(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.