December 23, 1969

Women Rule Christmas 1885

A picture of a beautiful woman on a current Christmas card would seem inappropriate to many.  But feminine beauty enjoyed great popularity in Christmas cards during the late 1880’s.

Until 1880, children and elderly women were most often pictured. Or, if adult young women did appear, they were shown as “tenders of the hearth.” with their husbands, children or pets.

Later, classic Greek and Roman feminine figures were used to convey ideals of feeling and beauty.

In 1885, fashion figures of elegant women were a typical subject of Christmas cards.

Later Christmas cards depicted women as fashion plates, sportswomen, cyclists and, in general, growing participants in the life of their times.

December 20, 1979

Christmas Poem

Some things stay the same:  the sudden, gilded

flight ow winter birds; the grey, insistent frenzy of a

December storm; the borage

in the frosted garden. Or take, for instance,

the way winter announces itself.  The water

sweeps down the cliffside, the creekbeds fill,

the pond fills and finally, the well. Then I

know that winter has arrived and that the

wild roses that bloomed last winter will

bloom again; a certain benediction.

 

Wendy Morton 1979

 

December 20, 1989

Christmas as it used to be in Sooke

May the good Lord Rest his soul,” thought Tilly Gordon, as her mind dwelt on memories of her husband, who had been gone from them now for almost a year.

How hard it had been for her, with little Alice and Harry, to lose her dear husband to consumption.  The year was 1902 and Tilly bustled about the kitchen of Moss Cottage, making ready for Christmas. With the help of her relations, she would make Christmas as happy a time as she could manage, for the sake of the wee ones.

With her little Alice proudly helping her to make mincemeat tarts, Tilly paused to boil a kettle on the big old stove and make a pot of herbal tea for her uncle John Muir, who sat in the parlour, nursing his chest cold.