_Decem_ means ten and December was the tenth month of the early Roman
calendar. Probably it has had more names conferred upon it than any
other of the twelve months. Among the Saxons, it was originally Winter
Monat, but after their conversion to Christianity, it was Heligh Monat,
or holy month, in honor of the birth of Christ.
December proverbs:
(a) December frost and January flood,
Never boded the husbandman good.
(b) Frost on the shortest day (Dec. 22nd) indicates a severe winter.
(c) The day of St. Thomas, the blessed divine
Is good for brewing, baking and killing fat swine.
(St. Thomas's Day is Dec. 21st.)
(d) Never rued the man that laid in his fuel before St. John
(Dec. 27).
_CHRISTMAS EVE._--The Latin Church called Christmas the Feast of
Lights, because Christ, the true light, had come into the world, hence
the Christmas candle and the Yule log, which sometimes were of immense
size.
"Now blocks to cleave this time requires,
'Gainst Christmas for to make good fires."
In the western parts of Devonshire, a superstitious notion prevails
that on Christmas Eve at 12 o'clock the oxen in the stalls are found on
their knees, as in an attitude of devotion.
Mince pies were intended to represent the offerings of the wise men. As
many of the ingredients come from the East, the connection of ideas is
plain, but what can be the origin of the notion that it is desirable to
eat mince pies made by as many different cooks as possible to ensure as
many happy months is not so easily explained. Some authorities are of
the opinion that mince pies were formerly baked in coffin-shaped crusts
intended to represent the manger, but in all old cookery-books the
crust of a pie was styled the coffin.
It is said, by those who should be able to speak with authority, that
ghosts never appear on the night of December 24th-25th. This is a fact
that Charles Dickens must have overlooked.