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The 6th of January, the twelfth day of Christmas, is Nollaig na mBan, or Women’s Christmas. Traditionally, it’s a reward and acknowledgement of housewives’ hard work all year, especially during Christmas. Women’s Christmas or Little Christmas was their one day off during the year, free from domestic chores (1 out of 365, how generous!). The folklore doesn’t always specify that in the absence of Mammy doing housework that Daddy has to do feck all himself! Also, for Catholics, the date of the Epiphany, Nollaig na mBan was an opportunity for women to get together, away from the prying eyes and ears of their menfolk. They ate the last of the Christmas cake together. And whilst that seems like a quaint, or even unnecessary, reward nowadays it was very different in pre-1990s Ireland. Imagine how a female would often go from being in an all-girl school, kept from socialising with boys, and growing up in a stifling overprotective family home. Girls were usually burdened with helping their mothers care for their siblings and father at the expense of their own lives. Then, before they know it, they become stay-at-home housewives. Their interactions were limited to their husband and children. And all of this before even landline telephones and amid bans on women attending pubs or sports events, or anything really apart from the supermarket and mass! A very fitting parable of womanhood in “traditional” households was that by the time their reward of Nollaig na mBan came about, the only cake and treats they got were the leftovers. Other customs for today were taking down Christmas decorations, except the holly which was kept till Shrove Tuesday. In many coastal areas, mammies rubbed a herring (or any fish) on a child’s face to protect them from getting sick that year (we have vaccines now thank god). A cute yet creepy myth was that cows and sheep and horses magically gained the power of speech briefly at Women’s Christmas, but it was bad luck to hear them talk! Another fun one was that the water in certain holy wells turned into wine, like the wedding at Caana, at midnight on Little Christmas. I’ll get me bucket! So, if you are blessed to still have one, please hug your Mammy for me. Make her a cup of tea and ask her about her favourite memory from childhood. Or ask her what she’d love to accomplish in 2025, and then secretly help make it come true for her. Beannachtaí Nollaig na mBa
Last edited from Fingal, Ireland
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