{"id":2358,"date":"2013-12-25T12:02:43","date_gmt":"2013-12-25T19:02:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/?p=2358"},"modified":"2013-12-25T12:02:43","modified_gmt":"2013-12-25T19:02:43","slug":"wassail-wassail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/?p=2358","title":{"rendered":"Wassail, Wassail!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I learned my first drinking song when I was in 6<\/span>th<\/span><\/sup> grade.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Is that bad??<\/span><\/p>\n

I was a \u201cLady\u201d at the time.\u00a0 \u00a0Chuck Purzner was my \u201cLord.\u201d \u00a0We were in the middle of a Medieval Christmas program.\u00a0 [Does this surprise you?\u00a0 And do you think this Lady gig is better \u2013 or worse \u2013 than being a robot in a sci-fi Christmas program??\u00a0 And as a Christmas gift to ourselves, we\u2019ll pause right here, right now, and address the elephant in the room by saying that every grade school Christmas program is horrific.\u00a0 Completely horrific.\u00a0 This has been the case since Time Immemorial.\u00a0 And yes, that\u2019s a phrase.\u00a0 Look it up.\u00a0 It means \u2018since before anyone can remember.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0 I bet even NOAH\u2019S kids were giving bad Christmas programs back in the day; especially that one year they had all the rain.\u00a0 Well and no real Christmas to speak of because Jesus hadn\u2019t been born yet.\u00a0 But whatevs.\u00a0 You get the point<\/em>.]<\/span><\/p>\n

Anywhoooo\u2026back to me.\u00a0 Hey, LAAAADY! <\/span><\/p>\n

Matthew Torpey had just wrapped up his stint as Good King Wenceslas, wearing a cape and trudging across the stage re-enacting the song of the same name.\u00a0 \u2018Cept instead of giving off a Father-Christmas-does-good sort of vibe, Matthew made it look like he was from mimeville.\u00a0 And he spent all twelve stanzas of the song perfecting his walking-into-the-wind act.<\/span><\/p>\n

After which a short 6<\/span>th<\/span><\/sup> grade girl dressed in a tunic and tights stumbled on to the stage carrying a big punch bowl.\u00a0 (By way of explanation on how we all got our awesome Christmas program parts: she was short, so she got to be a page.\u00a0 I was tall, one of the three tallest girls in the class, and thus got to be one of the three ladies.\u00a0 We were paired with the three tallest lords in the class.\u00a0 How you like dem apples?\u00a0 No mad skillzzz involved.\u00a0 Just height.\u00a0 Or lack thereof.\u00a0 Hey LAAAADY!)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Once the page stumbled on to the stage, that was my cue to give my big line, \u201cPray, Dear Page, tell what brims thy wassail bowl?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

At which point we all started singing the worst, most nonsensical Medieval drinking song of all time:<\/span><\/p>\n

Wassail, wassail, all over the town!*<\/span><\/em>
\nOur bread it is white, and our ale it is brown.<\/span><\/em>
\nOur bowl, it is made of the green maple tree.<\/span><\/em>
\nIn the wassail bowl, we\u2019ll drink unto thee.<\/span><\/em>
\n\u00a0<\/span><\/em>
\nHere\u2019s to the ox, and to his right eye*<\/span><\/em>
\nPray God send our master a good Christmas pie<\/span><\/em>
\nA good Christmas pie \u2018ere I did see<\/span><\/em>
\nIn the Wassail Bowl we\u2019ll drink unto thee<\/span><\/em>
\n\u00a0<\/span><\/em>
\nI still don\u2019t really know what this song means.\u00a0 But the mystified 6th grader in me knows that as the song\u00a0goes on, you\u2019re supposed to get rowdier and rowdier.\u00a0 Perhaps even consider clanking your mugs together if the spirit so moves you.\u00a0 And for shizzle, be of good cheer.\u00a0 While you\u2019re doing that?\u00a0 Grown up me will\u00a0be over here.\u00a0 In the Wassail Bowl.\u00a0 Drinking unto thee.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cheers!\u00a0 And Merry Christmas!\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*These are the words I learned thirty-five years ago.\u00a0 But I recognize there are many variations of the song.\u00a0 None of which really make any sense.\u00a0 (I mean, come on!\u00a0 Here\u2019s to the ox and to his right eye<\/em>?\u00a0 What, exactly, are we doing with the ox\u2019s right eye?\u00a0 Are we shooting dice with it?\u00a0 Or\u2026gulp\u2026EATING it for good luck?!?\u00a0 Either way, I\u2019m out.)\u00a0 But if you do know different words?\u00a0 Then you should totally get your OWN blog and tell us about YOUR Sixth\u00a0Grade Christmas program.\u00a0 Until then, you know where you can put your good Christmas pie.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I learned my first drinking song when I was in 6th grade.\u00a0 Is that bad?? I was a \u201cLady\u201d at the time.\u00a0 \u00a0Chuck Purzner was my \u201cLord.\u201d \u00a0We were in the middle of a Medieval Christmas program.\u00a0 [Does this surprise you?\u00a0 And do you think this Lady gig is better \u2013 or worse \u2013 than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2358"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2358"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2369,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2358\/revisions\/2369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}