Brace Yourself...

Resurrecting Dead Jewelry

After the Christmas tree and Valentine I made from jewelry I inherited from various family members, I still had lots of less blingy, more colorful beads and plastic earrings left over.  I don't eat hard-boiled eggs, yet I still have a desire to celebrate spring by decorating eggs in my own way.  Using the colorful beads to make an Easter egg just seemed obvious since I had already hopped on to the holiday theme.

Most of the beads and earrings in this craft belonged to my mom, but there are a couple of strands of broken rosaries in there, too, that likely belonged to my uncle or brother. The 8x10 white shadowbox frame came from Michael's, as did the purple felt I used for the background.  For further instruction about how I did this, see the directions at the end of my Junk Jewelry Christmas Tree blogpost.  For other designs, click the "Crafty" label in the righthand column of this blog.

The bunnies and eggs so prevalent in springtime are symbols of fertility and rebirth. Though I can't resurrect the relatives who instilled in me a love of holiday traditions, at least I can help breathe new life into the trinkets they left behind.

Heart of Gold & Rhinestones

After the Junk Jewelry Christmas Tree craft, I still had lots of Mom's and other jewelry left over.  Given how much members of my family seemed to love holidays, it seemed appropriate to keep with the holiday theme, and next up was Valentine's Day.

For this one, I tried picking pieces that were related to the holiday. You can see several heart-shaped pieces and other lovey-dovey things like butterflies, flowers, the "key" to my heart, and red and pink items.

I remember my Uncle Bill giving me at least one of the heart-shaped stick pins when I was a little girl. There's a sailboat in there that kinda reminds me of my dad.  Not sure which of my deceased relatives earned the blood donor pin.  There's a promotional beer pin for Killian's; it doesn't necessarily remind me of anyone, but it is "red" ale.  :)

For an explanation of how I did this, see the directions near the end of my blog post for the Junk Jewelry Christmas Tree.  To see other variations on this craft, click on the "Crafty" label in the right-hand column of my blog.  I'll be posting more soon.  (There's plenty of other holidays!)

As I was making this, I kind of felt like I was making a Valentine to my mom and other relatives who've passed on.  I hope they received it.

Junk Jewelry Christmas Tree

What to do with junk jewelry?  I've really been wondering that for many years and only recently discovered a good answer.

I have more than 400 pairs of earrings, and some I have no intention of ever wearing again because they are tarnished, broken, missing a mate, or not my style.  But I never throw earrings away nor most other jewelry because I have this crazy notion I will make my own with leftovers someday when I have ample time.  But not all jewelry can be strung together with beads.

Of course if you have good jewelry, you can sell it to a pawn shop or mail it to the gold and silver scavengers who will melt it down.  You can also donate to a thrift store, and there are some charities that collect nicer accessories and give them to battered women starting life anew so they can look polished on job interviews.

But if, like me, you have a lot of old jewelry you're pretty sure no one else will want and it just seems WRONG to throw it in the trash can, then this is a great idea for how to repurpose it, and it's surprisingly easy.  (Click "Read More" and scroll to the bottom of this post for directions.) The other reason I like this craft is that it is the perfect compromise between my need to get rid of junk and my desire to cling to the past.

In a Pickle

I consider performing holiday rituals to be a key element of my witchiness. However, I think New Year's is possibly my least favorite holiday.

Don't get me wrong - I have had some very nice New Year's celebrations. I went to a lovely formal party at the turn of the millennium. A few years ago, I rented a great big beach house with a coven of friends. And I may have had or attended an okay party or two. But in general, there is just something off about the holiday of New Year's. ...

Jinxmas

"I am Mr. Jinx, and I am the only Christmas present you need."

The Mother of Invention

Though I get no credit in the paper, the photo of the upside-down clown in this October 1977 issue of The Mini Page is me. The Mini Page is now syndicated and appears in 500 newspapers worldwide, but it originated in Raleigh the same year I was born.

Beyond circumstantial proof, I submit a more recent photo of the papier-mâché clown head that was part of the costume. I rediscovered it this year while cleaning out junk from the house I grew up in. While posting this photo, I noticed a happy coincidence that in the background you can see a basket full of thread and sewing notions that belonged to my mom...

Hawaii Statehood Day

The State of Hawaii flag hangs at our house to commemorate Hawaii Statehood Day. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a proclamation making Hawaii the 50th state on Friday, August 21, 1959. Rather than commemorate it on the 21st, Hawaiians celebrate Statehood on the third Friday of August. They usually get the day off, which is pretty cool because the rest of us don't normally have a good excuse to take off in August. This flag can also work for King Kamehameha Day June 11, but that's pretty close to Flag Day in the rest of the United States (June 14).

Conjuring Love

I don't want to brag, but my witch powers include the ability to conjure love out of almost nothing and send it through time and over great distances to arrive tangibly in the hands of unsuspecting, worthy recipients.

Some witches have special, ceremonial knives called athames, but one mustn't underestimate the power of scallop scissors.

Pastafarian Earrings

My earring collection is big enough to include Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Native American, Egyptian, Pagan, and Pastafarian symbols. These are my Flying Spaghetti Monster earrings. As they are my only Pastafarian earrings, they will have to cover Holiday, Ramendan, and Pastover, as well as Fridays.

May He touch you with His Noodly Appendage.


P.S. I also have Invisible Pink Unicorn earrings; however, as no photo is available at this time, you'll just have to have faith.

Looking at the Year Ahead

Once people become aware of my quest to have earrings for every occasion, they have some typical questions. After a usually pathetic attempt at stumping me by mentioning some holiday they think is obscure (like Groundhog Day, for which I have not one but two pairs of earrings), eventually they might ask what holidays I don't have covered. I addressed that topic in a recent post.

They might also ask how many earrings are in my collection, to which I don't have a good answer. It's kind of hard to count because I have been known to use things likes Christmas ornaments or wine charms or safety pins as earrings. I figure I have around 300 pairs, but it's totally a rough guess.

So then the next question people typically ask is "Where do you keep them all?"

I have five of the plastic knick-knack boxes shown in the photo, which are usually sold for sewing notions or bead crafters. There are probably an average of five pairs of earrings in each compartment. If you look at this photo and multiply, I guess that makes my collection number more around 400, but some of the compartments hold rings and necklaces instead of earrings. I also have other jewelry chests.

This photo shows the tray that holds most of my holiday earrings beginning with January/February in the top left and ending with New Year's Eve in the bottom right (with the larger square on the left for some of the larger Halloween earrings). I keep my subcollection of Christmas earrings in another place altogether and only bring them out after Thanksgiving.

In case you are wondering, the parrots in the bottom left are for Talk Like A Pirate Day in September. I haven't blogged those yet. In fact, there are quite a few holiday earrings I haven't blogged yet. For example, I just acquired some for Palm Sunday, which this year falls on April Fool's Day. Apparently, in addition to a few more jewelry chests, I could use a few more holes in my ears!

The Reason for the Season

Happy St. Andrew's Day!

So these are my current earrings options for St. Andrew's Day, celebrated on November 30.













St. Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland. I have some celtic knot earrings I got in Scotland, some Charles Rennie Macintosh earrings recently brought to me by a Scottish friend, and some dinosaur earrings that I choose to think of as Loch Ness Monster earrings.

But St. Andrew is also the patron saint of Greece, Romania, and Russia. His feast day is also celebrated in the area of Germany/ Austria/ Poland in some interesting ways. I robbed this below from Wiki:

In parts of Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Romania, superstitious belief exists that the night before St. Andrew's Day is specially suitable for magic that reveals a young woman's future husband or that binds a future husband to her. Many related customs exist: for example, the pouring of hot lead into water (in Poland, one usually pours hot wax from a candle through a key hole into cold water), divining the future husband's profession from the shape of the resulting piece (related divinations using molten metals are still popular in Germany on Hogmanay). In some areas in Austria, young women would drink wine and then perform a spell, called Andreasgebet (Saint Andrew's prayer), while nude and kicking a straw bed. This was supposed to magically attract the future husband. Yet another custom is to throw a clog over one's shoulder: if it lands pointing to the door, the woman will get married in the same year.

In some parts of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, young women would write down the names of potential husbands on little pieces of paper and stick these into little pieces of dough, called Halusky. When cooked, the first one to float to the surface of the water would reveal the name of their future husband.

In Poland, some women put pieces of paper (on which they have written potential husbands) under the pillow and first thing in the morning they take one out, which allegedly reveals their future husband.

In Romania, it is customary for young women to put 41 grains of wheat beneath their pillow before they go to sleep, and if they dream that someone is coming to steal their grains that means that they are going to get married next year. Also in some other parts of the country the young women light a candle from the Easter and bring it, at midnight, to a fountain. They ask St. Andrew to let them glimpse their future husband. St. Andrew is also the national saint of Romanians and Romanian Orthodox Church.

Alas, I do not have earrings made of 41 grains of wheat. There's always next year!

I'm Having an Epiphany

Epiphany is typically celebrated on January 6 and commemorates the visit of the three Magi to the baby Jesus. Eastern churches may use a different calendar and celebrate Epiphany on or near January 19. To them, Epiphany is a commemoration of the baptism of Jesus. The word "epiphany" derives from a root meaning "appearance." So it's like when the Son of God made himself known to the world.

I used to think January 6 was the Twelfth Day of Christmas; however, if you count, you'll see that it's really the thirteenth.

In Ireland, they sometimes call it Little Christmas because it was the date of Christmas under a different calendar. On January 6, you may safely take down your Christmas tree. If you did so before now, you've got bad luck.

The Irish may also refer to it as Women's Christmas. Traditionally, the menfolk take over the household chores on this day, while the women get together with friends and have a girl's night out.

I'm pretty sure I got the earrings shown in the photo on a trip to New Orleans and that they are meant for Mardi Gras. I think this is the third pair of crown earrings I've owned, but the other two broke. I also have several crown brooches. The reason I choose to wear these on Epiphany is, you know, crowns symbolize the Three Kings. The problem is, they probably weren't really kings, and there may not have been three of them.

The Gospel of Matthew simply says that "magi" came "from the east" and were following a star they believed would lead them to the future king of the Jews. (They were not originally looking for the messiah, but a king.) People have always just presumed there were three of them because they brought three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

You might have heard their names: Balthasar, Melchior, and Caspar. These names appeared in a Greek manuscript 500 years after the birth of Jesus. But the Syrians think their names are Larvandad, Gushnasaph, and Hormisdas. The Ethiopians have Hor, Karsudan, and Basanater. The Armenians, Kagpha, Badadakharida, and Badadilma.

The word "magus" is part of the problem. It was used by Greeks to refer to a follower of Zoroaster, or to a practitioner of things they thought were associated with Zoroastrianism. So a magus could have been a member of the priest caste to which Zoroaster was born, it could have been an actual priest/astrologer from Persia, or it could have meant a charlatan (magician) or something like that. The King James version of the Bible translated the word to "wise men" when referring to the visitors from the east, but the same word is translated as "sorcerer" when describing two heretical characters elsewhere in the KJV.

It may be that people began to refer to them as kings because the same three gifts (gold, frankincense, and myrrh) were given by another king (of Syria) at a temple to worship the god Apollo. In other words, it was apparently a kingly thing to do to worship a god by offering these gifts. Incidentally, frankincense was like a perfume, and myrrh was often used as an anointing or embalming oil. The purpose of gold is pretty obvious.

So, my earrings may be a very poor choice for today, as I'm not even sure if there's any real gold in them, and the Magi may not be kings at all, but rather astrologers. Maybe I should just wear stars! I've had an epiphany!

Not to Poop on Your Nativity Scene...

But have you heard of El Caganer?

El Caganer is a popular figure in Nativity scenes in the Catalonia area of Spain. "Cagar" means "to crap." El Caganer is a figure with his pants down around his ankles having a poo. Generally, he's not placed at the center of the Nativity; he's probably hiding behind a bush somewhere nearby, making it fun for the kiddies to spot him.

You might think I'm full of it, or that this is some sort of modern anti-Christian prank, but El Caganer has been a figure in Nativity scenes since the mid-1600s. He's so popular now, you can get celebrity El Caganer figures, such as President Obama.

Why? Historians and poop psychologists speculate. Is he meant to remind us that Jesus was born human and all that entrails? Is he a cautionary device to warn us that Christ can arrive any time, even when it's least convenient?

These possibilities cannot be eliminated, but it is commonly believed that El Caganer's purpose is to fertilize the earth for the Nativity, to ensure a good harvest and/or general good luck for the coming year. Therefore, it's the LACK of El Caganer's presence in a Nativity scene that often creates a public outcry in Catalonia.

I googled for "El Caganer earrings" and found none. Surely they must exist. If anyone is going to Spain and could bring me back a pair, or even just a real El Caganer figure, it would bring me loads of joy.

Good King What's-his-ass

"Good King Wenceslas looked out
on the Feast of Stephen..."

The Feast of St. Stephen is a public holiday in several countries (Germany, Ireland, Italy, and many more) and is celebrated on December 26 (or 27 by the Eastern Orthodox folks). St. Stephen was the first martyr of the Christian church, having been stoned to death after being charged with blasphemy against Judaism.

December 26 is also known as the more secular Boxing Day in many countries; however, if Christmas or December 26 falls on a weekend, sometimes Boxing Day can officially be observed on the following Monday or Tuesday. Controversy over the origin of the name of Boxing Day is described by Snopes.com.

Boxing Day is traditionally when the lord of the manor presented gifts or bonuses to his servants. It may now be observed with the giving of gifts to those who have provided service throughout the year, such as a tip for the paper boy, or by donating items or money to the poor.

The legend of Good King Wenceslas definitely involved giving items to the poor. If you read the lyrics of the Christmas carol, Wenceslas went out into the cold with a servant to deliver meat and fuel to those less fortunate. The servant was about to succumb to the cold but was miraculously warmed by walking in the footsteps of his master. King Wenceslas was actually a duke in his day but was canonized a saint and also posthumously conferred the title of King by a Holy Roman Emperor.

Regarding the earrings in the photo, I got them off eBay and am relying on the honesty of the seller/maker that the art is actually a rendering of St. Stephen. The earrings are made from dominoes. I once had a tiny pair of plastic boxing gloves that I could fashion into earrings for Boxing Day, but I haven't seen them lately. I'd be pleased to wear a pair of Christmas present earrings for Boxing Day, too, or two turtle dove earrings if my true love gave them to me, as today is also, of course, the second day of Christmas.

Happy Birthday, Jesus, Mithras & Invincible Sun!

Despite the different paths our lives took after college, my college roommate and I still exchanged Christmas gifts for several years. She was/is a church-going Lutheran whose Jewish husband converted to Lutheranism before they married. Because they lived in West Palm Beach for a time, and because there are a lot of Jews there, she was able to hook me up with some cool earrings (Sedar plates and menorahs) to augment my holiday earring collection. One year I decided I'd like to have a real menorah and figured she'd be a good person to ask. Our email exchange, though, took a strange turn....

O Multiple Ambiguous Winter Holiday Tree

Christmas trees...a misnomer, another custom stolen from pagans by Christianity.

Where did the custom of decorating evergreen trees originate and why? It depends on who you ask.

Protestants may tell you it was all Martin Luther's idea. The story goes that Marty was traipsing through the woods one snowy evening and was overcome with the beauty of the snow and moonlight glistening from the evergreens. So he brought a small tree into the house to replicate the scene for his children, adding candles to simulate snow glistening on the branches, or the starlight at Jesus' birth, or the general beauty of God's creation, or the light of truth or something. It's a nice thought (whichever rationale you prefer), but it has no basis in fact, no evidence at all.

Yule Love the Ashen Faggot

Happy full moon lunar eclipse winter solstice!

Yule is the celebration of the winter solstice. First I read a rumor that the word derives from a word meaning "wheel" (wheels are associated with the sun), but then I read that the word "Yule" is not even of Indo-European origin. It's so old it actually predates the wheel. So as far as anyone knows, the word has always just meant "the winter solstice." In particular, it refers to the old Germanic and Scandinavian celebrations associated with solstice.

The winter solstice (in this hemisphere) is the longest night and shortest day of the year. Numerous civilizations have held festivals in its honor. Some think of it as the sun's birthday or reincarnation, when the sun overcomes death and the days once again begin to get longer. Because of the sun's ability to overcome death, there are sometimes rituals associated with spirits of the deceased. Because the sun was also so vital to agriculture, Yule celebrations often involve fertility rites. For many cultures, the solstice marked the beginning of the new year, so there are also rituals to invoke luck, love, prosperity, fertility, and general wishes for the coming year. Such is the nature of the Yule log.

Io, Saturnalia!

Cast off your togas!

Saturnalia was a festival celebrated in Ancient Rome for a few days in late December, beginning on the 17th and sometimes lasting through the 23rd. (Emperors attempted to contain the number of days with varying degrees of success.) Saturn was the Roman god of agriculture. I am not sure why his festival was scheduled on December 17, but there was another festival for his wife, Ops, goddess of sowing, reaping, and fertility, two days later that got incorporated. Another holiday, Consualia, for Consus, the god of stored grains and seeds, was celebrated on December 15, which was the end of the autumn sowing season. The changing calendars (Roman, Julian, Gregorian) further confuse the issue of dates and holidays, and so it should not be surprising that some Saturnalia customs have been merged into our modern Christmas.