Season 5 episode 6 - On a storyteller's night


10 days later, we are writing november 2013 now, I went on a family trip to Malaga. Just a weekend trip, just to get out and about. You can't be sitting at home for too long, can you now?
The trip itself was nothing out of the ordinary and doesn't merit a mention here if it wasn't for....

Well, let's back up a few decades to my childhood.

Which memories sticks with you from your earliest age? Research says strong emotional states preserves memories the strongest. And what stronger emotion than unfair treatment, exclusion, betrayal?

When I was a kid, Christmas time had its routine. When the bell rang for Christmas - a silver bell hung in a doorway, ceremoniously chimed by my father as he poured us all a cup of the way too strong mulled wine prepared according to an ancient recipie attributed to auntie T - it marked the start of a strict and fourteen day long script to be acted out. Each day of the holiday had its own food served at the specific time.
Some days were family time, some were devoted to relatives visiting. "How tender isn't that ox-tounge!" was the standing compliment my mother got every year from the same elderly relative on every Christmas day (and it only took 2 repeat performances for the naughty kids to pick that up and use it year around - "How tender isn't that lasagna!" when dear mother had failed and turned it into charcoal)

The house was decorated inside and out. Spruce twigs on the porch. Oats for the birds. Porridge for the gnomes. The latter only for a few hours though - it's such a terrible waste of proper food, my mother would say - so I am not sure exactly how deeply invested we were in the belief of the house gnome.

Inside, naturally a tree but also the seasonal tapestries were up. A very local version of the nativity scene was set, featuring gnomes, a miniature log cabin (built up every year from actual 5 x 5 mm logs with handmade cut-out, needed to be fit in a specific order) with mood lightning scavenged from a doll-house and a model of an Öland windmill, cleverly motorised to the exact right level of tackiness. Less of any religious items, but I believe there were some angles next to the ice skater.

You know, just a regular Christmas. I'm sure you all had the same scenes going on.

Needless to say, Christmas was foodie heaven. At noon, a Christmas smörgåsbord. At 3 Christmas coffee, with huge selection of cookies. At 6 Christmas dinner, including lute fish and rice porridge. In case anyone got hungry in-between there was an abundance of seasonal fruit, nuts, dates, marzipan figures and chocolate, all at will.
However, and now we're getting near the core issue, there was one treat reserved for the adults - the yule stump.

So naturally, from this food and candy orgy, the strongest memory is of the mythical yule stump I was deprived of. A chocolate covered marzipan creation shape like a tree log (and, I only realise this as a grown up, spiked as h.ll with liquor).
Auntie T's mulled wine, where one sip was enough to burn the lips, is a faint memory compared to the locked away yule stump that only came out of hiding after kids were sent to bed.
And I know it was feasted upon by the masters of the house in secrecy, because a dark Christmas evening the naughty kids sneaked out of bed to spy on the adults through the closed living room door. Apparently I also sent a blackmail note through the door slit demanding fair distribution of Yule stump to the subjects or bad things would happen to the grown-up dictatorship. The note was duly ignored, but preserved for the future.

I've had my fair share of mulled wine in life, but I've never seen or even heard of the yule stump since. I started to think it was just a figment of my imagination. Maybe I just made it up, a symbol to explain some injustice from childhood?


But here, in year 2013 AD, as I enter a simple convenient store in the 2 800 year old city of Malaga, there is like a divine light drawing my attention to a stack of red boxes. Angels sing as I near it in disbelief. It isn't... It couldn't be... could it?




Rare sighting: Tronco di natale - the yule stump proven to exist


So every now and then, on a dark and windy storyteller's night I gather the sceptics around and as the fire dies down I tell this story. Keep the faith, don't give up. And most importantly - travel the world and you will find!


There's a storm lamp, on the table
Throwing shadows, to the gable
And you swallow, if you're able
On a storyteller's night

There's a chill wind, at your back door
And the fire cracks, on the damp floor
You hear footsteps, but you're not sure
On a storyteller's night