{"id":5138,"date":"2022-01-03T14:23:04","date_gmt":"2022-01-03T14:23:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/2022\/01\/column-cm109-its-that-time-of-the-year-wales\/"},"modified":"2024-02-14T20:58:33","modified_gmt":"2024-02-14T20:58:33","slug":"column-cm109-its-that-time-of-the-year-wales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/2022\/01\/column-cm109-its-that-time-of-the-year-wales\/","title":{"rendered":"Column #CM109 It’s that time of the year – Wales!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday, January 3, 2022
\nColumn CM109
\nMeet the players – Wales<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Wales – which, of course, is part of the United Kingdom –\u00a0some special Christmas and New Year\u2019s traditions (the season ends on January 6th) can be found while others are slowly falling into oblivion.<\/p>\n

In Wales one can find a colorful Christmas tree in the sitting room, often decorated with craft objects from paper in different colors.<\/p>\n

An important part of Christmas decorating at home are mistletoes and hollies, as mistletoes protect one from harm while hollies are a symbol for eternal life.<\/p>\n

Also important in Wales are Christmas carols – both at home around the Christmas tree and in the churches.\u00a0 Often carol singers walk from house to house and sing their songs.\u00a0 Every year,\u00a0new songs are composed and one of them will be awarded Carol of the Year.<\/p>\n

In some rural regions, on the Christmas morning before dawn – between 3:00 am and 6:00 am (often lasting all three hours) the Plygain service still takes place – it consists of polyphonic carols sometimes accompanied by the harp.\u00a0 The Plygain singers often stay awake all night making toffee over the fire, playing games and narrating fairy tales before they proceed to church.\u00a0 After the service and all day long the celebrating, drinking and eating will continue.\u00a0 Later in the day the gifts will be handed out.<\/p>\n

In other regions on the morning of the Christmas day, Christmas swimming (yes, swimming!) will take place – often to collect money for charities.\u00a0 In other parts of Wales, the swimming will be on New Year\u2019s Day.\u00a0 Probably the sea will be rather cold on both days!<\/p>\n

An old tradition which was revived recently is the Mari Lwyd which will take place usually between Christmas Day and the Twelfth Day – a tradition of which the origin is not quite clear, but which probably combines Christian legend and Celtic mythology…<\/p>\n

A horse head (not a real one!) is put on a stick and a man wrapped in a white cloth (as the horse\u2019s body) carries it around.\u00a0 Mari is often accompanied by a\u00a0groom and some traditional figures.\u00a0 In front of the houses the group and the horse will sing Welsh songs, tell riddles or rude rhymes.\u00a0 When one open their door to Mari it will play tricks on them and their family – but they will all be lucky in the New Year.\u00a0 Mari and companions usually will be rewarded with food and beer.<\/p>\n

On New Year\u2019s Day, Calennig will be celebrated – a feast to welcome the New Year.\u00a0 It often is a feast for the children who walk from door-to-door singing and telling rhymes.\u00a0 They will be rewarded with sweets, bread and cheese or money.\u00a0 The children carry an apple stuck on three sticks and decorated with raisins, nuts and twigs of bux – which is a lucky symbol as well.<\/p>\n

Obviously, a lot of the traditions have to do with food and drinking and of course on Christmas Day a special Christmas dinner is served in Wales.\u00a0 It is very similar to the English Christmas dinner – a stuffed turkey with vegetables and Welshcake or pudding for desert.<\/p>\n

Jim Williams, Nick Kenny and Lewy Williams will have been back in Wales in time for the Christmas dinner and I hope it hit the spot. Jonny Clayton probaly will have made it just in time for the New Year and, who knows, perhaps has taken part in a New Year\u2018s swimming.<\/p>\n

Gerwyn Price stood on the stage of the Alexandra Palace on New Year\u2019s Day and threw a nine-darter to welcome the new year.\u00a0 But he lost the battle to defend the title against Michael Smith and will be on his way back to Wales while in the Ally Pally a new World Champion will be crowned.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Wales – which is part of the United Kingdom –\u00a0some special Christmas and New Year\u2019s traditions (the season ends on January 6th) can be found while others are slowly falling into oblivion…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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Mutschler","author_link":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/author\/charis-mutschler\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"In Wales - which is part of the United Kingdom -\u00a0some special Christmas and New Year\u2019s traditions (the season ends on January 6th) can be found while others are slowly falling into oblivion...","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":14,"user_id":3,"is_guest":0,"slug":"charis-mutschler","display_name":"Charis Mutschler","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Charis-150-150.png","url2x":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Charis-150-150.png"},"first_name":"Charis","last_name":"Mutschler","user_url":"http:\/\/www.globaldarts.de\/","job_title":"","description":"Charis Mutschler is from Marbach, near Stuttgart, Germany. Her husband introduced her to the sport by bringing a dartboard into their marriage (or was it to their wedding?), turning her from a librarian by day into a darts fanatic by night. Charis has been writing about the sport for years and is a regular at most PDC majors, from which she provides reports and conducts player interviews. She is bilingual and cultured, with a love for literature, dance, music, cats, and the conservation movement. Charis\u2019 writings about darts and its players often transcend the typical, showcasing her class and distinction, unlike Dartoid and the Old Dart Coach."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5138"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5207,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5138\/revisions\/5207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5138"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=5138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}