On the 3rd Day of Christmas...

Hello there, my name is Colm O'Reilly. (pronounced; Call-um).
You haven't met me yet, but my story is still a work in process. It's quite long.
Megan has been working on it for a couple years, but not a lot, so it's coming along slowly.

Anyhow, I hope you all had a very lovely Christmas!
I decided to see what sort of post Miss Hyde wrote yesterday, (I found it enjoyable, I hope you did as well!) and I decided that I am going to share a different sort of post.
I thought I would share some of my Irish Christmas traditions.

Nollaig Shona Duit!

This is the Gaelic greeting for this festive time of the year. Though I normally speak English myself, I do like to use my native tongue on occasion!
Nollaig Shona Duit is, as you have probably already guessed, means Merry Christmas.
You pronounce it: "Null-ig hun-a dit."

Decorations

Since my family isn't much for expensive decorations or extravagance, most of our decorations are handmade.
Ever since I was a wee lad, I liked to make the annual Holly Wreath.
It is still my job to build the wreath every year, but I always let my ten year old sister, Sarah, help me gather the prickly greenery.
Holly Wreaths are a very common sight here in Ireland. Since holly grows wild, the richest even to the poorest of us can make a lovely bit of decoration for our front doors.

Besides our annual holly, we always have a large pillar candle in our front window that we keep lit from Cristmas Eve, all the way to what we like to call "Little Christmas", or, Epiphany. (January 6th).

A frosty holly wreath

Celebrations

We have a small family celebration on Christmas day, a lovely meal with a nicely roast goose, potatoes, a Christmas pudding, and sometimes a few delicious rolls.
I dearly love Christmas celebrations, rejoicing for the birth of our Savior and King!
My family and I, which consists of my father, mother, younger brother Jack, and little sister Sarah; gather in our living room and sing Christmas carols, then give each other our gifts.
January 6th is a special day for the mothers, sisters and wives in our lives. We like to give them a day off, so us men take over the cooking, dishes, and all their usual housework while they get to visit each other and just enjoy a full day of no worries or work. In my opinion, our ladies should have far more than one day vacation from work, they work so very hard to make our lives easy and enjoyable... But I digress.

At the end of the 6th, we take all decorations down. Nobody dares to take them down before, as it is considered bad-luck to take down our Christmas decorations before the 6th. Perhaps it's a silly superstition, but we treat it as tradition. The decorations are lovely, so I'm never in a hurry to take any of them down.

Goodness, I think this post has been long enough, I don't want to bore any of you with my dull writing skills!

I had better go, I have some wood to chop. It's rather nippy outside, and I don't want the cold to find its way in here...

Nollaig Shona Duit, readers!

Thanks for sharing, Colm.

Hope ya'll enjoyed reading my dear character's post!

Hope you come back for tomorrows post, too.

God bless!

Megan