What happens when you leave boys and dogs alone in the house for a while? They start to roughhouse and break things of course.
This happened to me few days ago when I stepped out of the house for a little bit. I had just decorated our whole apartment, so everywhere you'd look, you could see decorations. I guess to boy and dog eyes these decorations look like a fun playground because once I got back home, I found one of my ceramic snowmen missing a leg. At first boys didn't confess anything but after I demanded to know what had happened, I was told that Jinx's tail sideswiped the poor snowman while he was playing a little too rough with Scott (*sigh*).
To replace the broken snowman, I bought this cute wrought iron pig decoration from Amanda B. It was on sale for 50% off, so I only paid 5 euros for it. Since it is iron it is really heavy and hefty. I'd like to see Jinx breaking this one (*giggle*).
It might sound weird to have a pig decoration for Christmas since most people in US celebrate their Christmas with turkey but the real tradition is to have a pig (boar). I found online that this tradition about pigs goes way back to Norse folklore where boar was served in Valhalla, the mythical hall where Odin received the souls of heroes who had fallen in battle. The Celts kept this tradition making pig more popular than beef for celebrations.
Since I took my time to search information for pigs as Christmas symbols I also found information about another classic Christmas animal. Yes, I'm talking about magical reindeer. This was also an interesting topic to me because reindeer live in Finland.
Reindeer are one of the first beasts of provision. They provide humans still to this day with food, supplies, warm clothing, tools. This puts reindeer on high status and worthy of honoring. Reindeer are and animal of nobility, worthiness and is symbolic of continuing the tribe as it provides for its needs.
But why can Santa's reindeer fly? This legendary myth made its public appearance in the 1800's in the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" which is also known as the "Night Before Christmas". Originally flying reindeer may have come from the early Norse myths in which Thor, the thunderous One was transported by a chariot pulled by goat who later morphed into reindeer as the legend was retold over time.
I have a pretty reindeer decoration too! I like it a lot and I display it on our window sill each Christmas. It is made out of metal, so Jinx can't break it either (*wink*). Here's couple pictures of it:
That's all for today. Take it easy my darlings, we have only 5 more days till Christmas Eve.
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