Got a log-burner? In a Smoke Control Zone? Not round here! But there may be other reasons why you don’t make smoke at Christmas. Arrowsmith’s house is thatched, and our insurers allow us a discount if we have no naked flames or open fires. Of course, we’d still be covered if someone else’s fireworks turned our roof into a bonfire. But so far we’ve escaped that kind of problem.
Unfortunately, despite the fact the house hasn’t burned down in almost a century, the short period during which we’ve given up open log fires and a solid-fuel stove has resulted in creating cleaner air. Combined with extraordinarily wet weather, this in turn has led to a prolific growth of moss and lichen all over the garden, the walls and the thatch. Possibly we should, with hindsight, have made smoke like a destroyer in a naval battle and saved the cash we shall now have to shell out to replace the long wheat-straw which has rotted away this year.
And we’re now wondering if we’re facing the prospect of snow at Christmas, which won’t help matters. Apparently, since 1970, there have been only 39 Christmas Days during which at least a single snowflake has fallen somewhere in Gloucestershire, and the prospect of a white Christmas is becoming rarer. The time of heavy snowfall is now becoming later every year as climate change is also bringing a shift in the timing of seasons, and we may be talking about white Valentine’s Days more often in future!
Although Bethlehem is in a part of the World we consider to be ‘hot’, snow does fall from November until March, so it’s quite possible there could have been snow around that stable on what we now call December 25th just two millennia and a quarter of a century ago, but it’s impossible to have such confidence that was Jesus’ actual date of birth, and it’s most likely that the day of celebration was chosen because it is close to the day of the winter solstice about 22nd of December.
People who get excited about such things often suggest that if it was snowy, shepherds would have been under cover with their sheep, and could not have abided being in the fields, and still ignore other arguments that JC was also extremely unlikely to have been fair skinned with blue eyes and light brown hair and beard.
Without doubt religious holidays are the ‘carrot’ part of enticing people to sign up to a particular faith, so Christmas replaces the pagan festivals of midwinter, and the yule log evokes the Viking festival of Yule. As religions and cultures in the UK have become increasingly diverse, we’re beginning to see people joining in celebrations of festivals held by friends and neighbours; Chinese New Year, Eid, Ramadan, Diwali, and others throughout the year.
Perhaps the tradition of associating our midwinter holiday with snow and Christianity will continue after white Christmastimes become unknown and Christianity itself dwindles to an even smaller minority.
Christmas cards and carols have only been common for two centuries. The first Christmas song seems to have been written around 330CE, but it wasn’t until the nineteenth century that snow seems to have become indispensable, such as Christina Rosetti’s ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ in which ‘snow had fallen, snow on snow’. It was round about then that ‘Father Christmas’ was popularised, drawing on the fourth century legend of the Greek Saint Nicholas.
The hymn ‘Good King Wenceslas’ was actually written in the mid nineteenth century about a late 14th King who gave alms to a peasant in winter, it includes snow, and a winter fuel allowance to the poor on St. Stephen’s day – a Boxing Day Yule Log.
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