The party was great fun. The wine flowed freely (and was of excellent quality), including an after-dinner Remy Martin cognac. The food, made and served by members of the party committee, was superb and plentiful. Best of all, Santa and Mrs. Claus came by to help us celebrate. I am sorry the photos are no better than they are, but lighting was such that it was difficult to get a good clear shot. These two will give you an idea of things anyway.
Each of us brought a gift: women brought gifts for women and men brought gifts for men. As we came in the door these were put into green or gold bags and names were ticked off so that only those bringing gifts were later given gifts. After hanging up our wraps, we were each given a glass of champagne and a card with a name or word on it. During the mingling time, we had to identify others whose cards matched ours in theme. Mine was a champagne; Don's was a cognac. Other categories were whiskeys, red wines, white wines, patisseries, and cheeses. After dinner, we would form teams around these categories.
We had lively conversations with our tablemates during the meal and then moved to other tables to join up in our teams for the after-dinner activities. Once we had all gotten together, the organizers handed out quizzes we were to complete. Each team had the same quiz. Each quiz had 4 parts and some were helped enormously by familiarity with the French language. Unfortunately, no one in our team speaks French. Somehow we managed to reason out a few of those answers. We had fun filling in the answers we knew and brainstorming for those we didn't know. We didn't do too badly but we certainly weren't the winning team. Each member of the winning team won a prize.
Song sheets were then handed out for carol singing. Every other one was in French. (Such a mangling of the language was never heard sung so beautifully or with more enthusiasm.) Only our two French guests, M. Hourot, mayor of Cognac, and Annike, president of the Cognac Commite de Jumelage (twinning), did the French justice, but then they had trouble with the English songs, so we all came out even in the end.
At the conclusion of the singing, a bell was rung to signal the arrival of Santa and Mrs. Claus. This year, the person who has played Santa for the past 12 years turned over the reindeer reins to George Carson, one of Comrie's stalwart citizens. It appears that this was the first year (or at least the first in a long time) that Mrs. Claus has accompanied her husband to the event. Perhaps elves were on hand in the past to assist Santa. At any rate, Mrs. Santa, Brenda Simmons, was also from Comrie. Mr. and Mrs. Santa had a whole routine they went through which was hilarious and then came the handing out of gifts. They took turns, Santa calling out women's names alternating with Mrs. Claus calling out men's names. We each went up to receive our gifts and, of course, this being a French-themed event, there had to be 2 or 3 smacky cheek-kisses exachanged. There was much larking-about and just general good spirits for the entire evening. Now we know why folks have talked about this event all year long.
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It's too cold, windy, and rainy--just generally miserable--outside for Don and Gordon to play golf today, so we're relaxing with the newspaper. Don found a retrospective article in the local paper, the Strathearn Herald, from December 8, 1906, that he thought you'd enjoy reading. It explains how Christmas began to become a holiday up here in the wilds of Scotland, which had traditionally focused the festivities around Hogmanay (new year's eve).
The Creiff School Board decided to make Christmas Day a holiday. After much discussion between members it was decided that for the first time the New Year holidays would include Christmas Day. One member of the board stated that he thought "that it was quite right that the great festival of the church in this country should be adequately and properly recognised, and he was very glad to be able to say at that board meeting that he thought it right that Christmas Day--of all the days of the year--should be observed as a holiday, and the children be liberated from their daily duties in order to celebrate the greatest event in the history of all the ages of the world in a proper manner." The board unanimously decided to have Christmas Day as a holiday from school and then re-open the school for three days, with the New Year week beginning at the close of school on December 28.
You can see from this last sentence that, in Scotland, Hogmanay remained the major holiday of the period, with folks having a full week off. From what we've heard and read, even though children might have gotten Christmas day off from school, it wasn't generally observed as a day-off-from-work holiday in Scotland until after World War II.
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