The year continues at a ferocious pace. Santa is warming up his reindeer, bells are preparing to ding dong merrily on high, and children are pushing candles into oranges and calling them Christingles. Yes, winter draws on and December is taking us ever closer to the big day.
Christmas was a time for both joy and reflection in most years at the Brontë parsonage in Haworth (excepting that tragic Christmas of 1848). As daughters of the parish priest, the Brontë sisters would have taken part in a succession of Church of England services, as well as being involved in cake making and teaching at the local Sunday school founded by their father Patrick Brontë.
December and Christmas feature in many of the books written by the Brontë sisters, but what did their brother Branwell Brontë think of December? We get the answer in a poem he composed, “The Desolate Earth, The Wintry Sky”. Branwell rather helpfully dated this composition, so we know he wrote it on 15th December 1841:
On a similar theme, Branwell also penned a poem called ‘Winter-Night Meditations,’ in which he bemoans the appearance of winter with “the sky’s o’ercast,The night is cold and loud the blast.”
It is clear December is a time of remembrance to Branwell, just as it is to many people today. It’s also a time for loving one another, and serving one another – something which came readily to mind as I served tea and coffee in my local church this morning, decked out in my Brontë sisters apron!
I hope that December, despite its ‘ceaseless rain-showers’, is a happy one for you, without too many loud blasts in the cold night, and I hope you can join me next week for another new Brontë blog post.