What is Christmas

 

WHAT IS CHRISTMAS?: BY Helen Steiner Rice

Is it just a day at the end of the year?

A happy holiday filled with merry & good cheer

A season for presents both giving and receiving

A time to indulge in the pleasures of living

Are we lost to meaningless much muddled daze that

that covers our minds like a grey autumn haze.

Have we closed our hearts to God and His love?

Do we turn our eyes from “The bright star above”

Oh Father in Heaven, renew and restore the real

true meaning of Christmas once more.

So we can feel in our heart again that

“peace on earth and good will to all men”

It is still a promise that man can claim if

“He but seeks it in thy name”

Working Life in the 1890's

 

Here we are at Thursday again and I am sitting here drenched in sweat yet again like the fourth time this morning but that has nothing to do with this post.

Couldn't find anything about Christmas in Australia in the late 1800's so we have just another post from my information book.

One of the biggest and most time consuming tasks in that era was the washing of clothes, it was also the hardest of physical tasks a servant would have to do.

If they were lucky the home may have had one of the new-fangled washing machines, which ran on water power. Some even had gas fired hot water on tap.

Generally speaking though things went like this bed linen, tablecloths, and other such white things, had to be boiled in a wood fired copper. This meant that the poor servant girl had to stirred the clothes with a cooper-stick, can you imagine how hot it would have been hanging over a hot steamy copper in summer as well as winter but may not have felt as bad in the colder months.

She had to then remove these extremely heavy items into a trough or bowl for rinsing and starching as well as lifting them and putting through some kind of mangle or wringer. After that was done she then had to hang the washing out on a line to dry.

Once dried the washing would have to be ironed not with the type we use now days but an old flat iron that was heated on the coals of the stove or they may have had a box-iron which had red-hot coals contained in the iron, these were the most common types used.

It would have not been an easy task to judge how hot an iron was and it wasn't uncommon for either the servant or the daughter of the servant to burn themselves. If something was scorched the servants wages may have been docked.

Aussie Christmas Slang

 

Good morning I have a few Christmas related saying that are pretty Aussie here are some I have thought of.

Christmas Stocking- An inexpensive gift used to fill out a Christmas stocking

Done up like a Christmas Tree- Gaudily overdressed

Think you're Christmas- To have a very high opinion of yourself

Rellies run- A trip to taken to see relatives as part of Christmas and New Year celebrations.

Don't know if it's Pitt Street or Christmas- To be stupid

Creature Day

 

Good morning this week due to my Christmas theme I am sharing some information about Reindeer.

The reindeer or caribou is a species of deer with circumpolar distribution, native to Arctic, subarctic, tundra, boreal, and mountainous regions of Northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. This includes both sedentary and migratory populations. It is the only representative of the genus Rangifer. However, Reindeer and Caribou might not actually be the same thing.

Their hooves change with the seasons, and females have antlers, too, some believe they can see things humans can't but I don't know how they would know that.

Generally speaking reindeer cannot fly but they can swim, they live for 15-20yrs and their favourite food is Lichen a fungi-moss like plant often found in high open places.

Of course we all know that Santa has 9 reindeer pulling his sleigh. Their legendary names are Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and (drum roll) Rudolph. The reason these reindeer can fly and live so long is magic.

The first reference to Santa's sleigh being pulled by a reindeer appears in "Old Santeclaus with Much Delight", an 1821 illustrated children's poem published in New York. Other people will tell you it was in 1823 with “A visit from St Nicholas”. In this poem, “Saint Nicholas” arrives with eight tiny reindeer pulling a sleigh full of toys. The reindeer have the miraculous ability to fly.

Christmas Facts

 

Christmas is approaching so for the next few weeks I will be doing some Christmas post, starting with some facts about Christmas in Australia, yes I may have done something like this in the past but I am doing it again because it's my blog and I can........

Australians typically tuck into around 22,000 tonnes of prawns** during the festive period, the equivalent of 10 Olympic sized swimming pools full of prawns

Australians are expected to spend more than $30 billion this Christmas, with people spending just shy of $1500 each on average. Last year, the average Australian spent $1361 around the holidays, whereas this year, it is expected each Aussie will fork out $1479.

Australians often celebrate Christmas Day by enjoying a Christmas lunch or dinner with their closest family and friends. The meal usually consists of a selection of hot and cold dishes, including fresh seafood.

Australian children set out cookies for Santa, but instead of milk, they leave him an ice-cold glass of beer. After all, December is summer in the land Down Under. The children leave carrots for Santa's reindeer to munch on, too.

In Australia, it's unclear how many Christmas trees are cut each year, but data from an international study in 2016 showed that only 9 per cent of Aussies had a real Christmas tree compared to 59 per cent who owned artificial trees. The remaining 32 per cent opted to have no tree at all.

Week 48 of 2023

 

Another 4.30am start to the day but that's ok and yes I did go to bed later then normal but still early.

My computer is giving me a headache this morning, did a reboot and working better.

Found when I got up Tim had done the laundry and tossed it in the dryer and it is going to be a hot day. If I did that he would go off about it. I said nothing.

Up at 4.30am again, some people would find getting up so early strange but I like it I like the quiet and stillness of the house.

Sue picked me up at 9am and drove to the morning tea with our cousins. It was a nice outing and lovely to meet Amy & Karen, Sandy had Denni with her as she refused to go to school.

Dave & Leigh came over to see us and drop off the Vietnam money they brought back for us as well as a key-ring and fridge magnet for my collection.

Slept in till 5am and have to have the back door opened as I was sweating.

Sue called in after helping Sandy get Denni ready for school, then straight after she left, Kelli turned up with her brother Vaughan and Thea she was dropping off something for Sandy as Sandy wasn't home.

Then within an hour of her leaving Sandy turned up to pick up what Kelli left for her. The about an hour or so later the plumber turned up as Tim was complaining that there was no pressure in the shower.

Awake at 4am but managed to lay in bed and doze on and off till 4.45 when I got up.

I for some reason have been thinking today is Monday. Tim said he was laying in bed thinking it was Saturday.

I asked Tasha if she can drive me to the podiatrist she complained that I didn't ask her sooner but I forgot about the appointment. I said the appointment was made 10 weeks ago and I had simply forgotten about it till I received the text reminding me of the appointment. She is going to take me thankfully.

I got up even earlier today as at 4.15am I needed to pee and once I was up I decided to stay up. Sam isn't going to school today as it is the swimming carnival and like many of the family Sam has no interest in such a thing.

Tasha took me to the podiatrist and then we stopped so I could go to Hot Bargain. Which I managed to do with just the use of a cane and it was great.

I have put up some Christmas decorations.

I was surprised to see Tasha turn up this afternoon to help me gt ready for bed as she usually doesn't do Thursdays but she said that means tomorrow she doesn't have to.

December is here the last month of the yeah.

Another early start I was up at 4.30am to pee and again stayed up, I found the ceiling fan in the lounge-room on with a close hoist under it with Jess & Sam's clothes on it. I did have to toss them into the dryer at 7am well closer to 7.15 as someone forgot.

Tim told me that our neighbour Kevin was taken to hospital last night, his wife Diane asked if Tim could take some things over to the hospital for Kevin.

Jess rang and asked me to ring the chemist for a Webster pack for Sam's school, he only needs 8 more days of medication to see out the year.

It has been a warm day for the start of Summer.

A cool wet morning and I am fine with that, had shorts on but found I was sweating so much that because the shorts stopped mid thigh my legs were either sticking together or rubbing together both of which was annoying so I went and changed into ¾ pants .

Tim walked out at 7am and said it was the latest he had slept in for ages, I mentioned it was only 7am and he looks at the clocks and says he thought it was 11.40am, so he went back to bed.

Dawson caught a bus over to see us for a bit, which was nice.

Tim went and picked up my Big W order, the bra I ordered was out of stock, how annoying.

Mum's Childhood

 

NANA JAMES WITH DIANE AND RONNIE IN FRONT OF HER AND MY MUM MAVIS ON THE RIGHT

Here we are at another Friday, I have nothing on today which is more like me as I rarely go out.

After reading the comment on yesterdays blog, I started to think about my Mum and the things she would tell me about her childhood. Mum spent over 10yrs living with her grandmother in the small country town of Byabarra in NSW, they had no running water, no electricity, thus no fridge. Mum would have to start the wood stove in the morning, and walk to an Uncle's farm about a 10 minute walk and get fresh milk each day, as well as collect the eggs from the chooks.

All done before going to school, it was a small one teacher school and Mum was related to over half the class.

Baths were once a week in round tin thing with water heated on the stove, the loo was out the back down the yard a typical Aussie Dunny.

Lighting was through candles or old kero lamps, Mum would say it was a hard life but she loved living with her grandma and was a happy girl.