Word-Wednesday for December 25, 2019

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, December 25, 2019, the 52nd Wednesday of the year,  the 359th day of the year, with 6 days remaining.

Earth/Moon Almanac for December 25, 2019
Sunrise: 8:16am; Sunset: 4:31pm; 21 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 7:41am; Moonset: 4:12pm, waning crescent


Temperature Almanac for December 25, 2019
                Average           Record          Today
High             16                   45                 28
Low              -2                 -40                 25


December 25 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Pumpkin Pie Day
• A’Phabet Day or No “L” Day

December 25 Word Riddle
What is Santa’s favorite breakfast cereal?


December 25 Pun
Santa’s annual barn dance for the elves after Christmas deliveries is called the Ho Ho Ho Down.


December 25 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 337 Earliest possible date that Christmas was celebrated on December 25th.
• 352 First definite date Christmas was celebrated on December 25th.
• 1223 St Francis of Assisi assembles 1st Nativity scene.
• 1741 Astronomer Anders Celsius introduces centigrade temperature scale.
• 1760 Jupiter Hammon, an African American slave, composes poetry broadside An Evening Thought, the first poem by an African American to be published.
• 1776 George Washington crosses Delaware.
• 1818 First known Christmas carol, Silent Night, Holy Night, sung in Austria.

December 25 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1642 Isaac Newton.
• 1821 Clara Barton.
• 1883 Fran Lhotka, Czech composer.
• 1908 Quentin Crisp.
• 1924 Rod Serling.

Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Make a single sentence (or poem) from the following words:

• bête: noun, beast, animal; adjective, stupid, silly.
• crinoline: an open-weave fabric of horsehair or cotton that is usually stiffened and used especially for interlinings and millinery.
• halcyon: in classical mythology: a bird, usually identified as a kingfisher, which brooded around the time of the winter solstice in a nest floating on the sea, charming the wind and waves into calm.
• mucilaginous: having a viscous or gelatinous consistency.
• muzzy: deficient in brightness; lacking in clarity and precision.
• schlump: to behave in a lazy or slovenly way.
• spit take: an act of suddenly spitting out the liquid one is drinking as a reaction to something surprising or funny.
• sympoiesis: collective creation or organization.
• titch: a very small person; a small child; a small amount
• trebuchet: a machine used in medieval siege warfare for hurling large stones or other missiles.

December 25, 2019 Word-Wednesday Feature
Christmas Classics
There are so many classic Christmas stories to complement Charles Dicken’s classic, A Christmas Carol. A few others include:

The Alternative Queen’s Message by Quentin Crisp

A Ride across Palestine by Anthony Trollope

The Christmas Tree and the Wedding by Fyodor Dostoevsky

A Chaparral Christmas Gift by O. Henry

Of Calcutta, Christmas and New Year by Suhel Seth

Do you call that a Christmas present? by Ali Smith

Christmas Eve by Guy de Maupassant

Joy Division and a Vesta Curry by Will Self

Just What I Wanted by P.G. Wodehouse

Journal Entry (Principal Royal Residence), Kensington Palace by Queen Victoria

Almost everyone has a personal Christmas story, where most tell a blended tale of family and friends in exceptional circumstances during this holiday season. Today we feature such a story by Jeff Birchem.

The Year Duffy Saved Christmas
by Jeff Birchem

The year was 1974. Brad had been associated with our family for about a year and was no doubt trying to gain acceptance into the Birchem clan. NOT an easy thing to do when every time he came over there was the white van, US flags in the window and God knows what else in the back. It was easier for Elroy and Gloria not to think about their oldest daughter even riding in this mobile love shack.

The time was mid-December, Christmas tree cutting time. The time families join together to venture into the woods looking for the perfect tree. In our case, drive to Little Falls to Schaffer’s grocery store parking lot and pick out a tree hopefully getting a fair price.

But this year would be different. It was announced that this year would be the year Brad would go deep into the wilderness and bring home the tree. Not a hard task for a man that made his living in the forest. Cutting wood so the less fortunate people in the MPLS area could heat their houses using their fire places.

The weekend finally arrived when it was time to get the tree. The Birchems had no doubt a tree would arrive, it was just a matter of when.

It was a Saturday, one that I will never forget, when Duffy asked me to help him with the Christmas tree. I was sixteen years old, old enough to be a little on the wild side, but still young enough to be filled with the Christmas spirit.

Visions of hiking back miles deep in to the woods, snow falling and the song “White Christmas” all ran through my vivid imagination. This first tree cutting would be special. A new tradition, one that Duffy and I would share hopefully forever. A special bond was developing.

Duffy announced that we had to go “way up North” to get this special tree, and off we went in Mary’s blue Barracuda, not the best tree cutting vehicle, but my imagination told me we would soon be in our four-wheel drive truck bouncing along a snow-covered trail miles from civilization.

North of Randall we went on Highway 10. Somewhere around Cushing, Duff began to look back and forth up and down the highway. We turned around on the highway. Twice we drove past a Norway Pine Plantation on the side of the highway. Led Zeppelin wailed on the eight-track tape player. No distortion could be heard from the super double woofers in the back seat.

Duff pulled along the Norway Pine plantation and handed me a small saw, instructing me to go cut down the best tree I could find and wait hiding in the trees until I heard him drive up and honk the horn, my signal to run out and put the tree in the trunk and drive away.

Off he went leaving me standing on the side of the road, saw in hand, a Norway Pine plantation nearby and a week before Christmas. Needless to say, I looked a little suspicious.

Off I raced to the safety of the pines. Once in the pines, fear was replaced by confusion. Every tree looked the same. Duff’s words, “Pick a good one” echoed through my ears. The success of this new Christmas tradition rested clearly in the next few minutes and what I did with this saw. I went past many trees, semis and cars racing down the highway! My time was running out. I may not cut the best one, but I made sure I didn’t cut the smallest one.

I hid on the corner of the tree plantation. On cue, Brad came driving by honking the horn. I raced for the safety of the vehicle. Brad looked at the tree and at once knew it would not come close to fitting in the trunk. I was instructed to jump in the front seat, roll down the window and Brad handed me the tree. We took off speeding down the highway, me hanging on to the tree as it dragged on the shoulder of the road. Led Zeppelin was just finishing Stairway to Heaven.

We turned onto a gravel road and somehow secured the tree. Upon arrival back at home, all the Birchems waited to see the tree. Comments like, “Boy it’s a big one” were easily taken care of by cutting six feet of the bottom. And the side of the tree that was damaged by dragging it on the highway for two miles? Well we could just place that side towards the window. My sister Susie later told me that she and her friends could watch TV from outside by looking through the picture window between the two foot gaps in between the limbs of the Norway Pine.

All in all, this tree was accepted as our Christmas tree, just as Duff was accepted into our family.

Christmas time will do that, we forget the faults of things and concentrate on this special time of year it is. The sharing and loving and being together as a family is what makes Christmas so special.

Needless to say, the tree cutting tradition was a one-year tradition. It’s a whole lot safer having an artificial tree.


From A Year with Rilke, December 25 Entry
Be Comforted and Glad, from Letters to a Young Poet.

Is there anything that can take from you the hope of being someday in the God you are helping to create in each attentive act of love?

Please celebrate this Christmas with the earnest faith that He may need this very anguish of yours in order to begin. These very days that are such a trial for you may well be the time when everything in you is working at Him, as once you so urgently did as a child. Be patient and without resentment, and know that the least we can do is to make His Becoming no more difficult that Earth makes it for spring when it wants to arrive. Be comforted and glad.


Be better than yesterday,
learn a new word today,
try to stay out of trouble - at least until tomorrow,
and write when you have the time.

*Frosted Flakes.