Category Archives: The Gift Bearers

Jan 04 2023
6 Comments
Book of Days Calendar, Epiphany, La Befana, Midwinter, The Gift Bearers, Twelfth Night

On a Winter’s Night, or Your January Book of Days

A bit belated, here is your printable Convivio Book of Days Calendar for the month of January. Cover star: Winter Night in the Mountains, a 1914 oil painting by artist Harald Sohlberg. He was Norwegian; he knew a thing or two about winter. Me, I’m from Florida and all I know is it looks awfully wintry in his painting. We had a bit of cold weather on Christmas Day and the first few days of Christmas; enough to make the iguanas sleepy but it has warmed up again since then and the iguanas are back to eating all the plants in the garden, save for the weeds, of course. I was hoping, to be honest, that the cold would help thin the herd a bit, but this does not seem to be the case. What I am certain of is folks in Norway do not have this problem.

We are approaching the close of the Yuletide Season. It’s the Tenth Day of Christmas and our focus is on preparations for Twelfth Night and Epiphany. I plan to make our Three Kings Cakes on Friday (you’ll find the recipe here) but later today, my work is cut out for me as I record and edit my cousins performing a story for Epiphany Eve. It’s the story of La Befana, the kindly old witch who searches for the Christ Child each Epiphany and who delivers small presents to the children in Italy. The recording will be part of the Stay Awake Bedtime Stories series that I host and I’ve no idea yet how this will all turn out, but we shall see what we shall see and if you’d like to watch the finished video, please visit the Stay Awake page at the website of the Jaffe Center for Book Arts by Thursday evening and see what you think. My cousin Marietta will be reading, my cousin Cammie will be sweeping, and my cousins Larry and Al (as well as Seth) will be offering their gifts of frankincense, gold, and myrrh as the Three Kings. How bad can it be?

At our online catalog, we are running a sale on select artisan goods for Christmas from Germany and from Mexico. The sale runs through Epiphany on the Sixth Day of January. You’ll find savings on handmade German nutcrackers and pyramids and nativity sets, and handmade nativities from Mexico. Click here to shop (and save: our extra large nutcrackers, for instance, are currently reduced by $295; after Friday, they go back to regular price).

Image: “Winter Night in the Mountains” by Harald Sohlberg. Oil on canvas, 1914 [Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons].

Dec 01 2022
Book of Days Calendar, The Gift Bearers

Midwinter Gift Bearers, or Your December Book of Days

December: Month of Midwinter in the Northern Hemisphere, month of the first of the Midwinter gift bearers. Our own gift to you in this month of gift giving is the Convivio Book of Days calendar for December: a printable PDF, a fine companion to this blog, and yours free by clicking here. This month’s cover star is a circa 1760 oil painting by Nikolaus Hoffman called Weihnachtsbescherung, a nice long German word that translates to “Christmas Presents” in English. The presents in the painting are delivered by Christ the King, who is accompanied by Knecht Ruprecht. Old World gift bearers are often accompanied by a dark companion, and this is the role that Knecht Ruprecht plays: one deals with the good children, one with the not-so-good children.

You can experience a bit of this yourself if you come see us at one of our upcoming local pop-up Christmas markets: We’ll be at the local American German Club’s Krampusnacht celebration on the evening of Friday, December 9. It’s a good bit of spooky Midwinter fun that ushers in the club’s annual Christkindmarkt on Saturday the 10th and Sunday the 11th. Here’s a list of the Christmas Markets where you’ll find us for the month of December (afterwards, a bit of hibernation and our own Christmas preparations); before Krampusnacht, we’ll be at the German American Social Club’s Christmas Market in Miami this Saturday!

CHRISTMAS MARKET at the German American Social Club, Miami
Saturday December 3 from 10 AM to 5 PM. It’s our first pop-up shop in Miami! We’ll be at this inaugural Christkindlmarkt at the German American Social Club, 11919 SW 56 Street, Miami 33175. Don’t let the “inaugural” fool you: The German American Social Club is home to Florida’s oldest Oktoberfest celebration, so they know what they’re doing! We’re looking forward to joining in the festivities. Admission is free, but you must register ahead of time to reserve your spot, as there are a limited number of tickets. Click here for the details.

KRAMPUSNACHT at the American German Club, Lake Worth
Friday December 9 from 7 to 11 PM. This spooky fun event at the American German Club on West Lantana Road kicks off the club’s annual Christkindlmarkt. We’ll be there with our largest pop-up shop ever. Tickets required, and they always sell out, so buy them early! Click here for full details.

CHRISTKINDLMARKT at the American German Club, Lake Worth
Saturday December 10 from 2 to 10 PM & Sunday December 11 from Noon to 8 PM. The two days following Krampusnacht at the American German Club on West Lantana Road brings their beautiful annual Christkindlmarkt and we will be there with our largest booth ever. Tickets are required, and this event always sells out, too, so buy your tickets early. Click here for full details.

CHRISTMAS AROUND THE WORLD at Johan’s Jöe in Downtown West Palm Beach
We’re collaborating with our favorite Swedish coffee house in Downtown West Palm Beach for a special 3-day Christmas pop-up shop: Friday December 16 from about 10 AM to 4 PM, and then Saturday December 17 & Sunday December 18 from about 7 AM to 4 PM each day. Johan’s will have their usual delicious menu plus lots of Nordic pantry staples along with bottled wine specials, and we’ll have three tables featuring some of our best Christmas items from Sweden, Germany, and Mexico. Johan’s Jöe is located at 401 South Dixie Highway. Everything there is delicious and my mom and my niece love the big purple chairs.

JOYFUL SALE at our online shop
And at our online shop, all through Advent and Christmastime: use discount code JOYFUL at checkout for $10 off your purchase of $85, plus get free domestic shipping. And if you think it’ll be difficult to spend $85 at our website, you’ve probably not stopped by in a long while. We add new items every week lately and I think you’ll be pleased with the variety you’ll find. If you’re local, order and choose the Local Free Delivery option if you’re in the coastal Lake Worth, Lantana, or West Palm Beach area, and I’ll bring your order to you myself (by vintage Raleigh bicycle if you’re in my neighborhood).  Click here to shop!

 

Image: “Weihnachtsbescherung” by Nikolaus Hoffmann. Oil on canvas, circa 1760 [Public domain via Wikimedia Commons].

 

 

Dec 13 2021
2 Comments
Advent, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Santa Lucia, The Gift Bearers

The Night Walks with Heavy Steps

It’s late at night on the 12th (actually it is past midnight, so it is the 13th) and in these same overnight hours will arrive the next of the Midwinter gift bearers: Santa Lucia. She will come to homes mainly in Sweden and in Italy. In Italy, where children have left out their shoes and a bit of hay for her donkey, Santa Lucia will tie little presents to their shoelaces. In Sweden, where the nights this time of year are long and dark indeed, the Lucia will be one of the girls of the household, delivering saffron buns and hot coffee to the sleeping occupants, while donning a wreath of candles on her head. Or she will appear publicly in a procession, her gaggle of star boys and girls dressed in white accompanying her. Santa Lucia brings another magical night to this time of dark midwinter.

Though it be late, there is a gift I wish to bring you, as well, though I am no Santa Lucia. A star boy, maybe, at best. It’s a gift I’ve given on other Santa Lucia Days, but it is so beautiful, and subscribers Carl & Kathleen Maugeri loved it so much when I first shared it with you, I wanted to offer it again, for Carl & Kathleen and for all of you, too. It is a song called Santa Lucia, an old Neapolitan melody, but it is in Swedish, for Lucia is sacred to both Italy and to Sweden, two countries that in many ways could not be more different. I love this melding of cultures and celebration. In Italian, Lucia is pronounced with a “ch” (loo-chee-a) while in Swedish, the C is soft (loo-see-a), and the Swedes add a K to the Santa: Sankta Lucia. The song you’re listening to, if you’re listening to it (and I hope you are) is from one of those processions in Sweden: the young Star Girls dressed in white and young Star Boys, also dressed in white, carrying stars on tall poles. “White,” Jane Siberry says, “the color of truth.” Somewhere amongst them is the Lucia, wearing a wreath of lit candles upon her head. Such a beautiful song and such a beautiful sight. Eight days yet to the solstice, darkness continues to build. We welcome light where we can find it. In this case, it comes with such beauty… like the song itself:

The night walks with heavy steps around farm and cottage.
Around the earth, forsaken by the sun, shadows are lowering.
Then into our dark house she treads with lighted candles,
Sankta Lucia, Sankta Lucia.

The night is vast and mute. Now here reverberate
in all silent rooms a rustle as of wings.
See, on our threshold stands––whiteclad, lights in her hair––
Sankta Lucia, Sankta Lucia.

“The darkness will soon take flight from the valleys of earth.”
Thus she a wonderful word to us speaks.
The day shall again, reborn, rise from a rosy sky,
Sankta Lucia, Sankta Lucia.

Here in Lake Worth, we’ve been so busy preparing for the local Christkindlmarkt at the American German Club. It began on Friday with a belated Krampusnacht celebration that segued into the proper Christkindlmarkt weekend. The fact that it was also the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Third Sunday of Advent did not escape me. And now that our last big outdoor market of the season is done, we can in this house shift gears toward Christmas preparations, toward making our house fair as we are able. Tonight, on Santa Lucia’s Night, we will go get our Christmas tree from the tree lot in Downtown West Palm Beach. It will most likely be decorated with lights tonight but little else; the ornaments will be “yet to come.”  But that seems a fitting thing to do on this night that walks with heavy steps.

 

An amalgamation of Santa Lucia posts from the past is the best I can wrangle for you at this late hour. I hope that’ll do… the wish is just as genuine. Image: An early 20th century Swedish Christmas penny postcard designed by Adèle Söderberg (1880-1915).

 

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