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Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: Shine A Brave Light, However Small & Wavering

Open Thread: Shine A Brave Light, However Small & Wavering

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David Wong, at Cracked, on “The True Meaning of Christmas (That Everyone Forgets)”:

… It’s hard to understand why Christmas came to be a big deal even for people who have never stepped foot inside a church without understanding the context. And the context — which does predate Christianity by thousands of years — is that December kicks off winter in the Northern hemisphere. And for most of human history, winter meant a bunch of us were going to freaking die.

We’re so detached from that idea today, when the cold means nothing more than mild annoyance and sometimes slippery roads, that it’s hard to grasp how recent this was, and that this was the way of things for virtually all of human history. Every year, you headed into winter with just enough stored food and fuel to get by. The old and the sick knew they might not make it through, and an especially harsh winter could mean no one would feel the sun’s warmth ever again. Every year, you watched all of the plants turn brown and shrivel into husks, followed by an unrelenting darkness and cold that threatened to swallow you and everything you love.

And looking back at that, we see an awesome little portrait of exactly how much humans kick ass. Every year, you see, winter arrived with a short day followed by the longest night of the year (aka the winter solstice), and since before recorded history, humans have been celebrating that day with a feast, or festival, or outright debauchery. On that longest night before the frozen mini-apocalypse, in all times and places you would find light and song and dancing and food. Cattle would be slaughtered (to avoid having to feed all of them through the winter), families would travel to be together, and wine would flow. Precious supplies were dedicated to making decorations and gifts — frivolous things, good for nothing other than making each other happy.

These celebrations went by many names over the millennia, and everyone did it their own way. But deep down, I think the message was always the same: “We made it through another year, some of us won’t see spring, let’s spend a few days reminding each other of what’s good about humanity.”…

***********
Good or not, what’s going on in your neighborhood(s)?

Reader Interactions

72Comments

  3. 3.

    J R in WV

    Amazing truth, spring was called “the starving time” because all the winter stockpile was gone, and nothing had yet grown to take its place. So ramps, an early green onion plant, was a lifesaver for pioneers, one of the first things to grow enough in early spring to save lives hanging on a knife-edge of starvation.

    Preserving foodstuff was a magical art, and anyone who knew how to dry, smoke and otherwise preserve foods found in fall until late winter and early spring was a most valued tribal member.

  4. 4.

    Keith G

    As I entered high school in the early 70s, my parents sold the small family Ohio farm that had been our homestead.

    Of all the things I miss about that time, the disconnection from the natural world has always been a large regret. The path from harvesting domestic plants to watching the natural vegetation die and disappear was always a very moving time. Winter dusks along the Great Lakes can begin at 4:30. Watching the landscape darken around the collection of sticks that four months ago were shade trees is both figuratively and literally chilling.

    To me there is little wonder why ancient and more recent people saw this time as magical, dangerous, and spiritually significant.

  5. 5.

    PurpleGirl

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Steam is a gaming platform (hope this is the right word), isn’t it?

    I know LiveStream had their database hacked a few days ago and everyone with a LiveStream account was asked to change their password. Luckily many LiveStream accounts don’t involve money and paying for service, the accounts and passwords are just to get access to LiveStream cams.

    ———————————————–

    I wonder who the actress is playing opposite Death in the video clip. It sounds like Michelle Dockery who plays Lady Mary on Downton Abby.

  7. 7.

    justawriter

    My long held contention is that the good old days weren’t. They are just old. Disease, death and despair propped up a theology where obeisance to authority would lead to an afterlife in paradise. I hope that in some future day, the fact that things aren’t so bad around here leads humans to start treating each other with the love and respect they deserve.
    Merry Christmas

  9. 9.

    Ohio Mom

    @J R in WV: I’ve long suspected that is why we have spring holidays that are all about going without: we give up meat on Fridays for Lent, at Passover there is a long list of foods we aren’t alower to eat. Virtue out of necessity.

  10. 10.

    Shana

    Our house: I’m doing laundry, making chicken stock, hanging pictures, filling out passport renewal applications for Hubby and I (we’re going on a cruise in June to celebrate our 30th anniversary, older daughter’s graduation from law school and younger daughter’s recent graduation from college), deciding what year-end donations to make, getting ready to make lamb chops, rice cooked in chicken broth and fresh green beans for dinner. Also celebrating older daughter’s return to the fold for a few days.

    I try to amass lots of stuff to do around the house since nothing’s open, and we’re jewish.

    Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it.

  11. 11.

    PurpleGirl

    @Keith G: I grew up in NYC apartment. My parent’s apartment and then my first apartment had smallish windows and not many of them. And in both cases they were on the third floor of their buildings. There were other buildings close by too. Not a lot of open space and air.

    When I moved to the apartment I now have, it changed my view of nature — I’m now on the 17th floor and there are few buildings closing off the view or air and light. My living room/dining area has a 20 ft by 7 ft window wall. I have a better feel for the change of seasons and day and night.

  12. 12.

    max

    @PurpleGirl: Steam is a gaming platform (hope this is the right word), isn’t it?

    Yes. And they’re going to be giving lots of people coupons soon. I should log in at some point and check my account (if I can remember what the hell it was).

    Since we had Xmas yesterday (tacos and caldo – I had to bail on the tamales due to a logistical screwup), today has been cleaning up and doing end of the year stuff.

    max
    [‘Happy Christmas to relevant persons!’]

  14. 14.

    Ruckus

    @justawriter:
    Aww the good old days. Why people think that things were better decades/centuries before, despite all the evidence is baffling. Yes lots of people have shitty lives. But lots less shitty than the far greater percentage of people who had them 50/100/500 yrs ago. Granted progress has been slowed by greed/ignorance/hate as of late, but life is still better. I’ve often wondered if it’s just growing old and less healthy that gets people to reflect that earlier times were better.

  15. 15.

    Keith G

    @PurpleGirl: I now live in central Houston. The difference in latitude give us almost 40 more minutes of daylight, Winters seem a lot less claustrophobic.

    By the way, at 83 degrees, we have broken our Christmas Day high temp record. Yay us :(

  16. 16.

    rikyrah

    Finished my first meal. Giving myself a break before I go in for dessert: Lemon pound cake with a lemon glaze. I have my water chilling in the freezer….can’t wait to put a little heat on the cake and then drink the ice cold water.

  17. 17.

    PurpleGirl

    @PurpleGirl:

    I wonder who the actress is playing opposite Death in the video clip. It sounds like Michelle Dockery who plays Lady Mary on Downton Abby.

    A little research using Wikipedia and the Google and I find that Michelle Dockery is the actress opposite Death. The clip must come from a production of Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather. Dockery was in the film, playing Susan Sto Helit.

    ETA: Thanks AL for your answer.

  18. 18.

    Keith G

    @Ruckus:

    Aww the good old days. Why people think that things were better decades/centuries before, despite all the evidence is baffling.

    I get the sense that when folks make such reflections, a large part of that longing is about the feeling of community (real or imagined).

    It has nothing to do with physical comforts or improved mortality, but instead it’s about being connected to people and places that are important. A good part of what material advances we have made over the last, say, 40 years has been built on the efficiencies of a highly mobile labor force.

    While human migration has always been a thing, it is only relatively recently in historic terms that it was individuals doing the migrating and not whole communities or societies. We are dealing with that fallout. Those connections are important and they are missed.

  20. 20.

    Mnemosyne

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:

    Yikes! I was supposed to get a Steam account so my niece could show me how to play her current favorite game. I guess that’s not happening after all.

    Waiting around for my brother and his family to arrive. I suspect they vastly underestimated traffic on the way here.

  22. 22.

    Ken

    @Ruckus: I think it was one of the Daily Show regulars who played clips of a bunch of talking heads saying how the world was better years ago. They all had different numbers – thirty, forty, fifty years ago. Then he showed their ages matched the number of years, and concluded “Of course it was better, you were six years old. Your parents did everything for you, you hadn’t even heard of politics and economics, and Santa came down the chimney every year with presents.”

  25. 25.

    srv

    I pitched a Modern Donner Party reality show years back and they would not abide any canabilism on prime time.

    Yet it’s ok when a zombie does it.

    There must be a connection with Obama here.

  28. 28.

    Origuy

    @Mnemosyne: It looks like Steam has a problem with cached information; they’re delivering the wrong pages when people try to access their accounts. No reports of actually being able to use the information, e.g. access credit cards to download games. They’ve got the Store shut down right now.

  31. 31.

    PurpleGirl

    @schrodinger’s cat: Yup, and that’s one reason I eat by candle light at least one night during Diwali. (Indian food, too.)

    ETA: I love the joyous celebrations of every religion/culture. Light, sweets, presents — all great.

  32. 32.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @PurpleGirl: Death destroys a display of dolls singing that song when he arrives with his sleigh.

    It’s only one reason I love that sequence in the book. The conversation about IMPORTANT LESSONS is another. :D

  33. 33.

    The Pale Scot

    Watched Pavarotti In Montreal 1978, finished up with my favorite xmas movie WE’RE NOT ANGELS with Bogart, Peter Ustinov Aldo Ray, Peter just chews up scenery, (if only I could so dry and debonaire) while knocking back the bubbles and waiting for the Chateaubriand to cook.

    Merry New Year friends!

  34. 34.

    raven

    Back from the wonderful xmas dinner at the Hotel Roanoke. Turducken, oysters, shrimp, figgey pudding, cobia, garlic smashed, sweet taters, she crab and peanut soup and many more delights. . .

    And, now that we have an arrival time for the BIL I have to start the gumbo for tomorrow!

  36. 36.

    Mike J

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Looks like they turned on super aggressive caching to handle xmas rush and fucked it up. Looks like they have pretty much everything turned off now. Store, account info, all down. Which sucks if you got a new game for xmas and want to activate/dl it.

    Someday I’ll get to play Fallout.

  37. 37.

    Felonius Monk

    @raven: Sounds like a nice feast. Merry/Happy to you.

    We just finished the paprikas w/gnocchi, honey-glazed carrots, and creamed onions. Next up is the cherry-rum bread pudding with rum glaze and coffee. Big on glazes this year.

    Got hot water yet?

  38. 38.

    Mary G

    I just woke up from 12 hours of the deepest, most pain-free sleep I’ve had in years and feel great. No idea why it happened, but it makes a great gift to myself. Soon I will be going to friends for Christmas dinner. One of my housemates just got back from serving food to the homeless in Anaheim all glowy and shit.

    Happy seasons to all here!

  39. 39.

    scav

    Well, the Ryssn feast was as good as always, but golly are these people white. Luckily there’s a last minute Dr Who party to escape to.

  41. 41.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    Finished an excellent holiday dinner at bro’ man’s house and now off to see The Hateful Eight in 70 mm.

  45. 45.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Keith G:
    That feeling of community was great if you were in charge, or easily conformed to the community’s standards. If you were, oh, gay, too intellectual, the child being beaten and raped by their parents which was something nobody would talk about, the town’s token minority, or randomly picked as a victim, that feeling of community guaranteed you had no recourse and no protection from potentially fatal levels of abuse.

  46. 46.

    frosty fka Bro Shotgun etc etc

    @J R in WV:

    So ramps, an early green onion plant, was a lifesaver for pioneers, one of the first things to grow enough in early spring to save lives hanging on a knife-edge of starvation.

    The shad run up the Susquehanna had the same effect throughout the whole watershed.

  49. 49.

    raven

    @J R in WV: I recently learned about how vital salt was to both sides in the civil war.

    Florida’s greatest contribution to the Confederate war effort was in producing salt. With a total investment of $10 million, Floridian salt plants worked 24 hours a day boiling salt from sea water, mostly in the area between Saint Andrews Bay and St. Marks, Florida. Occasionally, Union forces came ashore just to destroy the boilers.[5] Confederate law made those involved in salt-making immune to being drafted, making it a popular profession in war-time Florida; the estimated total workers involved was 5,000.[6]

  53. 53.

    reality-based (the original, not the troll)

    @Keith G:

    Speaking of which -I just had a perfect Christmas. Instead of us trekking to Fargo ND where they live, my sister, BIL and nephew came up here to the small ND town where i live with my mom. (Population 1600 or so. )

    Because the North Dakota weather oddly cooperated, we could bundle my 92-year old mother into the car and drive 30 miles (on clear roads!) through bright sunshine and fresh snow-covered fields to 4.p.m. Christmas Eve services in the small village (population about 50, now) where I grew up.

    Although our home church is struggling to survive ( 8 people at services in the winter) – for this night, it was beautifully decorated – and FULL! My native tribesmen had gathered in full force, with children, grandchildren, aunts and uncles galore – there were around 100 people there, complete with little girls in lovely Christmas dresses and little boys to scamper up and down the aisles.

    It was a festival of carols and lessons, so we got to sing all the old songs – including ” Jeg er så glad hver julekveld” in Norwegian, which made my Mom, my sister, and me cry. Then we lit candles, sang Silent Night in that beautiful Norwegian Lutheran Four-part harmony that is my birthright – and drove back under a full moon shining on frosty snow. Four hours of beauty – and community!

    Of course, we DID have to watch Mom eat Lutefisk for Christmas Eve supper – but the rest of us had pork spare-ribs and a lovely Australian Shiraz. I got some Spanish Manchego Cheese with Membrillo, and a wonderful cookbook – and a framed copy of a picture I had forgotten existed, of my paternal grandfather with Franklin Roosevelt in the oval office. (he was translating between him and General Giraud)

    A perfect Christmas.

    Re: Ramps, Poke Salad – for my ancestors, it was stinging Nettles (Urticaria, grows wild all over our farm, and in Norway, too. ) Doesn’t burn when cooked, but one should only eat it before it flowers. Loaded with iron, Vitamin C, all kinds of good things – used as a “spring tonic. “

  54. 54.

    JPL

    @raven: Call the Midwife Christmas special is on tonight. Check your local listings… The feast sounded wonderful and how nice that you didn’t have to do the work.

  56. 56.

    MazeDancer

    News from across the pond, where the series finale Downton Abbey episode aired today with the annual Downton Abbey Christmas Special, is that tears will fall when we watch. And not just because it’s the last ep.

    The polite British shed no spoilers on Twitter, just gifs of sobbing and tears.

    Reviews of the Doctor Who annual Christmas Special, which is on BBC America tonight, were mixed. As are the reviews of every episode, so that gives away nothing. At least, Alex Kingston is in it as River Song. (Have to confess stopped watching this season, but wouldn’t mind seeing River, so will record it.)

  58. 58.

    Ruckus

    @efgoldman:
    Posted this before, my grandfather traveled by horse drawn wagon to CA from Kansas City 98 yrs ago. With my infant father. The rate of change has been immense over the last 100 yrs. The rate of change didn’t used to be anywhere near as rapid as the last 100 yrs but it was still different for the next generation. Always will be. Things we take for granted now didn’t even exist at the start of our generation. And if that change scares you or makes you long for a time that didn’t really exist, that seemed simpler, which it wasn’t, chances are you are a conservative. Doesn’t mean you have to be batshit crazy but that seems to help. And I don’t think it was all about family and connections, many people didn’t have those, people died of a lot more things and at a younger age. As @Ken: said, most are looking back at childhood, with little to no responsibilities and fewer decisions to be made and paid for.

  62. 62.

    tybee

    The old and the sick knew they might not make it through, and an especially harsh winter could mean no one would feel the sun’s warmth ever again. Every year, you watched all of the plants turn brown and shrivel into husks, followed by an unrelenting darkness and cold that threatened to swallow you and everything you love.

    how far north does one have to live to have winter be that threatening?

    i’m at 32 north and it just ain’t that bad, i thought one of the advantages of living further north was the longer light in the summer for growing.

  63. 63.

    Origuy

    @tybee: Imagine having no access to food that you or your immediate neighbors didn’t grow yourself. No refrigeration, cans, or freeze drying to keep food from spoiling. If you lived in medieval Europe, you probably couldn’t hunt, even if game was plentiful, as it would be reserved for the nobility. For that matter, gathering firewood was tightly controlled. If there had been a crop failure the previous summer, and those were common, there would be a famine the following winter.

  64. 64.

    Anne Laurie

    @tybee:

    i’m at 32 north and it just ain’t that bad, i thought one of the advantages of living further north was the longer light in the summer for growing.

    Longer days don’t help plants that much, and the growing season is shorter. Nowadays we can start plants indoors and give them a head start, so yes my hothouse California seedlings appreciate late New England summer sunsets. But my Wyoming-based sister-in-law was astonished we could grow tomatoes at all — even with indoor starts, the days just didn’t stay warm & bright enough long enough for most varieties, she said.

    And, of course, the grain staples (including hay for the animals) have to be field-planted. The restrictions for field crops were (still are) having the ground unfreeze enough to plant, keeping the plants from drying up / drowning / being eaten by animals, having enough ground to grow the grain (& cabbages) you’d need for a full year, and finding the human-plus-animal power to take care of this & then harvest what survived. (Even in Jane Austen’s day, the early 1800s, a prosperous upper-middle-class family would be regularly inconvenienced when every available horse and cart was required for the harvest, so nobody could go visiting or shift heavy parcels beyond walking distance.)

    For most of human history, most of our ancestors were never more than one unusually-lousy summer away from starving to death. (Of course, for all too many humans, this is still a reality… )

  65. 65.

    cokane

    Dunno about that essay. I’m not sure more people died for sure in the winter than other seasons — disease waves peaked in the summer for one. Food stocks would exhaust in the spring, not winter. And the mediterranean where much of western civ’s ancestors clung for so long isn’t a harsh winter. Nor did humans evolve much in their time in Europe, Equatorial Africa is almost all of our DNA, not anything after.

    Also you can always spot a hack writer by how they overuse italics so that you’re sure to get their exceptionally deep points.

    Author never presented one shred of evidence for the central thesis.

  67. 67.

    reality-based (the original, not the troll)

    @efgoldman:

    I’m now back in ND, – at roughly 48 degrees north – after being gone for 25 years in Utah and Northern California. Even modern life is so much harder here. And i grew up here – but i had forgotten how hard it is, the shoveling, and hoping cars start at 40 below, and never seeing the sun. And this is with furnaces and 4-wheel drive and stuff like that. I cant imagine life for my immigrant great-grandfather here, 135 years ago – no roads, huddled in sod huts., sticking it out for the holy grail of Homestead land.

    makes me cold just to think about it.

  68. 68.

    tybee

    hmm. yes, i understand that in the frozen tundra, life is tough. my question was, and remains: how far north does one have to live to have winter be that threatening?

  69. 69.

    Ruckus

    @tybee:
    Well today you can live farther north easier than you could even just a hundred yrs ago. Read @reality-based (the original, not the troll): account about it. But even at 38 deg north in a rough winter it would have been tough without reliable heat and warm clothing and grocery stores. The 38th runs a few miles north of SF, through KC, West Virginia. Our modern life is much easier for most people. Even 50 yrs ago it was tougher than today.

  70. 70.

    Mike G

    These celebrations went by many names over the millennia, and everyone did it their own way.

    And in 300BC, Fox Scroll was bitching about “The War on Saturnalia”

  72. 72.

    sm*t cl*de

    And for most of human history, winter meant a bunch of us were going to freaking die

    For values of “most of human history” that are centred on that small scrap of population living in the arse-end of the world, i.e. Northern Europe. For the rest of the world, not so much.
    … i.e. what Cokane said. The author of the piece needs new cliches to regurge.

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