Traditions

by Paula Gail Benson

Aoutrow 24-Day Advent Calendar
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Mom always prepared the wooden Advent calendar, placing unique treats in each drawer.

In the spring, celebrating twenty-five married years, Pop gave Mom a new engagement ring. She removed the original and told me. “Joe, this is for your bride.”

I said, “Keep it for me.”

We lost Mom unexpectedly. Auto accident. With Sheila beside me, I watched Mom’s remains guided into the mausoleum vault.

The holidays approached. Important little things went undone. Regretfully, I lifted the empty Advent calendar, not having the heart to fill it until I heard something rattle in drawer 24. Mom’s engagement ring for Sheila.

***

This 100 word story is offered as an entry for the annual Advent Ghosts event hosted by Loren Eaton at I Saw Lightning Fall. See the other entries there. Thanks, Loren, for the opportunity! 

Colonel Sanders and Santa?

by Paula Gail Benson

In the 1970s, Takeshi Okawara, who managed Japan’s first KFC, began the “Kentucky for Christmas” campaign after visiting an elementary school dressed as Santa. He realized that Japan did not have established family cultural traditions for celebrating Christmas. In addition, fried chicken is similar to the popular dish of karaage, panko-breaded, deep-fried chicken or fish. Some think chicken also might have been a good substitute for turkey that was not as accessible and drier in taste. KFC offered its Japanese customers a “party barrel” which included chicken, cole slaw, and cake. Although alternatives now exist, KFC remains a holiday favorite.

CNN Travel Yuichi Yamazaki/Getty Images

 

Japanese Christmas Traditions

by Paula Gail Benson

Hoteiosho with good luck fan

Japanese children call the western figure “Santa San” or “Mr. Santa.” With few chimneys for him to enter, they consider him a ghostly presence bringing treats. KFC fried chicken is a preferred Christmastime meal, and often must be pre-ordered to meet the demand. A large, smiling Buddhist figure, Hoteiosho, referred to as a monk and one of the seven good fortune gods, is a gift giver associated with happiness. His name means cloth bag and he is never without his sack, which contains life’s good things. With eyes in front and in back of his head, he observes children’s behavior.

Flag-Maker and Caregiver

From: Mommy Nearest

As she grew older, Betsy Ross took in many family members and offered them a home, including nieces, Betsy’s widowed daughter Clarissa, and Clarissa’s five children. With Clarissa’s help, Betsy continued to work as an upholsterer and flag-maker until she retired at the age of seventy-six and went to live with her daughter Susanna outside Philadelphia. Despite losing her vision, Betsy made the weekly carriage ride into Philadelphia to attend services at the Free Quaker Meeting House. Three years before her death, Betsy was completely blind. She spent the last years of her life with her daughter Jane in Philadelphia.

Three Times a Widow

From Wikimedia Commons

Betsy Ross had three husbands. With John Ross, she opened an upholstery business. Following John’s death, she married, Joseph Ashburn, a seamen whose vessel, The Lion, was captured. After being charged with treason, he died in the Old Mill Prison in Plymouth, England. He and Betsy had two daughters, only one of whom lived to be an adult. A fellow prisoner, John Claypoole, brought Betsy the news of Joseph’s death. John and Betsy married and became members of the Society of Free Quakers, which supported the colonists’ fight against Great Britain. The Claypooles had five daughters, one dying while young.

A Woman of Mystery

Percy Moran, The Birth of Old Glory (1917). Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
From: http://commonplace.online/article/how-betsy-ross-became-famous/

While people know George Washington asked Betsy Ross to sew the first U.S. flag, few are aware of her personal history. Born into a Quaker family, the eighth of seventeen children, Betsy moved to Philadelphia at age three. Following her formal education, she apprenticed to an upholsterer, where she met her first husband, a fellow apprentice and Anglican. Because her family did not approve, they eloped. He died two years later. In 1774, Betsy made bed hangings for George Washington. Finding her both trustworthy and skilled, Washington commissioned her, a childless widow of twenty-four, to make a flag he designed.

The Betsy Ross Flag

A biography of Betsy Ross, written by National Women’s History Museum Fellow (2018-2019) Kerri Lee, contains the account of William Canby, Betsy’s grandson, explaining to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania why the United States flag has five-pointed instead of six-pointed stars. When George Washington, Robert Morris, and George Ross approached Betsy about stitching the flag, their design featured thirteen red and white stripes and thirteen six-pointed stars. Betsy convinced them to agree to five-pointed stars by folding a paper into triangles and creating a five-point star with a snip of her scissors. Betsy then made the first United States flag.

From: https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/betsy-ross

George and Martha Washington's Wedding

From: commons.wikipedia.org

George and Martha Washington were married on January 6, 1769, at White House, the estate Martha had inherited from her first husband, Daniel Parke Custis. Many festivities took place during this time of year. Likely, Martha prepared for numerous guests and stocked for them to stay an indefinite time period. Daniel, twenty years older than Martha, had been her husband for eight years before his death, probably from a heart attack. Eighteen months later, she married George, who was almost a year younger. A beautiful widow, aged twenty-six, with two children and an impressive inheritance, Martha made quite a catch.

The Six Pointed Star

The 2021 Mt. Vernon Christmas ornament features the six pointed star found on Washington’s Commander in Chief Standard or Headquarters Flag. The original silk flag, on display at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, is faded from a much darker blue and one of the earliest flags containing thirteen stars symbolizing the thirteen colonies. It indicated Washington’s position on the battlefield or his tent in an encampment. Interestingly, the ornament has twelve instead of thirteen stars. I wonder if they represent the twelve days of Christmas (since George and Martha Washington married on Twelfth Night or January 6)? 

From: Flagline.com