Happy Christmas Everyone!

Christmas for me is a season of differing emotions. There's the smiling, expectant, happy grandchildren, but there are also memories of Christmases past and thinking of my wonderful mother and father. There would be a stocking full of gifts, when I woke up, with a larger present under the tree from Father Christmas. I remember such love, joy and excitement.

That's part of my tree in the photo above. Our adult children make fun of it. They ask, "Why don't you get a new one? A real tree perhaps?"

The thing is though,  this has been a family tree since I was a child. I won't say how many years that is, but it's quite a while! So there are happy memories from my childhood Christmases and also those of our own children when they were small and growing up. 

Somehow the tree has survived many moves and ups and downs.

My wife is also happy with the tree, as long as we have her German childhood decorations hanging from the branches. That's one of them above.

She remembers her childhood Christmases in Germany and how presents were distributed on Christmas Eve. Sadly her mother and father are now longer with us.

Anyway, enough waffling on. I hope you have a magical Christmas - happy and peaceful.

All good wishes ~ Mike

How Santa Delivers All of Those Presents - Happy Christmas Everyone!

How does he do it? How does Father Christmas (Santa Claus) manage to deliver to all of the children around the world, who believe in him? That's about 700 million children! Also, how the heck does he get all of the presents down the chimney? As a child my mother used to tell me Santa had a special pill that made him small, but I never really bought her theory.

Now though, we have an answer! Dr Katy Sheen from Exeter University has an explanation based on Einstein's theory of relativity.

The doctor started out by calculating how fast Father Christmas would have to travel by working out the number of households likely to celebrate Christmas around the world and the number of children likely to be in them. She eventually decided that Santa would have to travel at about 10 million kilometres per hour to deliver presents to every child expected to celebrate Christmas in 31 hours, taking into account different time zones.

That all sounds like quite a problem but, by Santa going so fast - according to Einstein - objects travelling at such a speed would become compressed in size. Therefore Santa would shrink! So he'd be able to pop down all of the chimneys, with all of those presents, without any difficulty.

Santa can make his deliveries without being seen because light waves get squashed at such high speeds. He would also change from red to green, appearing as a rainbow-coloured blur. At his top speed, he would become invisible to the human eye. So that's why we never see him.

Einstein’s theory could also explain why Father Christmas appears not to have aged – relativity means time slows when an object moves at high speeds.

All very good you may say, but how does Santa travel so fast? Dr. Sheen explains, "How does Santa manage to reach these phenomenal speeds? Well that’s magic! However, he would certainly need a lot of fuel – so don’t forget his glass of sherry, a mince pie or two and some carrots for the reindeer!

No matter what the explanation. it seems you can never take the magic out of Christmas. Thank goodness for that!

Wishing everyone a very Happy Christmas.

All good wishes,

~ Mike

Christmas Eve In The Cornish Mines In Days of Old

I like stories of old Cornwall and it's traditions. Here's a Christmas Eve tale originally published back in 1865. I have retained the style of words as of that period.

Spriggan Sculpture by Marilyn Collins, Highbury

On Christmas eve, in former days, the small people, of the spriggans, would meet at the bottom of the deepest mines and have midnight mass.

Then those who were in the mine would hear voices melodious beyond all earthly voices singing, "Now Well! Now Well!* The strains of some deep toned organ would shake the rocks.

Of the grandeur of those meetings, old stories could not find words sufficiently sonorous to speak; it was therefore left to the imagination.

But thus was certain. The temple formed by the fairy bands in which to celebrate the eve of the birth of a Saviour, in whose mercy they all had hope, was of the most magnificent description.

* Now Well! Now Well! the angel did say
To certain poor shepherds in the fields who lay
Late in the night folding their sheep;
A winter's night, both cold and deep.
Now Well! Now Well! Now Well
Born is the King of Israel!

St. Austell Town Christmas Lights

We are under a coronavirus lockdown, but are allowed out for exercise. So we thought we would have a look at the Christmas lights in St. Austell.

We started walking at Fore Street and all was deathly quiet.

The silence was almost deafening. It didn't feel quite right but, there again, why have lights ablaze if there is no one to see them.

Reminded me of that old question 'If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?'

We couldn't hear a tree falling or anything else for that matter. It felt quite creepy.

After walking the length of the Fore Street we headed for the new part of town.

All was quiet as we wandered past the  shops. There was just the echo of our footsteps.

We reached the Aylmer Square, still no people, just emptiness and Lloyds Bank. Oh, and a Christmas tree.

Turned left for more emptiness.

Another bank, guess everyone must be at home counting their money.

We turned around and went back through the shops. To think that even the pubs are empty. It feels like some dystopian future has been imposed upon us.

Back to the square and, for us, that was enough excitement for one night. We can at least boast that we have seen the St. Austell Christmas lights.

Other random St. Austell Posts:

Flowers Everywhere at St.Austell White River Place.

Walking the Streets and Roads Near St.Austell, Cornwall



Walking On The National Cycle Network in St.Austell, Cornwall