not purchased from the local charity shop today: one silver thurible

[kaberett]

(For the princely sum of £15, no less.)

Boots are polished and out by the window, though, and probably very grateful for it they are too, given how long & how desperately they've needed a clean.

It is an interesting tension, for me, between not-my-religion and definitely-my-cultural-heritage, but observing Heiliger Nikolaus is a link to my grandmother and also an excuse to clean my shoes, so here we are, and in the morning I'll get up early to go to lab & they'll contain treats & I will pocket some of them to take with me.

Comments

[kaberett]

(Like: if I were living in a culture that more broadly celebrated this festival, I probably wouldn't observe it. But I'm not, so it's an anchor and memorial.)

[ewt]

This makes sense.

(Which charity shop? I was briefly in Enfield today picking up new glasses but did not stop and poke around charity shops and I so very likely would have bought a silver thurible had I seen one... unsure whether or not it is a good thing that I didn't, it's not like I need one at home.)

[emperor]

Every home needs a thurible ;-)

[ours was briefly the GSM thurible, when it turned out that what everyone thought was the GSM thurible actually belonged to the last vicar, who took it with them when they retired]

[kaberett]

Well *I* certainly think so! Alas my housemate is too raised-a-Methodist for this shit. :-p

[kaberett]

The Royal Free on the high street - it's in the jewelry case under the till...

[ewt]

I might be tempted... hmm.

[kaberett]

Please by all means rescue me from myself - I think one of my mother's siblings has taken custody of Mama's & Adam isn't tremendously sold on me making the house smell like a church...

("What would you DO with it," he demanded, when I explained that I'd seen it in the shop. "... what do you THINK I'd do with it, obviously" was apparently an alarming and heretofore unconsidered proposition...)

thurible : trouble :: thurifer : pyromaniac

[vass]

"... what do you THINK I'd do with it, obviously"

So, you're saying...?

- give people asthma attacks or at the least sensory overload
- having attached the lid insufficiently securely, enact Proverbs 25:22 upon anyone in the pews nearby
- knock out the clergyman

Re: thurible : trouble :: thurifer : pyromaniac

[kaberett]

Yes I would absolutely be rendering the house something I'm mildly allergic to, but TASTY TASTY NOSTALGIA

it is a lovely sunday in the church and you are a horrible acolyte

[vass]

I am now imagining Untitled Goose Game: Advent Edition, in which the goose gets loose in church, and it is SUCH A BEAUTIFUL IMAGE.

• Steal and light all four candles, in the correct order
• Reignite open warfare between the congregation and the choir
• Steal: an orange, a nut, a chocolate coin, a gingerbread, and something useful, to earn a lump of coal and a hazel switch.
• Swing the thurible (spoiler: light it using the lump of coal, then use the hazel switch to swing it from a safe distance)
• Make the priest use the wrong rite
• Make a congregationer get confused and say "And also with you" instead of "And with thy spirit" (or vice versa, denomination depending)
• Bonus level, Holy Goose Proceeding: reignite the Great Schism of 1054

Re: it is a lovely sunday in the church and you are a horrible acolyte

[sporky_rat]

YES PLEASE

Re: it is a lovely sunday in the church and you are a horrible acolyte

[kaberett]

I had in fact been discussing with A the possibility of DLC, and noting that the church isn't accessible from the main village map but does exist in the model village... :D

(And that's turrible.)

[vass]

What sort of treats are traditional?

Re: (And that's turrible.)

[kaberett]

Tiny oranges, nuts in their shells, chocolate coins, gingerbread painstakingly hand-decorated by Mama (which I have not yet attempted to replicate), and something small and probably useful.

(A lump of coal & hazel switches & Krampus if you've been bad.)

So this year Nikolaus (having a sense of humour) mostly filled Adam's boots with satsumas and nuts, but at the bottom of one was hidden a Terry's Chocolate Orange, unboxed, and in the other was a set of push pins with turtles as the heads. The first November we lived together the Useful Item was a nutcracker, because we didn't actually previously own one, and I was therefore delighted when he opened his shoes in the correct order, i.e. tipped the one that didn't contain the nutcracker out onto the duvet first. There was a confused pause followed by a long-suffering query as to how we were to get into the things, because he had not yet learned that NIKOLAUS IS A CONSIDERATE AND THOUGHTFUL VISITOR. :D

Re: (And that's turrible.)

[vass]

This is delightful to hear (and very reminiscent of Nussknacker und Mausekönig (Was Hoffmann Catholic? Or is this a general German thing, not a specifically Catholic one?)

Re: (And that's turrible.)

[fyreharper]

:D

[silveradept]

I would say I was incensed at your decision, but you didn't actually buy it, so there's no place for being incensed.

And also, I hope Père Nicholas leaves you wonderful gifts.

[jesse_the_k]

I'm here to provide the obligatory, appreciative groan

[silveradept]

It was hanging right there, so I couldn't resist taking a swing at it.

[sporky_rat]

I am seriously tempted to send you money and have you acquire it on my behalf because thurible!

[kaberett]

:D

[jesse_the_k]

My eyes jumped, and so I parsed "thurible" as "given how long & how desperately they've needed a clean" and the image of centuries of incense & dust embedded in the chain was suitably horrifying.