Have You Been Nice?
That’s Grandfather Frost [Дед Мороз] and he is the Russian ‘gift giver’. He is assisted by the Snow Maiden [Снегурочка], but ever the jolly, fun-loving people, the ‘gifts’ are a bit different. Threats of coal or sticks would be weird to a people who are trying to stay warm, they would consider them welcome.
Generally there are sweets, maybe salo [salted fatback], and other high energy food.
For the ‘naughty’ list there is the staff. You don’t get beaten, merely touched, which turns you into a popsicle. [I told you they were fun-loving.]
Tonight’s the night – you’ve been nice, right?
4 comments
i dunno… some sticks and coal sound kind of useful right now.
happy (almost) new year!
I’ve been dripping faucets in two underheated apartments. It looks like 25° for a week. I can’t work on the apartment as the concrete will have to warm up before the paint or flooring will stick. I would have a fire in the fireplace if I didn’t have a gas heater.
Lightweights.
It hasn’t hit 10° up here for over a week, though it might get up over 20° tomorrow and Thursday. Then, back in the deep freeze.
Someone thought if they left us out of the fridge too long, we’d go bad?
And they are freezing in Rochester, but no one is attempting to bring people in to rent outrageously priced condos on Lake Champlain or Lake Ontario, like they are along the Gulf Coast. Florida is getting the ‘best’ of climate change – rising sea levels to flood the state and polar vortexes to turn the flooded land into skating rinks.