Traditions

The town’s annual Christmas Party was held in a pavilion up on the mountainside. Most of the inhabitants were direct descendants of the original founding fathers who had come here after being persecuted in their homeland for their religious beliefs. They sailed across the ocean and trekked deep in to the country to found this community. This was their mountain forever as ordained in a charter from the king. Not that any of this is important, just history, a proud history that the master of ceremonies recited at the start of cocktail hour. This was followed by the tradition of the singing a Christmas carol of the MC's choosing usually something deeply religious like “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” or something similar in nature to remind everyone of the reason for the season.

The community itself was serene in nature. It consisted of a collection of old homes, some going back to colonial times, many Victorian in nature and of course a couple of sixties, nineteen sixties, style ranch homes thrown in for variety. Most if not all the residents were generational, inheriting their homes from proud parents and grandparents. Occasionally outsiders would move in, some would stay and assimilate while many would get fed up with the perceived stuck up nature of the residents and leave. A few would just disappear. In fact the town was featured in a documentary done by a cable channel known for investigating mysteries because it had the highest rate of unexplained disappearances in the country. A fact that was once under consideration to be used as the town slogan on the new website, but was voted down by the more sensible members of the town council.

The Christmas Party was held each year the Saturday before the Winter Solstice and was the highlight of the season with every adult attending. Meanwhile the children of the town would be having their own celebration weekend in the civic center. Which was in reality the basement of the town hall. It was rumored that Santa Claus would visit again this year and you can well imagine what that kind of rumor does to kids and some adults.

It was tradition and as this is the season where tradition abounds and of course the community was no stranger to the tradition of traditions, to serve a drink and offer a toast. The drink of choice was the Bishop's Punch, a deep dark purple wine that tasted like warm sangria and packed a punch. The traditional drink was named for the founder of the feast an ex-Anglican Bishop who loved Christmas and wine not necessarily in that order. The toasts would start a table number one which traditionally included the mayor, his wife along with some of the town council. Each table would offer up its toast and the toasting would then make its way across the room. Table after table would repeat itself until finally someone acquiesced or the announcement that dinner would be served had been made.

The traditional dinner consisted of hearty pieces of bloody beef, as preferred by most if not all attendees, seafood raw and cooked, boiled potatoes and roasted local vegetables followed by a dessert of anise liquor flavored cookies in a blood red sugar sauce. The cookies nicknamed Tipsy's Balls after the fact that eating several made one rather tipsy are very addicting and not for the casual drinker. About nine thirty or so the lights would be turned down and the ceremonial lighting of the Christmas tree would take place at which time another round of toasts would begin.

The adults of the town gleefully proceed to get blottoed. A local term for drunk, inebriated and unable to legally drive. No one was immune and everyone participates. It is, as someone pointed out on the website, quite possibly the biggest drunken party of Christmas revelers under one roof that anyone has ever seen.

The dinner party ends with the revelers participating in the traditional march from the pavilion back to their homes on the mountainside. Slowly walking through a trail in the woods, carrying torches, singing and humming songs while drinking Bishops Punch from large barrels pulled along in wooden carts by young men dressed up as devils. The revelers ward off the devils with Christmas carols, but accept the mugs of punch as a peace offering.

Part of the celebration requires the devils to kidnap one of the marching party who is usually a newcomer to the town. The victim has a burlap sack thrown over their head and is taken away by the young men dressed as devils. Traditionally the victim is a willing participant after having been convinced that to be kidnapped from the revelers is indeed a high honor. The drunken torchbearers fulfilling their part of the tradition then chase them through the woods in to a torch lit clearing with a stone table. The clearing also doubles in the daytime as the town park with a couple of those stone picnic tables, you know the kind with the engraved chess boards for those who want to play chess outdoors.

It was here that the celebration would come to its crescendo with the kidnapped victim tied to the table surrounded by the town drunk with revelry and Bishops Punch. Slowly the caroling would change to chants and swaying as a man and woman dressed in white robes with holly wreaths on their heads would approach the table. With a swift undeclared movement he would plunge an ancient traditional dagger in to the breast of the hooded victim whose screams were muffled with the chanting of the townsfolk. The heart was the removed and as was tradition it would be read by the priestess for signs of good fortune and then offered up as celebration for the winter solstice.

Not long after, the party would slowly break up as friends, family, neighbors following tradition would wish one another a Merry Christmas and then head home.