Pre-1837, Christmas was not celebrated as we do now. Winter feast days (wassailing, Plough Monday, etc.) tended to be local and between All Hallows (1st Nov.) and Candlemas (2nd Feb.). In England, Christmas was an invention of the Victorian middle class; Presbyterian Scots saw it as essentially pagan, and celebrated Hogmanay.
Middle class fashion for charity giving at Christmas replaced the Christmas Box; a centuries old tradition for masters and householders to give money to servants and tradesmen rewarded loyal customers with free goods. The Christmas tree is a German custom popularised by Prince Albert.
Twelfth Night was still observed, but over time the focus concentrated on Christmas Day and Boxing Day as essentially family festivals rather than a village event, so many rural customs died out.
Annual greetings were exchanged at New Year, which was never a religious festival. In 1843 Henry Cole began printing Christmas cards. The first designs were often pagan, with nymphs, etc. In 1840 sweet-maker Tom Smith invented the cracker as a sales gimmick. Originally a wrapper with a bang for sweets, they sold better when he added paper hats and trinkets.
Swan or goose were originally the birds for a feast, with lower income families having a beef joint. Turkeys probably first came via the Spanish, who had brought them back from the Aztec Empire. Some may have been introduced by William Strickland; his family crest (granted c. 1550) has a turkey as a crest. Henry VIII is the first known king of England to eat turkey. Mince pies date from Elizabethan cookery. Christmas cake was originally the Twelfth Night cake.
December 25th became Christmas Day when the church took over winter solstice celebrations. Many winter celebrations were raucous and ribald, until Victorian middle classes favoured family-centred events. The cross-dressing of Twelfth Night transferred to pantomime (the dame) and risque jokes.
St Nicholas, Bishop of Myra in Turkey, became the patron saint of children in the 5th century; his name evolved into Santa Claus. Pre-1870, Father Christmas was a regular character in mummers' plays, representing revelry and festivity. Early pictures show him in green robes but these changed to red bishop's robe with the link to St Nicholas. The two terms are now interchangeable. An 1822 poem by Clement Clark Moore first described him and the eight reindeer.
The days following Christmas Day are known in the church as the season of Epiphany (or Tiffany to country folk). King Alfred is said to have made a law making the twelve days of Christmas into a season of festivals called Twelvetide or Twelfthtide and feasting and celebrations were held during the period until the final revel on Twelfth Night. This took place on the night of 5th Jan into the early hours of 6th Jan. We have forgotten the ancient custom of starting the day not at midnight but at six pm. Twelfth Night (5th Jan.) therefore precedes Twelfth Day (6th Jan.) when decorations would be taken down - as many people still do today.
Hogmanay may be derived from Norse and Gaelic observances of the winter solstice. As well as Scotland, it was celebrated in the far north of England. Customs vary in Scotland, but usually include gift-giving, visiting the homes of friends and neighbours. The first-foot (the first guest of the year, a tall dark male is preferred), traditionally brings symbolic gifts such as salt, coal, shortbread, whisky and black bun (a rich fruit cake) to bring good fortune to the household. Auld Lang Syne was composed by Robert Burns in 1788 and set to a traditional folk song.
Sources: various.
The daily reporting of confirmed cases and deaths can give us a distorted view of the current position, so here are some facts about what is reported and other ways of looking at the data.
The truth about vaccines.
Daily Case Figure (confirmed by positive test)
There are a number of different political voting systems, but too often those elected do not actually reflect the views of the population who voted - and who consequently feel they have no real representation. It looks as though it is the proportional voting systems that give a voice to the widest number of views, though even here the specific version used is important.
Mixed-Member Proportional Voting (MMP). In this electoral system, voters have two votes: one to decide the representative for their single seat constituency and the second for a political party. Seats in the legislature are filled firstly by successful constituency candidates (elected using first-past-the-post or another plurality/majoritarian system) and secondly by party candidates based on the percentage or region-wide votes that each party received (usually drawn from published party lists). On this second vote, parties may be required to achieve a minimum number of constituency candidates, a minimum percentage of the nationwide vote, or both.
MMP is used by New Zealand among others. NZ has a single-house legislature, the House of Representatives, usually with 120 members, though the number can be more due (generally) to one or two overhang seats. The 52nd Parliament (elected 2017) had 120 seats: 71 were electorate MPs, with the remaining 49 from ranked party lists.
Overhang seats. Under MMP, a party is entitled to a number of seats based on its share of the total vote. (A) If a party's share entitles it to ten seats and its candidates win seven constituencies, it will be awarded three list seats, bringing it up to the required number. This only works if the party's seat entitlement is more than the number of constituencies it has won. (E.g. If the party is entitled to five seats but wins six constituencies, the sixth constituency seat is termed an overhang seat.) (B) Individual candidates with strong local followings. A candidate may be elected with strong support in their constituency but belong to no party, or a party with very low support overall. In the case of independent candidates, their seat is guaranteed. Some countries (including NZ) have special rules that seats won by these candidates are exempted from the proportional system altogether. Dealing with overhang seats. The are four ways to deal with overhang seats. (1) Parties keep the overhang seats but then has more than its entitlement. (2) Parties winning seats over their entitlement keep them but other parties lose some of their entitlement. (3) Parties are not allowed to keep overhang seats, which requires some method to determine which seat(s) are lost. (4) Non-overhang parties are allocated bonus seats to balance the proportional representation.
[NB. Countries vary in the number of constituency MPs that make up a legislature; the NZ Parliament has just 120, with small numbers of overhang seats. The UK using a first past the post system has 650 seats (2020).]
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Clothing and textiles made of synthetic fibres will shed microfibres during use and washing.
Use a microfibre catcher when washing these items to save them from ending up in rivers and seas.
Try the Guppy Friendly laundry bag (ethicalsuperstore.com) or a Cora Ball (babipur.co.uk) or similar products.
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