by Roseanna White | May 14, 2017 | Holidays
I remember throwing a tantrum when I was about 3, and my mother coming and scooping up my kicking, screaming form from the hallway floor. I remember thinking, “Yes! I got her attention!” And then being depositing on the bed in my room and told not to come out again until I could behave myself. *Fail*
I just wanted my mommy . . . and I got a lesson in life and love.
I remember being sick in school one day and holding it together pretty darn well while I told the teacher I didn’t feel well, while I told the nurse. But when she called my mom and handed me the phone, and I heard that most precious voice in the world on the other end saying, “What’s wrong, sweetie?” I just burst into tears.
I just wanted my mommy . . . and I knew she’d come the minute I called and make it all better.
I remember in middle school, I had some friends who tended to make irresponsible decisions, let’s say, and I took to reminding them of consequences. Of checking on them. I tried not to be nagging, but I also didn’t compromise.
I just wanted to be like my mommy . . . full of love, full of teaching, full of Christ. And one of them starting calling me Mommy–not mockingly, but with affection. I was so proud to answer to that.
I remember in high school, there were quite a lot of kids who didn’t want their parents going on field/band trips. Me? I loved having one or both of my parents along. Because I knew no one cheered, no one commiserated, no one took better care than my mom and dad.
I just wanted my mommy to be around . . . and she always, always was.
I remember in college, there was a day when a few students in my class got into a comical argument about whose mother was the BEST mother. And I won. Because my mom taught me not only how to care (I’d brought brownies in that day for the class, and they couldn’t argue with such an overt proof of taught generosity, LOL), but how to fight for what I believe in. 😉
I just wanted to live the lessons my mommy taught me.
I remember when my daughter was only a few weeks old and we were still living in Annapolis. It was Thanksgiving, and the roads were icy, so we had to delay coming home by a day. I cried–and I don’t cry. Because I was a new mommy myself . . . and I just wanted to be home with my family on that day.
I just wanted my mommy . . . even while I knew I had to protect the life of my new baby and not take undue risks on icy roads.
I remember one day when my son was throwing a temper tantrum on the floor. And I scooped up his kicking-and-screaming form and deposited him in his bed and said, “You can come out when you can behave.”
And I thought, I must be doing something right. I’m acting just like my mom.
In many ways, we’re so very different. But in the ways that count, I hope I’m just like you, Mom. That I’ve learned the lessons you’ve taught by example all my life–to love, to care, to be generous, to always put my family first, below only God. To live my faith and love those put in my life. You taught me how to be a mommy, and a wife, and a friend.
Happy Mother’s Day to my amazing mother, and to all the mothers in my life.
Happy Mother’s Day to all my friends and readers and editors and agents and acquaintances.
And a big thank you to our Lord, who somehow created us so that we can each say, in perfect honesty and certainty, “I have the best mother in the world.” But don’t get into an argument with me about whose really is–I’ll win. 😉
by Roseanna White | Dec 21, 2016 | Holidays
With Christmas less than a week away, I figure no one has much time for blog reading anyway. 😉 So this will be my last post this week. We’ll reconvene next week to reflect on 2016 and look forward to 2017.
What will I be working on in the coming week?
Well, aside from eating cookies and peanut clusters–and Cornish pasties we’ve decided we’ll make for Christmas dinner–I’ll be doing some design work, finishing the scarf I’m working on for my grandmother (by Friday, if all goes according to schedule).
And then I’ll be settling down to work on something for YOU.
In the new year, as early as I can manage it, LOL, I’ll be sending out a free bonus story to all newsletter subscribers. Existing subscribers will get a newsletter with the links, and new subscribers will get it as a welcome email. Thanks so much to all of you who took my one-question survey about what story you’d like to see! The masses were pretty evenly divided between wanting Lizzie and Whit’s story (parents of Brook from The Lost Heiress) and something completely new. So if I get a brainstorm for an original in the next few days, awesome–otherwise, I’ll get back to work on His Baroness, which I started a year ago, LOL. (Newsletter sign-up is here.)
I hope everyone has a blessed Christmas, filled with the wonder of His love and sacrifice!
by Roseanna White | Dec 19, 2016 | Holidays, Word of the Week
Today I’m not examining the etymology of the word itself so much as the history of the tradition of hanging mistletoe at Christmas. Is this part of your family’s tradition?
I’ve never really taken part in it, but certainly we all know that if one pauses beneath mistletoe, one cannot refuse a kiss. In past centuries, this was believed to be good luck and to guarantee love, marriage, and children in the coming year (for those still unmarried). The ball of mistletoe would be burned after the Twelve Days of Christmas to seal the fates of those couples who had kissed beneath it.
But where did the tradition come from? Well it dates back far beyond the coming of Christianity to Europe. For millennia, mistletoe was revered as a sacred plant and thought to contain powers of fertility and good luck and the ability to ward off evil. The plant typically grows on apple trees, but once in a while can be found on oaks (also sacred), so the oak mistletoe is especially sacred and would be cut by Druids with a golden sickle.
The legend goes as follows: the goddess Frigga had a beloved son, Balder, who was the god of summer and hence all things growing and alive. Balder had a terrible dream that he was going to die, so his mother went to every part of nature, above the ground and below, asking them to promise not to kill her son. But she neglected to request this of the mistletoe, which neither had roots below ground nor grew on its own above. So the tricky god Loki, enemy of Balder, made a poison from the berries of the mistletoe and dipped an arrow in it, shooting and killing Balder. For three days, every element and plant tried to revive him, to no avail. Finally, his mother’s own tears revived him, which then turned to little white berries on the mistletoe. She was so overjoyed that she kissed everyone who passed beneath the hanging plant.
You can see where this would easily become part of a tradition surrounding the birth of Christ, right? Someone who lay dead for three days and then was brought back to life, ultimate Love triumphing over Death. Especially since this plant was cut traditionally on the solstice already–and the winter solstice had long been established as the birth of Christ (read why here, if you haven’t already). It was easily incorporated into new traditions and became a lasting one–though still tinged with superstition.
So where do you come down on mistletoe and kissing beneath it? Fun custom? Good luck? Or something to be avoided at all costs? 😉
by Roseanna White | Dec 7, 2016 | Ancient World, Holiday History, Holidays, Remember When Wednesdays
I don’t know how many times I’ve heard over the years that Constantine is the one who decided Christmas would be celebrated on December 25, because it was already a pagan holiday, and this would make it easier on his people to convert to Christianity. I pretty much believed this for years . . . until I looked it up for myself.
I had to look into this when I began my research for
Giver of Wonders. There are two different major holidays celebrated by Rome, which Constantine is accused of trying to integrate into Christmas, or vice versa. One of these holidays actually wasn’t even celebrated until
after the days of Constantine, when the date of Christmas was definitely set. So that rules that one out.
The other is Saturnalia, which had been celebrated in Roman culture for centuries. It was a festival of lights (does sound familiar…) and one of gift-giving (also familiar). So is there truth to that accusation? Did Constantine choose that date for Christmas and then integrate our holy day into a pagan festival?
Nope.
In reality, Constantine didn’t do anything but legalize what was already custom. The church had been observing the birth of Christ on December 25 for many years already by the time the emperor converted, and even by the time that date was canonized by the Council.
Why December 25th then? Those who study history and the Jewish calendar are pretty sure Christ could not have been born in winter. There were shepherds in the hills, after all, which wouldn’t have been the case in December. So what gives?
Well, I don’t know why those in the know ignored some very sound logic when determining the date. But here’s what I do know: they had a reason for selecting December 25 that had nothing to do with any pagan holidays. See, at that time in history, Dec 25 was the winter solstice (did you know the date of the solstice had moved??). That’s why the pagans celebrated on that day–it’s why pretty much every religion had a celebration on that day.
But Christians? Why did we?
Well, it’s because the Christian scholars and priests of that era (educated, it may be worth noting, in Greek and Roman schools–there were no Christian-only schools at the time) believed that the God who created the universe created it with order and symmetry. They believed, for example (as did their Greek and Roman compatriots) that important men had a star appear to herald their birth. (So it would have been odd if the Gospels hadn’t included this for Jesus!) They believed their lives and births were written in the very cosmos–which is pretty cool, really. Right?
Well they also believed that this symmetry extended to the length of their life as well, and that the best and most important men in history lived in a full number of years.
Um . . . huh?
It’s weird. I know. This belief certainly didn’t survive the millennia, LOL. But that’s honestly what they thought. That Jesus, as the greatest man ever, would have lived a whole number of years, no random months and days added on.
So that would mean born and died on the same day, right? And we know he died on Passover–which was, as it happened, the Spring Equinox. So he must have been born on it . . . right?
Wrong. Life was not counted from the date of birth–it was counted from the supposed date of conception. So the belief was that the Holy Spirit must have conceived Jesus in Mary on the Spring Equinox (March 25). Which meant that He would have been born 9 months later.
So our quick math scrolls that calendar ahead 9 months to . . . voila! December 25.
This, my friends, is the honest-to-goodness reason why Christmas was set on December 25, way back in the 200s, well before Constantine took power and converted to Christianity.
Now, did some of the pagan traditions–candlelight and gift-giving–work their way into the day? Perhaps. Though gift-giving on Christmas wasn’t actually that prevalent until centuries later. Gift-giving, in the 3rd and 4th centuries, was actually done on Dec 6–the Feast Day of St. Nicholas (yesterday!), to remember the saint who gave so generously of his wealth, and anonymously. Dec 6 was a day to give and have no one know who gave. But it was close to Christmas. And over the years, the traditions blurred together. Especially, honestly, after the Protestant Revolution, when Luther declared “No more feast days of saints!” The people weren’t willing to give up their St. Nicholas Day . . . so they began saying it was the Christ Child who gave gifts on his birthday instead (Christ-kindl in German, which is where Kris Kringle came from!).
So there we have it. It may not be the actual date on which Jesus was born–probably isn’t–but it was a date selected because the people doing the selecting believed that the greatest Man in history would have been conceived and died on the same day.
by Roseanna White | Nov 21, 2016 | Holidays, Word of the Week
A couple weeks ago, my daughter asked why the animal is called a turkey and if it had anything to do with the country. I, naturally, said, “I don’t think so . . . I’ll look it up.”
Look it up I did–and quickly discovered that I was quite wrong with that “I don’t think so.”
So historically, there are two different birds identified as both guinea fowl and turkey, both from the mid-1500s. The guinea fowl was introduced to Europe from Madagascar via Turkey; the second, the larger North American bird, was domesticated by the Atzecs, introduced to Spain by the conquistadors, and then spread to wider Europe. The two animals were mistakenly thought to be related, and so both were called by both names.
Eventually they realized they were not related . . . and they mistakenly kept the name turkey for the one from North America rather than the one from Africa!
Ever wonder what they call the animal in Turkey? Hindi, which literally means “India”–based on the common-at-the-time misconception that the new world was India.
Poor mis-named critter. 😉 Gobble, gobble!
by Roseanna White | Jan 1, 2016 | Holidays, Word of the Week
Every year, I pray for a word. Instead of a resolution, just one word that I can strive for in the year. It doesn’t always come. But as I drove home on the last day of 2015, I knew what my word was for 2016.
Mine.
It started as a game with my kids. My husband and I would both latch hold of them, and we’d play a mock tug-of-war game amidst their giggles. “Mine!” I would say, tugging on them. “Mine!” David would argue, pulling them close for a hug. The kids both thought this was hilarious fun.
In the mornings, my son still calls to me three days out of five. He can obviously get up on his own, and he does, often. But some days he sticks to the old tradition of calling out, “Mama!” And I go in, and I gather him up, and I hold him close. “Mine,” I often whisper into his ear. “My boy. I love you.” When I go in to wake his sister an hour later, I sit down on her bed, run a hand over her hair, and say, “There’s my girl. Time to get up, sweetie pie.”
It’s a part of our family language, this claiming of the ones we love. This Mine.
Yet it touched something deep inside me when my little boy started putting his arms around me, pressing close, and saying, “Mine.” It’s his way of saying I love you. It’s his way of saying, We’re a family.
Yesterday, when I asked God what He wanted me to dwell on this year, I imagined arms bigger than Rowyn’s, bigger than David’s, bigger than the world coming around me. And a voice far deeper whispering in my ear, “Mine.”
For they are my people, and I will be their God.
The question of what it means to be His is one that has fueled contemplation and discourse for millennia. I could write a long, long post on my thoughts on the matter here and now.
I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to think about what I know about it already. I’m just going to ask.
What does it mean to belong to God?
How will my daily actions change if, before I do anything, I remember that I am His and He is mine?
My every action, my every reaction should start from that one central point.
I am His.
My speech. My writing. My everything should reflect it.
I am His.
My relationships, my family, my commitments should be kept in their proper places.
I am His.
May 2016 be a year filled with Joy and blessing. May its hardships and trials pale in comparison to the love we feel in our Father’s arms. May we find peace amidst the turmoil that has its claws in the world, and may we know the path He would have us tread. May He open our eyes to the truths of His Word, of His Spirit. May we understand what He calls us to do.
And may our every act, our every thought be rooted in that most basic truth–that God has wrapped us in His arms and whispered that claim into our ears.
Mine.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.