DECEMBER

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.

Christmas Proverbs, etc.:—

(a) A warm Christmas, a cold Easter.

(b) A green Christmas, a white Easter.

(d) Christmas wet, empty granary and barrel.

(e) If there is wind on Christmas Day, there will be much fruit the following year.

(f) Snow at Christmas brings a good hay crop next year.

(g) If Christmas falls on a Sunday, there is good luck in store for all of us.

(h) A child that's born on Christmas Day, is fair, and wise, and good, and gay.

(i) Carols out of season, sorrow without reason.

(j) If Christmas Day on Thursday be,

A windy winter ye shall see:

Windy weather in each week,

And hard tempest, strong and thick.

The summer shall be good and dry,

Corn and beasts will multiply.

(k) Light Christmas, light wheatsheaf. ("Light" here refers to the full moon.)

(l) There is a firm belief that to leave Christmas decorations hanging beyond Twelfth-Night is to bring ill-luck to everybody in the house.

HOLY INNOCENTS' DAY.—December 28th was formerly reckoned as the most unlucky day of the whole year, and few had the temerity to begin any work or start any new undertaking then.

HOGMANAY.—In Scotland, the night of December 31st is known as Hogmanay. Then the fire is "rested," and on no account is it allowed to go out on the hearth, nor is the house swept, nor ashes nor water "thrown out," in case all the luck should be swept out. "Dirt bodes luck." It is lucky to give away food or money, to break a drinking glass accidentally, for a girl to see a man from her window on New Year's morning, and the birth of a child brings good luck to the entire family.