A Very Merry Monk Christmas



The best Christmas card I received this year...

Stocking Fillers...

A special Christmas treat. Festive themed stories (written in no more than ten minutes) by my far more talented friend and my own paltry effort.

Christmas Crackers

Crackers are a necessary component of any Christmas table spread. Perched in between plates, one to each, they perch and await opening. The brilliance of crackers is in their ability to immediately stimulate Christmas cheer. Opening crackers is a sociable event, which brings a deal of confusion and... Well, excitement is too strong a word, so let's say motion, to any given table. Now, I come with a theory. My theory is that crackers are essentially designed to promote cheer, from every angle. First of all, there's the opening. Maybe no laughs yet, but a good deal of movement – a nice start point. Then there's the confusion of working out who “won” each given cracker pull, and picking out the junk inside them. This is important. Again, participants need exchange objects, move things around, and generally try to make right out of mess. Once everything is established, Christmas 'hats' firmly on heads, there comes the meat of the crackers. The joke.

Now, you may not think the joke important. Meaningless and silly, even. However, they're integral to my theory. The jokes are inevitably the same as the previous year, so people will remember them. Either that, or they're so predictable that at least one person at the table will blurt out the answer before it's revealed. The crucial role that these jokes – along with the toy or whatever else – plays is this; they make people feel good about themselves. “What a stupid joke!” one man might yell, while a lady rolls her eyes about Sherlock Bones, the skeletal investigator. These jokes are so poor, that people will easily make more witty and elusive gags about and around them. It's a perfect set-up to hearty table discussion.

Some might imagine the writer of these jokes as a dunce, flicking through a book of unoriginal puns and scribbling down obvious ones, eager to get it done. Perhaps they have a more realistic image, of a lone marketing worker copying down a list from an archive. Regardless, they were all written a long time ago. Myself, I like to imagine a weathered old man with a great long beard, a cheeky twinkle in his eye as he pictures tables full of people mocking his gags. This old man doesn't mind when you call him an idiot. He doesn't mind because that just means you've got the joke, and he's laughing with you.

*     *     *

Head ducked against the bitter wind he moved quickly across the icy street. Brown slush collected in piles where mud and melting snow mingled together. His haste caused him to lose his footing momentarily on the treacherously broken cobbles and his breath misted before his eyes in a grunt of surprise. Once his boots had again found safe purchase he glanced up at the faint candle glow coming from the houses that lined the street. They flickered contentedly in the early evening gloom. There was only one house that he was looking for though. One candle, one window and one welcome. His feet were damp, the cold long ago taking away all feeling from his toes, yet a warm feeling stirred in his heart. As he continued forward his careworn face eased into a smile and swollen, reddened fingers rapped on a wooden door. It creaked open slowly at first before finally being swung back impatiently. He found himself engulfed by sudden warmth. A fire crackled within the room merrily, soft arms reached out embracing him, and a gentle voice whispered in his ear, “Merry Christmas, my love.”

A Work In Progress

I am currently drafting the next instalment of Death to Palaeography, in which things get a little hairy for our palaeographer.

“Good God girl! Are you good at nothing?!”He exploded.
“Actually I’m quite a good harpist.” She replied indignantly.
The corners of his stern mouth twitched with amusement.

It seems however a little like tempting to fate to post something in which ‘death’ and ‘palaeography’ feature together in the same week that I have my own palaeography exam. *Gulp* Wish me luck!

Everywhere Peace, Everywhere Serenity

After a stressful week of cramming Latin nouns and verbs into my tiny brain, and with the knowledge that the next few weeks hold equally as much deadline-fuelled fear, I remember with fondness the self-contained, quiet isolation of the Cisterican monks. Where hidden away in the peaceful beauty of the Yorkshire countryside was Byland Abbey, which a handful of monks once called their home.

Byland Abbey, West Front with rose window.