I also wanted to say Happy Anniversary to William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, who were (possibly) married on November 28 in 1582. At the time Anne was 26 and Will was 18 (below the age of consent, scandal!), and Anne was pregnant (not uncommon–it’s estimated that 1/3 of Tudor era brides were pregnant before the wedding). On Nov. 28, two husbandmen of Stratford called Sandells and Richardson were sureties for 40 pounds in the consistory court of Worcester so the marriage of “William Shagspeare and Anne Hathwey” could go forward with only one publication of the banns. They were married at St. Andrew’s Church at Temple Grafton, about 5 miles from Stratford (possibly–see this link for more info…). The couple moved in with Shakespeare’s family and 6 months later their daughter Susanna was born. No details are known about the clothes or music, it was probably very quiet.

More wedding info can be found here

And some Elizabethan wedding customs here…

What historical wedding would you like to attend? What are some wedding customs you especially enjoy (or think we could so without)???

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Book covers, Regency Weddings | 3 Replies

Favorite Places and Giveaway

Updated on November 26, 2011 by Elena Greene

This week, the ebook edition of The Incorrigible Lady Catherine, the first of my “Three Disgraces” series, went live.

Catherine is the most flawed heroine I’ve written so far and she’s drawn a lot of mixed reactions. In any case, readers have loved the hero, Philip. He’s been described as the perfect Beta hero. The way I see it, he’s a strong man to deal with a mess like Catherine.

This is a story about healing and since I often seek healing in nature, I decided to set it in one of the most beautiful places I visited in the UK: the English Lake District, near Ullswater, where Wordsworth was inspired to write his famous poem about the daffodils. My husband and I paddled around it in a canoe, enjoying the play of light and shadow cast by scudding clouds over the hillsides, until rain forced us back to shore.

We also hiked to see Aira Force, a waterfall that the characters visit in the story and that is featured on the new cover.

Below is a picture of Castlerigg Stone Circle. Since I have this fascination with “old rocks”, I invented a similar fictional stone circle and set it on Philip’s lands.

I’ve set other stories in Kent and Sussex (where I lived during my assignment). I’ve also used the Cotswolds and Cornwall. I have a story in the idea file that would feature the North York Moors.

What are some of your favorite places, in the UK or elsewhere? Where would you like to see more stories set?

I’ll be giving away 5 Kindle copies of The Incorrigible Lady Catherine to commenters chosen at random. If you win, you can also nominate a friend to receive a free copy. Void where prohibited. You must be over 18. No purchase necessary. Post your comment by midnight EST on December 2. I will post an announcement on Saturday, December 3, so please check back to see if you have won.

Elena
www.elenagreene.com
www.facebook.com/ElenaGreene