Yule, by George Mackay Brown

Originally published in The Orcadian in GMB’s ‘Under Brinkie’s Brae’ column on 23rd December 1976

Woe betide any child who deliberately stayed awake to see Santa at work – he might get a stocking filled with cinders…

There was magic in the air for weeks beforehand. The stark air of winter held a different kind of enchantment from anything summer could offer: darker, more intense, more thrilling.

The first intimation came, perhaps, in school. We in “the higher infants” class, with bits of coloured paper and pots of paste, made our own decorations. Finally the day came when the paper chains were hung about the classroom wall. At once it was a place transformed – the austere class-room had become a magic palace!

In the Sunday School, we began to sing “Once in Royal David’s City” and “Away in a Manger”.

At home, of course, the main things happened. It had started in mid-November with the baking of cakes: one blond, and full of nuts and raisins and cherries, the other a dark rich heavy bun coated with a thick crust.

From some attic or cupboard last year’s decorations were dredged. Some had got tangled and torn – out to Rae’s shop then to get a few new ones, a penny each! In some kind of random pattern the decorations were pinned to the ceiling. In the centre beam the paper bell was hung. A few pieces of mistletoe were cunningly hidden in the coloured folds.

There were no Christmas trees in the nineteen-twenties, that I remember.

An all-important letter had to be written to Santa. No boy or girl seriously questioned the existence of that generous spirit; who was much more than a spirit; he was a real, stout, apple-cheeked, white-bearded, merry-eyed visitor from the North Pole, with a red hood and a red coat. He halted his reindeer on every roof-top where a child lived; he climbed down the chimney with his sack of presents; he filled your stocking in the darkness. (Woe betide any child who deliberately stayed awake to see Santa at work – he might get a stocking filled with cinders…)

There were far fewer christmas cards a half-century ago; those that did drop through the letter-box seemed (if I remember rightly) to be all celluloid and gilt ornate lettering. A parcel was a rarity.

Half way through December, ginger wine had been made, and stowed away in bottles. My taste buds still remember that sweetness, nuttiness, spiciness.

The letter was despatched up the lum and sometimes it dropped again, half-scorched and grimy with soot. Never mind – let it burn – Santa had got the message.

The great drama built up to a climax.

The blond cake was marzipaned and iced. The huge naked goose was stuffed with oatmeal, ready to be sent to the baker’s in the morning.

Amid shouts and yells, in the darkness of Christmas Eve, the youths and men dragged north or south, as Fate decided, the “Yule Log”.

There was an occasional mistletoe kiss – great laughter – the promise of a pair of gloves or a pair of socks…

Then it was time for children to be in bed; to sleep; to waken early to the great mystery of giving: made tangible in the stocking by a game of ludo, perhaps, with orange and apple, bag of sweeties, a threepenny bit; and a full day of wonderment to come.

Yule is published in Under Brinkie’s Brae – one of four compilations of George Mackay Brown’s weekly columns written for The Orcadian – available in all good bookshops.

Text reproduced by permission of the Estate of George Mackay Brown.

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