Category Archives: The Gift Bearers

Dec 05 2014
Krampus, St. Nicholas, The Gift Bearers

Light & Darkness: Eve of St. Nicholas

Klausjagen-Küssnacht2011

I have long suspected that Americans just don’t have as much fun as folks in other countries. It’s that Puritan Work Ethic. We work and work and work and this is what the Puritans wanted us to do and we’re still doing it. The Puritans worked even on Christmas; they hated the idea of Christmas so much, they actually banned it. But that’s a story for another time. Or maybe not. We’ll let the Puritans be: both them and their austere ways.

Amongst more jovial people, there is a lot more celebration, and tonight is a wonderful example of that, wonderful as in wonder-full, full of wonder. It’s the Eve of St. Nicholas, a night belonging to mystery, for St. Nicholas is the first of the traditional wintertime gift bearers. He is the older cousin to the American Santa Claus. St. Nicholas the gift bearer comes from an historical person: St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra in the fourth century, who became known far and wide for his acts of generosity… not the least of which was his hiding bags of coins in the shoes of poor girls who were without dowries. The legend grew from there and now St. Nicholas is sacred to countries throughout Europe.

Tonight’s gift bearer is not all happy and light, though; he has a dark side, as we all do. Actually, a dark companion. Perhaps this comes out of the humanity St. Nicholas is rooted in. His dark companion goes by many names depending on the country, but he is most commonly known as Black Peter or as Krampus, a sort of half human, half goat figure whose job it is to punish badly behaved children.

And while Santa Claus tries his best to operate under secrecy and dark of night, St. Nicholas and Krampus are often found parading through cities and villages on this night. One of the parades for St. Nicholas’ Eve include the Klausjagen parade, or “Nicholas chase,” pictured above. It’s part of an annual festival in Küssnacht, Switzerland, this eve of St. Nicholas’ Day. Many marchers in the parade will be wearing Iffelen––enormous, ornate hats that are made of paper and wood, meant to evoke the mitre hat of a bishop but also the stained glass windows of churches. They are lit from within by candles, and are upwards of seven feet tall.

Now that’s a sight to see. Surely there is good ale to be had, too, and perhaps some delicious cookies just for St. Nicholas’ Day. There’s plenty of time for work. A little celebration will probably do you good, no matter what those stern Puritanical ancestors thought. Anyway, St. Nicholas probably thinks so, and I bet even Krampus does, too. Krampus knows it’s all about balance.

 

Image: A photograph of the Klausjagen parade, December 5, 2011, by Matthias Zepper (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Jan 06 2014
Christmas, Epiphany, La Befana, Solstice, The Gift Bearers

An Epiphany

Magi

TWELFTH DAY of CHRISTMAS:
Epiphany

It’s Epiphany, the day the Magi arrived in Bethlehem to see the child. Children in Italy have awoken to presents delivered over the course of the night by la befana, and in Spain and throughout Latin America, los tres reyes, the three kings, have done the same job. Today, la befana will be back to her housework, back to her sweeping, sweeping the holidays away until the winter solstice returns again next December. An old Italian saying sums it up: E l’epifania tutte le feste porta via.

Most of what we know of the Magi comes down through tradition and not through biblical writings. The story is that there were three wise men and that their names were Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, but in fact we don’t know their names for sure or how many there were. We do know, however, that there were three gifts. It’s an old, old story that we know well. The Magi followed the star, finally arrived at the place where Jesus lay, paid homage to him, and brought gifts to the child, gifts fit for royalty: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Epiphany is a Greek word, meaning “manifestation.” The local shepherds were the first to come see the child in the manger, but with the Magi, who came from far off kingdoms, the child was made manifest to the world. Epiphany has another meaning, as well, one that James Joyce spoke of, in which characters in stories, people in general, suddenly see things differently. The two kind of go hand in hand. Nothing would ever be the same after that first Christmas night, and nothing is ever the same after a personal epiphany, either.

And so with this night, our celebration of Christmas winds down. While Twelfth Night brings us raucous revelry, Epiphany is generally quieter. The day will proceed much like any other––here in the United States, for most of us it’s just another day at work. Even the Church in this country moves the date of Epiphany to a Sunday (it was yesterday by most church calendars), but traditionalists prefer to keep its date as it always was. In this house, we will celebrate with a quiet dinner. We’ll enjoy the music and the greenery and lights for one last night. And some time in the still quiet of this night, we’ll gather up the people in our home, step out onto the front porch, bundle up if it’s cold outside, and we’ll take turns writing with chalk above the front door the numbers and letters of a traditional inscription: 20+C+M+B+14. These are the initials of each of the Magi, punctuated by crosses and surrounded by the year. The chalk is supposed to be blessed chalk, but I doubt there are many priests left who remember this old tradition and who bother to bless chalk for their congregations, so I think any chalk would be fine, blessed or not. The writing is usually accompanied by a silent prayer that we’ll all be together to do this again next year. The inscription, a magic charm of protection and a reminder of the season, remains there for all to see and it weathers the year, sometimes washing away to a ghost of itself by the following year, and sometimes remaining as vibrant as ever.

After tonight, we might light the candles in our windows, but the Christmas lights outside will no longer be lit. All the greenery and the tree are to be removed. If you have the room, perhaps you can save your tree in a quiet corner of your garden. Just tuck it away there, off to the side, and next December, do what we do: use that tree to fuel your fire on the darkest night of the year that comes when the Winter Solstice returns next December. This is, I think, an honorable way to send off the tree that has brought your family so much joy this year, and continues the spiraling circle of time and seasons that gave that tree life in the first place. The tree, you, the Magi, the child, all are part of this same spiral.

Image: Three kings brought to us as gifts by our neighbors Don and Pat Cortese, Twelfth Night 2013. 

 

Jan 05 2014
1 Comment
Christmas, Epiphany, La Befana, The Gift Bearers, Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night

LaBefana

ELEVENTH DAY of CHRISTMAS:
Twelfth Night, Eve of the Epiphany

The daylight hours of this Eleventh Day of Christmas offer us another day of preparation, which will be needed, for the setting sun brings us the great festivity of Twelfth Night, a night of eating, drinking, games and music to rival that with which we began at the start of the Christmas season. Christmas deserves as much, no? We rearrange our furniture for Christmas, we bring in a tree, we bake special treats… it’s such a big presence in our lives while it’s with us that it’s only proper to send Old Father Christmas on his way with the festive spirit he deserves.

Twelfth Night and Epiphany center on the Magi and their arrival at Bethlehem to see the child. Tradition tells us that their journey took them across the desert and their arrival was not until the Sixth of January. There are many traditions surrounding Twelfth Night, and as with most things Christmas, they are a mysterious blend of Christian customs and earlier pagan ones. There is, for instance, the tradition of the King of the Bean: a bean is baked into the Twelfth Night cake, and the person who finds it in his plate is crowned King of the Bean, and he becomes the Lord of the Feast for Twelfth Night, leading the company in games and song. In Italy, the bean is a fava bean. In France, there often is not just a bean but also a pea, and the person who finds the pea is the queen. These are traditions that go back directly to the ancient Roman solstice celebration of Saturnalia, where the very same thing was done. To think that people have been performing this same ritual at this dark time of year for so many centuries is, to me, fascinating.

In Italy, this Eve of the Epiphany is the night of la befana. The legend tells us that at that first Christmas oh so long ago, the Magi stopped at la befana’s house and asked her to join them on their journey, but she turned them down, for she had too much housework to do, and so they went on their way. But la befana had a change of heart as she swept the floors, and once she was done sweeping, she set out to find the Magi. But she never did find them, nor the child… and to this day, on each Twelfth Night, she sets out upon her broom to seek them.

La befana is also one of the last of the Yuletide gift bearers, for as she makes her way across the country, she delivers small presents to the children. For those that were not so good, she might leave a lump of coal, but even that is not so bad, because la befana’s coal is sweet as sugar.

Epiphany on the 6th of January is still a major day for gift-giving in Italy (as well as in Latin America, where the festival of los Tres Reyes, the Three Kings, is celebrated… and they also are gift-bearers). If la befana riding the night on her broom sounds a bit like a witch to you, that would be a fairly accurate description, and so here again we have a bit of paganness, in la befana as a personification of the pagan earth goddess as the wise old hag, giving way to the child, just as the old year passes into the new. Her name, befana, is thought to be a corruption of the Italian name for Epiphany: Epifania.

At this time of year my cousins in New York and New England gather together for a Christmastime dinner and la befana always comes to pay a visit. It’s often my cousin Cammie that plays the part. For us here in Lake Worth, Twelfth Night will be a night for a sparkling Christmas punch and a festive dinner with family. It’s usually something grand and this year it’s something we’ve never made before: a standing rib roast. Usually there are small presents to exchange in a game we call Yankee Swap, but this year, it’ll be more like a second Christmas, as my nephew and his family from the Gulf Coast come to spend Twelfth Night with us, and so the gifts given this night will be more in the spirit of the gifts the Magi brought to Bethlehem.

La befana, meanwhile, will begin the process of sweeping away the Christmas festivities for one more year. By the time she’s done with her sweeping tomorrow, Christmas will be done.

Image: My cousin Marietta was kind enough to send me this photo of a recent Cutrone cousins party, which takes place around Twelfth Night every year. That’s my cousin Cammie as la befana, backed up by our own three kings.

 

 

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