DEEP IN DECEMBER

TO DRIVE THE COLD WINTER AWAY

All hayle to the days that merit more praise than all the rest of the year,
& Welcome the nights that double delights as well for the poor as the peer.
Good fortune attend each merry man's friend that doth but the best that he may

This time of the yeare is spent in good cheare, kind neighbours together to meet
To sit by the fire, with friendly desire each other in love to greet:
Old grudges forgot are put in a pot, all sorrows aside they lay'
The old and the young doth carrol this Song, to drive the cold winter away.

To maske and to mum kind neighbours will come with Wassels of nut-browne Ale
To drinke and carouse to all in this house, as merry as buck in the pale;
Where cake, bread and cheese, is brought for yr fees to make you the longer stay,
The fire to warme will do you no harme, to drive the cold winter away.

When Christmas tide comes in like a Bride, with Holly and Ivy clad, --
Twelve dayes in the yeare much mirth and good cheare in every household is had
The countrey guise is then to devise some gambols of Christmas play,
Whereas the yong men do best that they can to drive the cold winter away.

from the Roxburghe Collection

Suddenly Time, as it always does in December, lets us know that it has played its annual trick on us ... while we were thinking of other things, other days, other times, it has passed on its merry way and we're here with just a few days until the Solstice ... I've been thinking of the Old Ways when Yule was celebrated as the Solstice, and pondering the gradual transformation into Yuletide and Christmas .... it is almost mind-boggling to try and comprehend how we, in the northern hemisphere have passed through all these centuries from the time of a fire celebration designed to drive the cold winter away, into the riot of lights, music, noise, gift-giving, commercialization and frenzied spending that Christmas has become ....