Christmas Wishes and Mishes (and a bonus, Christmassy song of the day).

   It’s Christmas Eve, so, as regular peeps on here will know, it’s the time for Christmas wishes here on My Inner Mishmash. Because in Poland, as in many other European countries, we actually start celebrating Christmas today already. In fact, this is in practice the most festive day of Christmas over here, at least when it comes to the external festivities. We eat a big, festive, meatless Christmas Eve supper, and then later on go to the Midnight Mass. Most people also open their presents on Christmas Eve, but since a couple years, we decided to change that in our household and we only do it after we come back from the Midnight Mass, so that’s practically Christmas Day already. 

   But, regardless of when exactly each of you, lovely people, starts your celebrations, I would like to wish you a very happy Christmas. Not necessarily merry, because, in my view, this word is a little superficial and not everyone can force themselves to be merry just because it’s Christmas time, for example if you have depression or something difficult is going on in your life at the moment, and Christmas isn’t exactly about being merry (though if you do feel merry, that’s amazing, I think I do too this year, for once 😀 ). Generally though, I wish you more of a joyous, innerly peaceful, thankful kind of happy Christmas. Or if even that is hard to achieve for you and where you’re at in life, a very hopeful one, at the very least. That’s a must, or else it’s hardly Christmas. I wish you to remember what Christmas is actually celebrated for and why it’s called Christmas and not Wintermas or Snowmas or Loads-of-Yummy-Food-mas. I talk about this every year on here, but I really do think it’s so sad that it’s Jesus’ birthday, and so many people want to celebrate it, yet a lot of them seem to totally ignore the birthday boy. 

   Whether you’ll be celebrating alone or with family or friends or whatever other company, I wish your Christmas not to be lonely, neither in a alone and lonely way, nor in a lonely in a crowd way. And I really hope it won’t be boring or overwhelming or under-/over-stimulating, or stressful, or all those other things that we know Christmases and other such holidays can very often be. 

   I also wish you a cosy Christmas, loads of yummy food, and that you can give and receive some cool presents. Who wouldn’t like that? 

   To all the non-Christian people who are also celebrating something, be it Christmas without the Christ- part, or having time off work, or some other religious holiday, I also want to wish you a happy, cosy, and memorable holidays. 

   And for all those who aren’t celebrating anything, I wish you hope and inner peace as well, and that you have a cool weekend. 

   Misha wants to wish all pets and peeps the best food in their lives, and hopes you can all catch up on sleep and keep warm, either inside your own fur, or some fluffy clothes, and that it’s not gonna be too noisy in your house and that you can spend a bit of time just with yourself. 

   And, yeah, traditionally, I’ve got to share some Christmas song! Last year I thought I’d ran out of all my favourite Christmas songs to share, but over the course of this year I remembered about a few that I’ve never shared on here and heard some new beautiful Christmas pieces. The one I’m sharing with you today belongs to the latter category. 

   This is a  Welsh Christmas carol called “Ar Gyfer Heddiw’r Bore” (On This Day in the Morning), written by David Hughes in 19th century. It seems to be very popular at what is called Plygain in Wales – a traditional Christmas service held either at night or early in the morning where people gather to sing carols, of course in harmony since that’s the only way Welsh people can sing. 😀 – This tradition has been apparently going through a bit of a renaissance lately and it sounds really cool. 

   However, the version of this song that I want to share with you is a little different. It is sung by Gwilym Bowen Rhys (yeah, one of my faza people and yeah, that renewed October peak is still going strong and I’m really glad that my faza life seems to have gone back to normal after like two years of weird chaos) as part of a project called Celtic Beethoven initiated by the Galician musician Carlos Núñez (I believe largely online-based), which involved a lot of musicians from Celtic countries and regions performing Celtic songs arranged by Ludwig van Beethoven. This carol is usually sung to a different tune, but in the recording below, Gwilym sings it to the tune of a Welsh song called The Vale of Clwyd, arranged by Beethoven. And I think this is absolutely stunning, and gives this carol more of a soul! Personally, the original melody makes me think of the Pentre Llanfihangel  song, which is the first thing that I ever heard sung to this tune (by Plethyn), and Gwilym’s version sounds so much more like what I think an old-ish, Christian piece like this should actually sound. 

   If you’d like to know what this carol is about and find out more about Plygain as such, or hear a version of this carol in its original melody, I recommend you visit this blog. 

Advertisement