Safe-Keeping Christmas

Traditio – the latin noun from the verb tradere, meaning to transmit, to hand over or to give for safe-keeping. This is where our word tradition stems from and it is this concept of handing over that I wish to examine as we lead up to Christmas and where-else to look for this handing over than the older generation. I sat and talked with Sybil Macleod, aged 80, from Thurso and Jenny McDonald, aged 93 from Wick to see what  traditions they had been given as little girls and which, if any, are still carried out today in Caithness.

Sybil remembers her mother knitting doll’s clothes at night, starting at the beginning of the year so that she would be ready in time for Christmas. With 9 siblings to create presents for preparation had to begin early. Decorations were entirely hand-made, consisting of paper chains and milk bottle tops. Most people worked on Christmas Day so Hogmanay became the main day where people came together to celebrate festivities.

Jenny remembers everyone gathering around a bonfire in a park, by the distillery with their home-made ginger wine and perhaps a wee nip. Dinner was eaten late on Hogmanay, to line the stomach for the night ahead; a light supper of salted herring and tatties. They would go first-footing at midnight. As Sybil explained to me, the first person through the door had to be a dark-haired man, so the same relative was thrown out the door at midnight and let back in afterwards, but only if he had two lumps of coal to throw on the fire to bring good luck! The front door was opened wide to let the old year out and welcome the New Year in.

The New Year ’s Day meal would consist of a goose, beef, venison or chicken, depending on what the family could source locally, with all the trimmings and the Christmas Pudding, more a glorified dumpling would come with its threepenny bit or sixpence! And after that the table was set ready for visitors with its currant buns, cakes, flowers, a thistle and little glasses.

Presents were small and simple. A stocking would contain a small toy, an apple, an orange and maybe a sixpence. Sybil’s favourite toy was a post office set that she played for hours with and Jenny’s father would make toys for his children, like a wooden doll’s cradle. A treat that came at Christmas time for Sybil’s family was a box of apples all the way from Canada as they had relatives who had emigrated there. Mackintosh Reds, all individually wrapped, Sybil remembers.

And it’s not just the memories of the ‘things’ that Sybil and Jenny fondly recall, but the feelings and the general spirit too. Christmas was all about family for both, about ‘time spent together’ and simplicity.

And this feeling spilled over into everyday living. “People thought more of each other”, as Sybil puts it. She grew up thinking her mother had a sore stomach as she would sometimes see her going without food but it was only as she got older that she realised it was her mother’s attitude of going without, if someone else was wanting, that she was witnessing.  “It was all about what you could do for others, not what you could do for yourself”, Sybil remarks. Goods and trades were exchanged rather than bought. Sybil remember her father putting fuel on boats (as part of his job), but regularly he returned home with a string of fish and her mum baking pancakes all day, to feed visitors who might just happen to drop in.

Church was a large part of life for both. Sybil and Jenny attended Sunday School and went to church twice on a Sunday. The main highlight of the summer holidays was the Sunday School outing, perhaps to Dunbeath or to Lybster Harbour.

So as I sit in my little cottage now, in front of the open fire, looking at my little Christmas Tree and contemplating the meaning of tradition, I am aware of just how many families have passed through the walls and how many memories are contained within them. What traditions are being passed on to me via my new Caithness home and what parts can I in turn pass on?

Having spoken to two ladies of an older generation I am even more aware of how much has changed and how quickly, within just decades. But it is up to us to keep hold of the values, the feelings, the little things and hand them over mindfully to the next generation before they disappear completely. I, for one, am only letting my husband back in the house at midnight if he brings me two lumps of coal!

Merry Christmas everyone! (Thank you to Alan Hendry for the lovely Wick, Christmas photo).