Another of my pet peeves is Christmas Eve. Not the evening itself, but the usage of the term.

Way too many ignorant folks throw the term around to mean the day before Christmas, when any half-way sentient humanoid understands that it means the night before Christmas. I mean it’s right there in the word eve, a clearly shortened form of evening.

Referring to the night or evening before a day as that day’s eve derives from the Jewish tradition of beginning their days on the evenings as it is recorded in Genesis 1:5: “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”

And Debbie, or anybody else who wants to tell me that language evolves, and words change their meanings, well, you’ll just have to take it up with my mother, as she is the one who inculcated me with the correct meaning of Christmas Eve when I was but knee-high to a Santa’s elf. Of course, you’ll have take it up with her in the after-life, which I don’t believe exists, but if it does, there’s a good possibility that you won’t end up in the same place anyway. 

Meanwhile, one of my Christmas Eve traditions, one more often honored in the breech, but still a tradition as far as I’m concerned, is listening to a recording of Rimsky-Korsakov’s wonderful opera entitled Ночь перед or Christmas Eve. It’s based upon the Gogol short story about the blacksmith Vakula who tames the devil to fly him to St. Petersburg to ask the Tsaritsa (Catherine the Great) for a pair of her slippers because his haughty girlfriend Oxanna will only have him if he can obtain them for her. The story is filled will many other colorful characters as well.

Alas, I’ve only had audio recordings of this truly great opera. Until just a few minutes ago I saw that there is a Blu-ray available. Which I just ordered. More when it arrives.

In the meantime I commend the Gogol story to you and here is a suite from Rimsky’s opera to give you a taste; if that Polonaise, starting at around 16 minutes, doesn’t get your feet tapping and your heart pounding, nothing will. I truly don’t comprehend why it’s taken this long to for a Blu-ray to come out, when many of his lesser operas (in my opinion) have long been available.