Every year, I tackle the personal challenge of designing a Christmas card to share with friends, family and clients. This year’s Christmas card is actually a postcard that highlights a long forgotten Winter Solstice traditional game called Snapdragon.

I read about this traditional game when researching the subject at the library (yes, the granite building with the books). There, on my hunt for Winter Solstice traditions of yore, I was aided by three very eager elderly women, who were handing me books left and right, faster than you can say “Dewey Decimal System.”

I finally arrived at Robert Chambers, Book of Days, published in 1869. The Book of Days is an amazing and beautiful old book that describes in detail key historical events, people, and forgotten customs of cultures from every corner of the world. It is organized by the days in the year in which the events, people or customs are relevant. The book is chock-ful of ancient yore, illustrations, and wisdom. In searching through all the pages belonging to Winter Solstice traditions, I finally arrived at the game of Snapdragon. Below is the description from the Book of Days:

“One favorite Christmas sport, very generally played on Christmas Eve, has been handed down to us from time immemorial under the name of ‘Snapdragon.’ To our English readers this amusement is perfectly familiar, but it is almost unknown in Scotland, and it seems therefore desirable here to give a description of the pastime.

A quantity of raisins are deposited in a large dish or bowl (the broader and shallower this is, the better), and brandy or some other spirit is poured over the fruit and ignited. The bystanders now endeavour, by turns, to grasp a raisin, by plunging their hands through the flames; and as this is somewhat of an arduous feat, requiring both courage and rapidity of action, a considerable amount of laughter and merriment is evoked at the expense of the unsuccessful competitors.”

Drafting off this concept, I created a Christmas postcard to mail to friends and clients, and a Snapdragon Game Kit complete with vodka, raisins, and instructions. Maybe, with my help, this ancient tradition will take hold again, and from every house you will hear cries of pain (as knuckle-hair singes) and carolers will sing the old Snapdragon theme song:

‘Here he comes with flaming bowl,
Don’t he mean to take his toll,
Snip! Snap! Dragon!

Take care you don’t take too much,
Be not greedy in your clutch,
Snip! Snap! Dragon!

With his blue and lapping tongue
Many of you will be stung,
Snip! Snap! Dragon!

For he snaps at all that comes
Snatching at his feast of plums,
Snip! Snap! Dragon!

But Old Christmas makes him come,
Though he looks so fee! fa! fum!
Snip! Snap! Dragon!

Don’t ‘ee fear him, be but bold–
Out he goes, his flames are cold,
Snip! Snap! Dragon!’
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Cheers to new beginnings in 2010 and a joyful holiday!