Author Archives: jwroth

Presenting Christmas

Text:
The informant’s family opens all presents from non-immediate family on Christmas eve, while the presents from immediate family are saved for Christmas Day. On Christmas day these presents are only opened after the informant’s mother reads the Christmas story aloud.

Context:
The informant thinks that the presents of immediate family being saved for Christmas is because it’s more exciting to see people open gifts that you gave them and hear what they think than it is to see them open presents from other people, so it’s saving the most fun for the most special day. As for the Christmas story reading, he thinks that’s to prioritize and reinforce that it’s the celebration of Christianity and Jesus’ birth, not just a random holiday.

Analysis:
I think the informant is correct with all of his analysis, but that there is an extra layer to saving the immediate family’s presents for Christmas day, and that is to emphasize the importance of one’s family a little more than any other friends or relatives.

Sick Foods

Text:
Growing up, when the informant got sick, his parents would always feed him the same boxed chicken noodle soup. He remembers it coming in small red boxes. He would also get biscuits, or crackers if they had no biscuits. What he was given to drink was always seven-up, though when he was older this was sometimes swapped out for Gatorade. Recently, he found some other people online whose parents had also given them Chicken soup with seven up when they were sick. He was also told to lie down on his left side, which he still does occasionally and it seems to work fine.

Context:
He has absolutely no idea why these foods were the specific ones that he always got. He can understand Chicken noodle soup and biscuits being good foods when sick, because they are warm and rather plain/simple when it comes to flavor/spices, but can’t for the life of him figure out why bubbly seven up was in there. He thinks the lying on his left side might be to help with digestion, but isn’t sure why it’s specifically his left side.

Analysis:
I think the informant is correct that the foods are chosen based on being simple and palatable for a sick stomach, as well as warm. I think always the same so that when a child is uncomfortable and sick, they can be comforted by having some structure and consistency returned to them via the food they’re given while they’re feeling weird and foreign. I’d imagine that the seven up is given to the children because it’s tasty but not all that hard to digest, so the value it brings the child through enjoyment of their meal helps them feel better more than any sugar in it would make their sickness worse. I have no better guess than my informant on why he was told to lie specifically on his left side.

Stocking Up On Coffee

Text:
Every Christmas, the informant’s mom will fill his stocking up with snacks and food, and always some canned coldbrew coffee that she left in the fridge overnight, then put in his stocking early that morning.

Context:
The informant and his mom are both foodies, so this is something they can bond over. He specifically really likes coffee, especially cold brew, but it can take some time to make, and is usually harder to find or get. Having it in his stocking that morning is also a practical convenience because if he wants coffee, they don’t need to spend a lot of time making it or finding a cafe that is open and has it.

Analysis:
This is something that I would consider more to be the start of folklore if it continues than full fledged folklore at the moment, but I felt it was too cool and sweet of a thing not to include in my posts. It’s a cool way to celebrate your loved ones by giving them a gift that fits their interests, and doing anything consistently makes it even more special, as it becomes something that can be relied on, which is comforting.

Feast of the 7 Fishes

Text:
Around Christmastime, his family will have a dinner party they invite family and friends to called the Feast of 7 Fishes. They will play Italian music and, among other celebratory little decorations, make a menu of the dishes that will be had at dinner. These dishes will have a total of 7 types of fish/seafood spread throughout them.

Context:
The informant’s Grandmother on his mother’s side passed away a few years ago. She was a first generation Italian immigrant who was very proud of being Italian. His mother has recently been looking to connect with her Italian side more. One of the ways she is doing this is by celebrating the feast of 7 fishes, which is a tradition of early italian immigrants to the Americas. They were celebrating how much more fortunate/wealthy they were in America than they had been in Italy, and found that they could afford to eat seven fish at christmastime, not just one like they had been limited to back in Italy.

Analysis:
I think the informant’s analysis of the original festival- the feast of the 7 fishes- is accurate, mainly celebrating newfound wealth and good fortune. It also is a celebration at Christmastime which, for Christians (and many Italians were Christian), is a time of being grateful for what God has given them. This gratitude centers on him sending his son, Jesus, to earth, but definitely is a time to be grateful to him in general, which would include good fortune and newfound wealth. I think there is another layer to why his mother has recently found this desire to deepen her connection to her Italian side, however, and that is to feel a deeper connection to her own recently deceased mother, as well as to respect her by starting to cherish something she cherished.

Scaring Sante’s Sedan Screwers

Text:
The informant and his friend group would often camp out in a specific friend’s back yard. Whenever they did, they would wait until it’s past midnight, then drive up a mountain in the area called Cap Sante, where they would find cars that are parked and shaking a bit. They would sneak up to these cars, which would be populated with other teenagers or people in their early 20s doing the deed, and flash their flashlights into the windows, then run away and do it to another car after a while.

Context:
The friend whose back yard they would camp in was Mormon, and his father was very strict with him about many things. One thing he wasn’t too strict about, however, was camping/outdoor activities. This is why they would camp out at that friend’s house a lot, as it was what they were allowed to do with that friend. The trips to Cap Sante began when they were in middle school, and only one of them could drive, and he only had a driver’s permit, not a license. When they went for a drive, they wanted to go far away so they wouldn’t be caught by the strict father, and they wanted to go away from the town, so they wouldn’t be caught by the police. This narrowed their possible destinations down to just Cap Sante. Once they got there, they noticed the cars that were shaking. They started shining in their flashlights to scare the people away so they wouldn’t use the mountain as their midnight sex spot again. They started doing this regularly, later going to the mountain to find those cars, as opposed to finding those cars when looking for the mountain.

Analysis:
I think a lot of this ritual stems from children enjoying the thrill of rebellion and disobeying rules. The initial drive at night when it wasn’t allowed did this, and shining their flashlights into cars gives a similar thrill to ding-dong ditching, both of which are things that are rebellious because kids are taught to be kind and mind their own business, and these things are neither of those. An extra thrill for middle-school boys is the chance of seeing people having sex, or naked, which they likely hadn’t yet in person at that point.