Old Christmas 2013

Today, January 6, is Old Christmas—when elderbushes bloom, ghosts walk the earth, and animals speak.  An hour or so after sunrise, the southeastern sky looked like this:

Not many celebrate Old Christmas anymore that I know of. I first became aware of it a couple of decades ago when Roy Helton's "Old Christmas Morning" poem was in the 8th grade lit book I taught from. I blogged about the poem (and other things) in 2007. I recently found a dramatization of it on YouTube.



In 2008, I posted pictures of Maggie playing with her favorite toy. Like today, January 6, 2008, was unusually warm.

In 2009, I posted Helton's poem again on Old Christmas eve. On Old Christmas day, I posted some pictures of the night sky.

In 2010, I posted pictures of clouds and wrote about reuniting a lost dog. For some reason, I didn't post about Old Christmas in 2011 or 2012. It's time I got back to it.

Today's sky, with its spectacular clouds, looked more like a painting than a real sky. The picture below is a more southerly view of the morning sky.

And this picture was taken a few minutes after the one above.

I didn't have any elderberries, but I did have some vinca that bloomed today . . . 

 . . . and some luminaria bloomed beneath the holly tree.

If Melody said anything at midnight, we'll never know what it was. I wasn't about to go out at midnight to visit her. This morning, she nickered for me to feed her but didn't say anything else.

If ghosts were about today, I didn't see any.

Merry Christmas!

~