Tag: Traditions

Oh, my, is it crass-mess?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

The pagan origin of many of the winter holiday’s customs is something I’m all too aware of. For starters, Jesus was likely born in the springtime, not the December 25 Roman festival of Saturnalia, honoring Saturn.

I’m not against acknowledging the winter solstice and the wonders of its long nights, but here are some other dark sides to consider. Not that I want to dampen anyone’s spirits.

  1. Dump the snow, OK? Even before global warming kicked in, Irving Berlin’s 1942 hit of dreaming of a white Christmas was something of a fantasy, even across much of New England and upstate New York. The unrealistic expectation of snow has led to annual disappointment in our household, for sure. Apart from that, I’m wondering: Did the movie starring Bing Crosby actually lead to a chain of motels called Holiday Inn?
  2. Blame Coca-Cola. Santa was generally a spooky figure until Coca-Cola decided to cast him in its holiday magazine ads. Assigned the task in 1931, Michigan-born illustrator Haddon Sundblom used his pal Lou Prentice as the model, and the result was a jolly boffo success. The artist took inspiration from Clement Clarke Moore’s 1822 poem, “A Visit from Saint Nicholas,” better known as “The Night Before Christmas,” for its warm, friendly, pleasantly plump St. Nick, as well as cards from his parents’ native Scandinavia. For the next 33 years his annual assignment advanced the modern image of Santa. So much for the terrors of naughty-or-nice that parents could have used for child control. Sundblom also created Coke’s mascot Sprite Boy in 1942, eventually leading to the rival clear soda 7Up.
  3. As for Rudolph? The rose-nosed reindeer first appeared in 1939 as a Christmas story for kids that Montgomery Ward could hand out as a promotion at its department stores. Staff copywriter Robert L. May was assigned the task, and 2.4 million copies were distributed in the first year along. Gene Autry recorded the song version most of us know in 1949, followed by a movie in 1964 that featured an island of misfit toys and Herbie the elf. The story was written in the same meter as “A Visit from Saint Nicholas.”
  4. Can you list the reindeer? Rudolph was nearly named Rollo or Reginald, and the other eight also had an array of alternative names, including Flossie, Glossie, Racer, Pacer, Scratcher, Feckless, Ready, Steady, and Fireball. The reindeer names that continued come from Moore’s poem. There’s even a late arrival named Olive. And, since only female reindeer keep their antlers through winter, guess what. Sorry, guys.
  5. Now, for Jingle Bells. Boston-born James Lord Pierpont wrote the song “One Horse Open Sleigh” for a Thanksgiving concert in 1857 in the Unitarian church in Savannah, Georgia, where he was organist and his brother was minister. That’s right, Thanksgiving, not Christmas. The song, published in 1857, recalled an event from his time in a boarding school in New Hampshire. The idea of snow must have been a novelty for those Sunday school singers down in Dixie. Released in 1859 under the title and lyrics everybody knows today, it became a hit. That year, the church also closed, a consequence of its minister’s abolitionist views, while the composer soon joined the Confederate army and wrote songs on its behalf. Pierpont was also the uncle of famed banker J.P. Morgan – more properly John Pierpont Morgan. Jingle, jingle, of a different sort also common this time of year.
  6. Imitate the royals, right? The popularity of a Yule tree in American homes originates with Prince Albert of Germany, who got a tree for his new wife, Queen Victoria of England. When a drawing of the couple in front of a Christmas tree appeared in the Illustrated London News in 1848, folks started following suit – on both sides of the Atlantic.
  7. Call 911. Dried-out Christmas trees spark about 260 fires in the United States each year, causing an average of 12 deaths, 24 injuries and $16.4 million in property damage. Another 150 fires are started by defective lighting, adding another average of eight deaths, 16 injuries and $8.9 million in property damage per year.
  8. As for the emergency room. An estimated 14,700 people visit hospital emergency rooms each November and December from holiday-related decorating accidents, about 240 injuries per day. Falling, lacerations, and back strains are the most common ailments.
  9. Watch the budget, too. Consumers spend an average of $967.13 on the holidays. I’m assuming this means adults.
  10. Mistletoe? The Germanic word for the plant translates as “dung on a tree.” Birds eat the berries, seed and all, and then help the plant germinate with their droppings. So pucker up, if you insist.

Thanks to Good Housekeeping

You don’t have to stand on your head for this bliss

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Some folks actually came to the ashram for their holiday breaks, and now through these pages, you can, too – for free. If you think this means getting away from it all, though, you’re in for a surprise. The real intent is to pare away to essential truths of life and the universe.

The answers, surprisingly, are often more down-to-earth than any mystical platitudes you were expecting.

In my novel Yoga Bootcamp, chaos and humor are essential components of their spiritual quests. The guru is better known as Elvis or Big Pumpkin than by the long Sanskrit formal name he officially goes by. As for tradition? Theirs is essentially American maverick, centered in the hills not far from Gotham.

This may even come as a refreshing turn after all of the frantic ho-ho-ho rushing this time of year.

The ebook is one of five novels I’m making available to you for free during Smashword’s annual end-of-the-year sale. Think of it as my Christmas present to you. It’s available in the digital platform of your choosing.

You may even want a stick of incense when you sit down to read it.

Hari Om Tat Sat and all of that, then. Namaste!

For details, go to the book at Smashwords.com.

Come on in to Big Pumpkin’s ashram

Regional differences in America’s sweet tooth

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

While Reese’s will probably still be the favorite., followed by M&Ms, when it comes to trick or treaters, other top choices may vary depending on where you live.

For instance:

  1. Twizzlers have a special popularity along the East Coast. (Guess I’ll have to look closer.)
  2. Starburst is tops in Texas, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Iowa, and North Dakota.
  3. Airheads rule in Florida and Colorado.
  4. Blow pops, in Ohio, Maryland, and Tennessee.
  5. Dum Dums, Indiana.
  6. Runts, Arkansas.
  7. Hot Tamales, New Mexico. (Not to be confused with a traditional Central American dish that’s sometimes spicy.)
  8. Whoppers, Kansas.
  9. Smarties, Alaska.
  10. Is Crunch bar even a brand – popular in New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, and California? Oh, I see, it’s what we’ve always called Nestle’s Crunch! Kinda like Kit Kat.

The rest of the country goes for more traditional brands – at least ones I’m familiar with.

I’m still not sure about that candy corn, which is supposed to be universally loved this time of year.

Reclaiming Passamaquoddy

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Living adjacent to the tribe’s Sipayik reservation opens new perspectives in my awareness. It’s not quite osmosis, but perhaps a willingness to listen.

One of the big breakthroughs for the tribe has involved access to 36 wax cylinders from 1890, the first field recordings ever made, when anthropologist Walter Jesse Fewkes came to Maine to test the Edison equipment before he headed off to Navajo and Hopi lands.

For decades, the recordings were kept in museum vaults, unknown to the tribe. And then, slowly, they came into consciousness, first through taped copies full of scratchy static and more recently cleaned up into digitalized files that tribe historians are carefully gleaning.

As a writer, I believe in the power of stories and the importance of language itself.

Here are some of the insights I’m hearing from my neighbors.

  1. Dwayne Tomah’s reaction on hearing the recordings the first time: “I wept. These were my ancestors speaking and singing to me.”
  2. The language has only two genders – animate and inanimate.
  3. Its wider family, Algonquian, features prenouns, a form shared only with Japanese and Korean.
  4. Translations from a tribal side, rather than a nontribal institution, can be revealing. For instance, rather than “Trading Song,” it’s more accurately “Let’s Trade.”
  5. The recordings preserve more than the language itself. There are also the stories, songs, and advices, sometimes with context.
  6. The Tides Institute’s latest map of our region portion of Maine and New Brunswick includes the Passamaquoddy place names. Tribal historian Donald Soctomah has used that to explain hard-to-translate subtleties, such as those describing qualities of water encountered in canoeing in a specific location.
  7. A Passamaquoddy-English dictionary, still growing, is available online. It has a range of expressions for anger that are totally missing in English.
  8. The language is being taught in elementary schools. (For generations, it was banned, even in homes.)
  9. The recordings are helping the tribe’s branch in neighboring Canada in its quest to gain First Nations status. One song, for instance, refers to what’s now the location of Saint Andrews.
  10. Even a few commonly understood words spoken among the tribe are rebuilding identity and pride, even when the rest of us watch on.

What’s love got to do with it?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In research for my novel What’s Left, I wound up learning about the people we now call Roma. I won’t say how it applied, but it was an eyeful.

For instance.

  1. All Roma are expected to marry – and to another Roma, not an outsider.
  2. In many tribes, the parents arrange the marriage.
  3. Rejection of a formal proposal is considered a disgrace.
  4. Acceptance leads to the negotiation of a bride price to compensate her parents for their loss.
  5. A festive ceremony may follow a few days later, signifying the engagement.
  6. No formal ritual is required as a wedding itself, though some tribes turn the occasion into a multiday celebration.
  7. Wedding gifts almost always consist of money.
  8. After the wedding, the bride is never seen in public without wearing her headscarf.
  9. They settled into the groom’s parents’ home, and cannot move to a place of their own until after the birth of their first child.
  10. The couple cannot refer to each other as husband and wife until their first child is born. Up to that point, it’s only their first names when speaking to each other or about the other in public.

Gee, we haven’t even touched on the death customs and rituals.

Drawn from Gypsy at larp.com.