Did you know that Epiphany is also called Women’s Day or Nollaig na mBan in Ireland?
Illustration of Irish women enjoying their special day from Irish Road Trip.
After all the work they have traditionally done to stage a holiday celebration for their families Irish women are given the day off to relax on January 6th while men take over the tasks they would normally do.
Our family celebrated Christmas this past week but I didn’t need a Women’s Day yesterday when it was over because my husband Dave helped out all through the celebration.
Dave making bread pudding
I made a turkey dinner with all the trimmings but my husband put together his traditional bread pudding for dessert. He also had made a big pan of lasagna and a pot of his delicious beef stew for other meals. For our first supper together his tasty naan bread pizzas were on the menu. Dave was also the chef in charge of both our waffle and French toast breakfasts.I provided side dishes for all the meals but he was the main head cook.
I bought most of the gifts for everyone’s stockings but Dave added a few nice touches like locally roasted coffee beans for our sons.
Dave took over the vacuuming during the pandemic and he’s been in charge ever since
We pretty much shared the clean up of meals with Dave loading the dishwasher and me unloading it and while I washed bedding, decorated the tree and house, dusted, tidied and organized before our out-of-town family arrived, Dave cleaned the bathrooms and vacuumed.
On Epiphany we both took a little break because our four-day family Christmas celebration was over and we had worked together to make it all happen.
Times have changed and it is no longer just women who do all the work to make family Christmases come about. That’s a good thingand may soon make Women’s Day obsolete even in Ireland.
For the past four nights my husband and I have been staying in a luxury hotel-well not really.
Our son and his family have been visiting from Saskatchewan. In past years when they have come we have sometimes left our condo bedrooms to their family and have gone to stay at our other son’s house here in Winnipeg. But now that the Winnipeg son and his wife have added two little girls to their family- their house is full.
Last year we rented an Air B and B in our condo building for our Saskatchewan branch of the family but now our condo board has decided to ban Air B and B rentals from our buildingso that took care of that option.
So this year my husband Dave and I decided to leave the condo to our kids and grandkids for the night and check in at the hotel at the end of our block called mere.
The exterior of mere is decorated with colourful pipes and there is funky colourful furniture in the lobby
The grandchildren were curious about our lodgings and so their grandpa who is known to stretch the truth just a little at times in a joking manner told them their grandparents were booked in at a LUXURY HOTEL.
That became a kind of ‘thing’ during our four days together with the grandkids talking frequently about Grandma and Grandpa’s LUXURY HOTEL.
In actual fact mere is a very nice hotel and kind of boutiquey and cool.
We had a beautiful room with a beautiful view of the river in the mornings.
The room came complete with lovely beds with comfy bedding and a shower with two heads so water was coming at you in a couple of directions.
I loved the cozy bathrobes providedand the modern artsy kind of decor in our room.
Today we head back to our condo for the night and say good-bye to our Saskatchewan family.
I had never been to the Zoo Lights before and they were amazing
We’ve had a busy four days together, skating, tobogganing, hiking in the forest, taking in the Zoo Lights at Assiniboine Park, opening stockings, playing games, reading books, having tea parties, going to see my Dad in his nursing home, doing puzzles, eating wonderful meals andvisiting.
I was very happy but tired every night and more than ready for that nice bed at our LUXURY HOTEL.
In 2015 we purchased our tree and put it up on December 5
Our Christmas Tree is Up is a blog post title you probably would have expected to see a couple of weeks ago.
But we only put our Christmas tree up yesterday.
Our children and grandchildren who live out of the province are coming here on January 2 to spend a few days celebrating Christmas with the Winnipeg branch of the family and so we figured we had lots of time to buy a tree, set it up and decorate it.
We procrastinated till Christmas Eve when we finally went out to buy a tree.
But………they were all gone. We must have driven to half a dozen tree lots only to find them closedfor the season.
At Canadian Tire their real trees were all sold too so we compromised and bought an artificial tree.
It’s something we thought we’d never do but desperate times call for desperate measuresand luckily since it was Christmas Eve the prices on all the artificial trees had been substantially slashed.
Our Christmas Eve was busy with two church services and a party at our friends’ house.
One of our Christmas Day visits was with my Dad in his nursing home
On Christmas Day, we were visiting family so we only got around to setting up our new artificial tree yesterday.
It came with lights but when we plugged them in only the lights at the top and bottom of the tree worked. The middle ones wouldn’t go onno matter what we tried.
So, not very happily, Dave took the tree back to Canadian Tire and traded it in for another tree.
The new one had lights that worked beautifully.
I decorated the tree and since it’s just a little thing I only needed half of my decorations and was finished in no time.
There have been many Christmases where we have taken down our tree on Boxing Day but not this year.
The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. Isaiah 11:6
That’s one Scripture passage I’ll read tonight when I narrate the Christmas Eve service at my church which will lead people through the story of the birth of Christ with words and music.
Jesus was called the Prince of Peace and the Isaiah passage describes a time when all of the earth will be at peace. Harm and destruction will end. Those traditionally thought of as enemies will live in harmony. Children will take the lead.
The vision in Isaiah 11 seems impossible. Our world could never be like that. But this holiday season I invite you to use your imagination and start thinking about the earthly home we share with all of humanity as just such a place of peace.
At the John Lennon memorial mosaic in Central Park in New York
Several years ago, I visited a Vancouver Art Gallery exhibit with works by Yoko Ono, a well-known peace activist and wife of Beatles musician John Lennon who was shot and killed just before Christmas in 1980.
One installation in the Yoko Ono exhibit was called Imagine and paid tribute to the John Lennon song Imagine whose lyrics read
“Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one.”
The Yoko Ono art piece Imagine consisted of a gigantic world map. Stamps were available with the words ‘Imagine Peace’ on them and art gallery visitors were to ink a stamp and press it down on the map near their home.
I put my stamp on Manitoba. The map had these stamped ‘Imagine Peace’ messages in hundreds of locations helping us imagine what peace across the planet might look like.
On the second Sunday of Advent, a child from my church shared through artwork and writing what peace meant to him using his five senses. Congregation members were invited to imagine peace in a similar way.
I thought about how peace is like the smell of roses- my mother-in-law’s favourite flower, the taste of the bread pudding my husband always makes for our Christmas dinner, the sound of the songs on the Christmas playlist I’ve made featuring Canadian artists, watching a chickadee perched on my glove, and the feeling I get holding my sleeping baby granddaughter in my arms.
This Christmas I want to suggest that if we imagine peace and a peaceful and good future for humanity, we may be inclined to act in ways that will help make that peaceful, happy future a reality.
This is not just some feel-goodidea. Scientific research tells us our brains often have difficulty differentiating between things we see happen in our imagination and things that happen in real life.
When we imagine things our brains attempt to simulate the responses that would occur if those situations had really happened. So, imagining peace can actually spur us to take actions that might just help peace become a reality within ourselves, our families, communities, and the world.
We sometimes think our lives and our world are falling apart. Many people give up and believe there is nothing they can do.
Peace by William Strutt 1896
But is it possible that if we keep imagining peace and a peaceful future we will start living as if we believe it will happen?
This Christmas season I invite you to do exactly that.
Yesterday my husband Dave and I went to the Actionmarguerite senior care facility in St. Boniface to join a group of people from our church who along with our pastor sang carols and presented a short program for the residents.
In the chapel where we sang there was this lovely nativity scene or crèche on display. We were all admiring it.
The Actionmarguerite chaplain told us that the figures of Mary and Joseph and the infant Jesus in the scene were made of wax and were over 150 years old.
Just look at Mary’s long eyelashes and delicate features
I remembered learning on a tour of the St. Boniface Museum a few years ago that some of the Grey Nuns who lived and worked in the building when it was a convent in the late 1800s were quite artistic. The museum contained examples of their artwork.Could one of the nuns have made the wax figures of the Holy Family?
I did read in a scholarly article that the Grey Nuns in Montreal were known for the wax figures they made of the infant Jesus. Winnipeg’s Grey Nuns were sent here by their motherhouse in Montreal in 1844.
I’d like to learn more about this interesting nativity scene with its century and a half old figures. It is probably the oldest nativity scene or crèche in Winnipeg. I wonder how they have kept the wax figures in such good condition for so long. I wonder if they used real human hair for the figures. I wonder if the figures were displayed in the St. Boniface Basilica at one time.
If only the wax figures could talk. They have seen more Christmases than any of us.
A Santa in a cowboy hat I photographed in someone’s front yard in Phoenix Arizona.
My husband Dave played the role of Santa at a Christmas party for refugee children when we lived in Hong Kong.
My job at the Thrift Shop where I volunteer is to sort and price donated Christmas items. Here is a Scottish bagpipe Santa that someone donated.
One of our sons had his photo in the newspaper when his daycare went on a field trip to see Santa.
My husband Dave dresses up to play the role of Santa for the daughter of friends of ours.
This is our older son’s Christmas stocking featuring a Santa. My mother knit it for his first Christmas more than forty years ago. I still hang it up each year for him.
Me sitting on Santa’s lap when I was six years old. This was at a party the nuns at the Catholic Hospital where my father was an intern put on for the children of the medical staff.
Santa-themed chocolate, book and socks I gave one of our grandchildren for their advent gift this year.
One of my cousins plays the role of Santa in this photo of my grandparents with some of their great-grandchildren.
One of our sons visiting Santa. He is holding the letter he has written to Santa in his hand.
Dressing up with my teaching colleagues in Santa hats at a staff Christmas party.
My siblings and I hanging up stockings for Santa in 1960.
The Jesse Tree is an advent tradition that began in medieval times. During each day of Advent, an ornament is placed on a tree to honour an important character in the Biblical story leading up to Jesus’ birth.
Traditionally these characters have almost all been men. I decided to find twenty-four influential Biblical women whose images could adorn the tree instead.
Eve was the first woman on earth. There are two accounts of her creation in the Bookof Genesis. In the first, she is created after a man and made from his rib. In the second she is created at the same time as the man Adam.
Naamahplays a vital role in the story of the flood and the ark in Genesis even though her husband Noah gets centre stage in the Bible.
Sarah Laughs by Doris Ettlinger 2003
Sarah is named a hero of the faith in Hebrews 11. The book of Genesis tells us she was so happy when she found out she was pregnant with her son Isaac that she laughed out loud.
Rebekah andEliezer by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo in the 17th century
Rebekahshowed her kind and generous nature by drawing water for Isaac’s messenger Eliezer and his animals. In the book of Genesis, we read about how she married Isaac and was a mother to Jacob and Esau.
Rachel at the Well by Henry Ryland 1890
Rachel first appears in the book of Genesis. Her husband Jacob works for 14 years for her father Laban to win her hand in marriage. She becomes the mother of Joseph and Benjamin.
Aseneth in Rembrandt’s Jacob Blessing The Sons of Joseph1656
Aseneth was the daughter of an Egyptian priest and Joseph gained power and influence in Egypt by marrying her. In the book of Genesis, we learn she was the mother ofManasseh and Ephraim.
Shiphrah and Puah were two midwives who prevented the total genocide of male Hebrew babies in the book of Exodus because they refused to follow the Egyptian Pharoah’s orders to kill the infants as soon as they were born.
Moses’ Mother by Alexey Tyranove- 1839-1842
Jochabedwas Moses’ mother. In the second chapter of Exodus, she bravely hides her tiny baby in some bulrushes to save his life.
Moses Saved From the Waters by Bernaert de Rijckere in 1556
Bithiah is the Egyptian princess, the daughter of Pharaoh who finds the baby Moses in the second chapter of Exodus and takes him to her palace to live as her adopted son.
Miriam is the first woman to bear the title of prophet in the Bible. We meet her in the book of Exodus where she is instrumental in helping her mother save her brother Moses’ life. She also leads the women of Israel in singing, dancing and drumming after they successfully cross the Red Sea.
Zipporah a detail from the work The Youth of Moses by Sandro Botticelli 1480
Zipporah was the mother of Moses’ two sons. She takes decisive action to save Moses and her son in Exodus 4 when they are about to be killed.
The Daughters of Zelophehad were five sisters who went to Moses to ask him to change the traditional law that forbid daughters from inheriting their father’s property. The women’s names were Mahlah, Noa, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah.Moses listened to their case and changed the law. Their story is in the Book of Numbers.
Rahab by Ans Taylor
Rahab hid Israelite spies on the roof of her home in Jericho and saved their lives. She was the great-great-great grandmother of King David and is one of only five women mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in the book of Matthew. Her story is in the Book of Joshua.
Deborah is the only female judge mentioned in the Bible. Many Israelites went to her for guidance and a just settling of their conflicts. In the book of Judges, we are told she held court under a palm tree and was well respected. Deborah was also a leader and a prophet. The army general Barak relied on her advice which led to military victories.
An entire book of the Bible is devoted to Ruth the great-grandmotherof King David who showed unusual courage and loyalty by accompanying her mother-in-law back to her homeland after her father-in-law and husband died. In doing so she changed the trajectory of her own life and that of the nation of Israel.
Abigail and David by Juan Antonio de Frias y Escalante1667
Abigail was a peacemaker whose story is found in 1 Samuel. Her husband Nabal insulted David, the future king of Israel. David was so angry with Nabal that he was going to kill him. Abigail, Nabal’s wife, intervened bringing David gifts and asking him to forgive her husband’s rude behaviour. David was so impressed with Abigail that he did as she requested.
Bathsheba was raped by King David who had her husband killed. She became the mother of the future King Solomon. She is one of five women mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in the book of Matthew.Her story is in 2 Samuel in the Bible.
The Priest Helquia and the Prophetess Huldah by Andrea Mantegna 1500
Huldah was a prophetess, a contemporary of Jeremiah. She taught women the Torah at the Temple Gate. King Josiah consulted her for advice at a crucial time in his monarchy. Her story is in the book of Second Chronicles.
Esther by John Everett Millais – 1865
Queen Esther saved the Jews in Persia when they were about to be killed because of an evil plot by a power-hungryman named Haman. Her story is in the Book of Esther.
Statue of Susanna by Odoardo Fantacchiotti. I photographed it in the Pitti Palace in Florence Italy
Susanna’ story is in a chapter of the Book of Daniel that has been removed from many versions of the Old Testament. The story appears in Greek translations of the Bible. Susanna stood up to a pair of men in authority who were threatening to sexually blackmail her.
Statue of Anne and her daughter Mary. I photographed it in the St. Anne church in Jerusalem
Anne was Mary’s mother, the grandmother of Jesus, a woman of faith and fortitude. We find her story in the apocryphal book The Gospel of James.
The Visitation by Raphael 1517
Elizabethwas the mother of John the Baptist and a relative of Jesus’ mother Mary. During her pregnancy, Mary went to visit Elizabeth and they spent about three months together. The story of their time together is found in the book of Luke.
Mary and Jesus by Lu Hongnian
Mary’s childhood is chronicled in the apocryphal book The Gospel of James. The Biblical gospel of Luke describes her important role as the mother of Jesus.
In our church last Sunday a young boy shared what peace meant to him using his five senses. It got me thinking about what peace meant to me using those kinds of descriptors.
Peace smells like roses. My mother-in-law was such a good person. She was a peaceful, centering presence in her family. She loved roses and grew beautiful ones in her garden. At the graveside service after her funeral each of her grandchildren placed a rose on their Oma’s coffin before it was lowered into the ground.
Peace tastes like bread pudding. For our Christmas dinner every year my husband makes bread pudding. It’s delicious. Usually one or more of the grandchildren help him put the pudding together and they certainly help with licking the beaters for the whipped cream he serves with his classic dessert. I love it that we can all be together enjoying one another’s company and sharing Grandpa’s bread pudding.
Peace looks like the lake in the morning. My grandparents had a cottage at Moose Lake when I was growing up and it has stayed in the family as successive generations took ownership. Although I have lived in dozens of homes in different places in the world Moose Lake is the one place that has remained a constant. I love sitting and looking out at the glassy lake all peaceful and calm early in the morning or as the sun sets.
Peace feels like holding a grandchild. One night not long ago I was babysitting at my children’s house and my littlest granddaughter woke up and the only way I could get her to go back to sleep was to hold her in my arms. I sat there in the dark with her for a long time and I could feel her warmth and hear her tiny breaths and I thought to myself can life get any better than this? I felt totally at peace.
Peace sounds like Christmas music. I’ve made a play list of Canadian artists singing carols and I’ve been listening to it in the house and car. Some of my favourites are Begonia’s It Won’t Be Christmas, Fred Penner’s Christmas Time is Here Again, Rita McNeal’s How the Bells Ring and Paul Brandt’s Mary Did You Know. Christmas music is nostalgic and helps me tune out the less than peaceful news emanating from the media these days.
If you used your five senses to think about what peace means to you what would it look, sound, smell, taste and feel like?
I am the girl furthest to the left in the back row of this photo. I’m with my cousins in front of the Christmas tree at a family gathering that will have taken place at my grandparents’ home in Gnadenthal Manitoba. I’m guessing the year is around 1960. We are either getting ready to sing or have just finished singing a traditional German carol for my grandparents and now someone wants to take our photo.
I lovethe blue velvet jumpers my Mom has sewn for my sister and me with just enough material left over for a cute little vest for my brother.
My cousin Robert in his red vest is holding his tutje. These are bags of candy, peanuts and oranges we would get at Christmas. My twin cousins Al and Bernie are dressed exactly alike. All the boys are sporting bow ties.
It looks like my cousin Charlotte on the far right is not really interested in joining the choir or having her photo taken with us and my Aunt Mary is trying to convince her otherwise. See how my little brother Ken in his blue vest is staring in fascination at the drama unfolding?
My cousin Connie next to me has her hand to her face as if to say “Oh my” as she listens to Charlotte protest.
The rest of us cousins all stare straight ahead ignoring the unhappiness of our cousin Charlotte. Perhaps an adult is cajoling us to look at the camera and we are trying to do that despite the drama going on.
I love the way this photo provides a snapshot of the past.
Many of us in the picture, are grandparents ourselves now, and we will be attending Christmas gatherings with our own families this month where little dramas like the one in this old photo will no doubt unfold.
Some of those incidents will be forgotten but some may be captured in a photo like this one and become a memory of Christmases past.
I am very grateful for all the Christmas memories I got to make with my cousins during my childhood. I love looking back on them.
What Next? 