Christmas hath made an end, Part Two

It was certainly all magical enough, and only more so when all our friends began arriving with shouts of ‘Happy New Year!’ and the bonfire began leaping heavenward and the children started running to and fro in the darkness, heaping my withered holly branches and dried pine garlands onto the blaze. When we gathered for the blessing, I couldn’t help subjecting our guests to a brief—and, to me, at least—an undeniably fitting little reading:

Christmas hath made an end,
Well-a-day! well-a-day!
Which was my dearest friend,
More is the pity!
For with an heavy heart
Must I from thee depart,
To follow plow and cart
All the year after!

It grieves me to the heart,
Well-a-day! well-a-day!
From my friend to depart,
More is the pity!
Christmas, I fear 'tis thee
That thus forsaketh me:
Yet for one hour, I see,
Will I be merry.

There certainly was great merry-making around the fire that night. Sparklers for the children and bottle rockets and Roman candles for the boys and men. Old English games like ‘Christmas Candle’ and ‘Snapdragon’ that Philip and I dug out of an old book. Mirth and good cheer as Christmas trees were added to the blaze sending the flames a good forty feet into the air. After seconds and thirds of dinner had been dispensed with, my friend Rachel and I gathered all of the little girls for a special procession of the wassail and the Twelfth Night cake—which had been duly prepared with the traditional bean, pea and clove planted somewhere in its spiced depths, the discovery of which would determine the king, queen and knave, respectively, for the evening. We rehearsed our wassailing song quietly in the shadows of the great walnut tree and lit green sparklers on the cake before making our solemn way across the backyard down to the fire.

Here we come a-wassailing among the leaves so green!
And here we come a-wand’ring so fair to be seen!
Love and joy come to you and to you your wassail too,
And God bless you and send you a happy new year!
And God send you a happy new year!

The cake was presented amid a spontaneous burst of applause and was duly sliced and distributed by the girls to the eager guests, each desirous of their status in the hierarchy of the night. My mother’s dear friend, Wendy, was the knave, I plucked the pea from my piece of cake with an air of queenly triumph, and the king obviously swallowed his bean unnoticed and will henceforth go uncrowned. (We’ll just say it was Philip…)

There were Twelfth Night carols and Epiphany songs after that, and the inevitable Twelve Days of Christmas. And we closed on the rousing note of The Gloucestershire Wassail, each time I thought we were done another guest calling out another verse:

“The butler verse!”
“The maid verse!”
“Verse one, again!”

When all but a set’s worth (and those acquainted with Scottish or English country dancing will know what that implies) had taken their leave with many a hopeful word for ‘next year’, Philip and his brother polished off the bottle rockets while my sister-in-law and I looked on from a safe distance and savored the fun we’d already had and the enchantments abroad in earth and sky. A clear golden moon had risen early upon our festivities, out of a vaporous fog that cloaked the trees and made its light a mysterious thing. There was the closeness of the dew and the bewitchery of woodsmoke in the air. We looked up through the moonlit trees overhead and commented on how the drops that still clung to their bare limbs looked like stars all tangled in the branches. But only fitting on a night so fraught with faeirie…

Coffee and wassail and cookies in the house after that for the hearty and hale that had stayed for the dancing. Postie’s Jig and Corn Rigs and Frost and Snow were executed with commendable good spirit, despite—or, perhaps, because of—the fact that for the first time ever we had more gentlemen than ladies and a couple of un-named guys had to cross the set and dance as girls! ;) The candles wavered in their sconces as we romped by and the crepe paper fluttered overhead. And when we were all too tired to dance anymore, we flopped on the floor, the stairs, the remaining seats, and smiled sleepily at one another.

But despite my weariness, when we said goodbye and closed the door for the last time, I turned to Philip with a look of elation. My Christmas was complete; my holiday wrapped up like a present from God in one last lovely memory. We had said a worthy farewell to the dearest season of the year, toasted its memory with our laughter and songs.

And it’s only forty-six more weeks till I can start decking my halls again!