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Experimentally Induced Empathy Has No Impact on Generosity in a Monetarily Incentivized Dictator Game
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Behavior that benefits others at a personal cost to the behaving individual is a widespread phenomenon that continues to attract research attention in several fields, including philosophy, evolutionary biology, psychology, and economics. For example, humans invest time and energy in helping other members in their neighborhood (Van Vugt et al., 2000), contribute to charity (Milinski et al., 2002), come to each other's rescue in crises and disasters (Loewenstein and Small, 2007), and help strangers in spite of potential dangers (Clark and Word, 1974). That human society is abundant with examples of such pro-social behaviors is sometimes considered particularly puzzling among economists, as it challenges the orthodox assumptions of self-interest inherent to many theoretically driven "rational choice" models of human behavior (Camerer, 2003). Nevertheless, a robust body of empirical evidence based on laboratory games – which recreate social interactions in the laboratory using real monetary payoffs – shows that human behavior deviates from economic predictions of profit maximization. The game that best shows this incongruity is the Dictator Game (DG; Kahneman et al., 1986; Forsythe et al., 1994), currently the most prominent paradigm used by economists to investigate why human behavior sometimes deviates from pure self-interest (Bolton et al., 1998; Camerer, 2003; Henrich et al., 2004; Engel, 2011).
The DG is a simple, two player game. Participants are assigned either of two roles: Dictator or Recipient. The Dictator is provided a fixed sum of money, which she splits between herself and the Recipient. Unlike many other games (e.g., the ultimatum game), the Recipient has no power to refuse the money – the game ends after the Dictator's decision. Giving in the DG is both costly and unconstrained by fear of reprisal or other strategic considerations (Kahneman et al., 1986; Forsythe et al., 1994). Despite this, typical games result in Dictators donating approximately 20–30% of the endowment (Camerer, 2003; Engel, 2011).
Whereas economists have typically sought to explain or model pro-social behaviors with reference to the ultimate causes that could have made such behaviors evolutionarily adaptive, psychologists and recently also more experimentally minded economists have typically focused on the proximate motives that drive individual organisms to engage in those behaviors in the moment (Scott-Phillips et al., 2011). That is, what is it that motivates people to devote their resources to benefitting others? The motivation for all intentional action, including all action intended to benefit others, was long assumed to be egoistic: people were assumed to benefit others because, ultimately, to do so would benefit themselves. The prevailing theories of egoism were challenged by the empathy-altruism hypothesis (Batson and Coke, 1981), according to which empathy, typically defined as "the ability to understand and share in another's emotional state or context" (Cohen and Strayer, 1996, p. 988), promotes pro-social behavior in ways that cannot be accounted for by self-interest.
The central assertion of the empathy-altruism hypothesis is that empathy evokes altruistic motivation with the ultimate goal of increasing another's welfare. Note that in contrast to the literature in economics in which altruism is typically defined purely behaviorally as referring to "costly acts that confer economic benefits on other individuals" (Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003, p. 785), psychologists typically refer to altruism as the motivation to increase another person's welfare (Batson and Powell, 2003). The results from the stream of studies that followed the empathy-altruism hypothesis generally supported the view that empathy causes pro-social behavior. The dispute pertained primarily to whether this process was driven by heightened personal distress caused by the other's suffering (psychological egoism) or by genuine concern for the other's well-being (psychological altruism; see Batson and Shaw, 1991).
The empathy-altruism hypothesis suggests that those with higher levels of empathy would be expected to act in a more responsive way to the perceived feelings of another (Batson et al., 1987; Eisenberg and Miller, 1987; Andreoni, 1990; Batson, 1991; Andreoni and Miller, 2002). We therefore expected that increasing Dictator's empathy toward the Recipient by means of a widely used perspective-taking exercise (Coke et al., 1978; Batson, 1991, 2011; Davis et al., 1996; Stürmer et al., 2005; Ames et al., 2008) would lead the Dictator to make more generous allocations in the DG. Despite the obvious, almost trite, and basically commonsense nature of this hypothesis, we found no research that would directly test it. The closest we came was a study by Batson and Moran (1999), who found it remarkable that although more than 2,000 prisoner's dilemma studies had been conducted by the early 1990s, none of them had "tested the relatively straight-forward derivation from the empathy-altruism hypothesis that inducing empathy for the other person in a one-trial prisoner's dilemma will increase cooperation" (p. 911; note that what they denoted co-operation, we would subsume under the more general concept of pro-social behavior). In fact, our hypothesis is even more straightforward than the one tested by Batson and Moran (1999). Although defection in the prisoner's dilemma is always rational from a self-interested perspective, the ideal outcome in a prisoner's dilemma is mutual co-operation, providing more complex motives for pro-social behavior than the motives present in the DG (Camerer, 2003; Lönnqvist et al., 2013). Having argued that inducing empathy for the other person in a one-trial prisoner's dilemma should introduce a new pro-social motive – altruism – and that this motive should increase co-operation, Batson and Moran (1999) found support for this hypothesis. However, this influential study (cited around 300 times) has never been replicated. The small sample size [N = 60, i.e., 10 participants in each cell of a 3 (High Empathy vs. Low Empathy vs. Control) × 2 (Business Frame vs. Exchange Frame)] design may raise concerns regarding the replicability of the findings (Open Science Collaboration, 2015). Although there are still many open questions in the current discussion on replicability, there is general agreement that previous social psychology research has often been vastly underpowered and that sample sizes now need to increase. The primary purpose of the present research was thus to investigate, in a large enough sample, to what extent empathy leads DG Dictators to be more generous in their allocations.
Note that Batson and Moran (1999) sought to investigate whether empathy increases altruism. Although allocations in the DG have been described as altruistic (Benenson et al., 2007; Ben-Ner and Kramer, 2011; Israel et al., 2012), we reserve this term to denote the possible psychological motives underlying pro-social behavior. That is, we do not investigate whether empathy leads to altruistic motivation (cf. Batson and Moran, 1999), but whether empathy leads to more generous behavior in the DG, regardless of motives.
Participants and Procedure
Our study was conducted with 506 participants [mean age = 23.45 (SD = 4.03); 59% female] from the University of Cologne (Germany) majoring in different disciplines. Participants were invited via a Cologne Laboratory for Economic Research (CLER) mailing list with approximately 3,700 subscribers who had signed up to take part in experiments. Sixteen experimental sessions were run with 30–32 participants per session. In each session, only two participants were chosen to be Recipients (32 Recipients in all) because we wanted to maximize the number of Dictators given our monetary constraints, leaving us with 474 Dictators (no-one was excluded). Participants did not know that there were only two Recipients in each session. In each session, the two Recipients were randomly matched with two Dictators and paid accordingly.
Upon arrival, participants were randomly (1) seated in computer cubicles that secured anonymity, (2) assigned a role (Dictator or Recipient), (3) paired into dyads, and provided with written instructions. All experimental sessions were conducted on the computer using the experimental platform z-Tree (Fischbacher, 2007). The experiment lasted for about an hour (participants completed a questionnaire after the DG). Subsequently, participants were compensated with a fixed amount of 4€ along with the amount that they earned in the DG.
In the Empathy condition (N = 240), Dictators were asked, before making their decision, to write three sentences on a sheet of paper handed out to them about how they imagined the Recipient's feelings and how their decision would affect the Recipient. They were given 5 min to complete this widely used empathy inducing task (Coke et al., 1978; Fultz et al., 1986; Batson et al., 1988). In the control condition (N = 234), participants were asked to write three sentences about yesterday's weather.
At the outset of the DG, the Dictator was provided with an amount of 10€ that was to be distributed between herself and the Recipient. The Dictator could choose the option "8/2" that yielded 8€ for herself and 2€ for the other person or she could choose the option "5/5" that yielded equal payoffs of 5€ for both. The Recipient did not make any decision and the game was played only once. We chose the distribution 8/2 as our selfish option because the mean transfer in DGs is approximately 20–30% of the endowment (Camerer, 2003; Engel, 2011), suggesting that such a division is one that many participants would feel comfortable with [although continuous DGs have become increasingly popular, the game was originally dichotomous (Kahneman et al., 1986) and we wanted to keep it that way for reasons explained below].
As a manipulation check, participants rated on a scale from 0 (not at all) to 6 (very much) to what extent they felt empathetic, sympathetic, affectionate, warm, compassionate, caring, and concerned in relation to the Recipient. The mean of the seven items was 2.484 (SD = 1.343) and Cronbach's α was 0.90. Due to a technical mistake, the results of the manipulation check were not recorded in two of the sessions that we ran, which led to 60 participants having missing data on the manipulation check.
After the manipulation check, participants completed a short questionnaire that contained a measure of personal values and a standard set of demographic variables including sex and age. No other measures were administered. However, as we, at the outset, were interested also in the possible associations between empathy and hypocrisy, the option to flip a coin in order to determine the outcome was included as a parallel experimental manipulation that we report on only briefly. That is, half of the participants received a coin that they could flip in order to decide between the 5/5 and 8/2 outcomes. The coin was placed on the desk of the cubicle in which the Dictators made their decision and the accompanying instructions told Dictators that they could use the coin to determine their choice (it was this aspect of the research design that required us to employ a dichotomous dictator decision). Whether or not the participants were provided with the coin did not affect their decisions (F < 1 for both the main effect and the interaction between providing a coin and the empathy manipulation). All results, i.e., manipulation check results and Dictator decisions, were virtually identical for Dictators who received and did not receive a coin.
The manipulation check showed that the manipulation of empathy was effective. Those primed with empathy scored 2.699 (95% CI: 2.5336–2.865) on feelings of empathy toward the Recipient, whereas those in the control condition scored 2.188 [95% CI: 1.987–2.389; F (1, 411) = 15.13, η2 = 0.035 (corresponding to an effect size of d = 0.39), p < 0.001]. Whether or not Dictators received a coin in no way influenced the results of the manipulation check [without coin, those primed with empathy scored 2.654 and those not primed with empathy scored 2.157 (d = 0.35, p < 0.05); with coin, those primed with empathy scored 2.744 and those not primed with empathy scored 2.204 (d = 0.44, p < 0.001)]. All analyses were run with sex, age, and their interactions with other variables as covariates (including the abovementioned parallel manipulation with/without coin), but as the results were always virtually identical, only analyses without covariates are presented.
Among those 240 Dictators who received the empathy prime, 151 (62.92%) chose the 8/2 and 89 (37.08%) chose the 5/5 distribution. Among the 234 Dictators in the control condition, 162 (69.23%) chose the 8/2 and 72 (30.77%) chose the 5/5 distribution (see Figure 1). A chi-square test of independence was calculated comparing the frequency of the 5/5 choice among those primed with empathy and those in the control group. The difference between the two conditions (empathy vs. control) was not statistically significant [χ2(1) = 2.106, ω = 0.067 (95% CI: −0.024–0.154), p = 0.147]; this difference was also not significant when looking separately at Dictators who did not receive a coin and Dictators who did receive a coin [χ2(1) = 0.4554 and χ2(1) = 0.1970, respectively, both p > 0.15]. The effect size ω = 0.067 corresponds directly to an effect size of r = 0.067. Sensitivity analyses showed that we would have had an above 99% chance of detecting a typical social psychology effect size (r = 0.20; Richard et al., 2003; Stanley et al., 2019).
Figure 1. Frequency of 8/2 and 5/5 choices in the empathy and in the control condition.
The current experiment tested the hypothesis that increasing Dictator's empathy toward the Recipient would lead the Dictator to make more generous allocations in the DG. This hypothesis was refuted by the empirical evidence. We were thus with an eight-fold number of participants and a more straightforward experimental setup – the DG is motivationally less complex than the prisoner's dilemma – unable to reproduce the positive significant effect of empathy on pro-social behavior reported by Batson and Moran (1999). Importantly, the experimental manipulation of empathy was successful: Dictators instructed to imagine the Recipient's feelings felt more empathy toward the Recipient. There were also no ceiling or roof effects that could have distorted the results – in all, 161 (33.97%) of our 474 Dictators chose the equal allocation.
Although there is no one-to-one correspondence between pro-social behavior and altruism and we did not set out to investigate whether empathy leads to altruistic motivation, our results do speak to the empathy-altruism hypothesis. Because empathy did not increase pro-social behavior, it seems reasonable to conclude that it did not cause altruistic motivation, or at least not strong altruistic motivation. This can be considered surprising, taking into account that the empathy-altruism hypothesis has been supported by a large number of social psychology studies. One important advantage of investigating pro-social behavior in a monetarily incentivized DG is that it requires individuals to put their money where their mouth is. This is typically not the case in social psychology experiments. It seems possible that the altruistic motivation caused by empathy is so weak that even moderate monetary incentives (recall that our Dictators chose between an 8/2 and 5/5 allocation of 10€) will override it. In case the stakes had been smaller (or hypothetical), Dictators could have been more inclined to act upon their feelings of empathy. Empathy has indeed been suggested to increase only superficial minimal-cost helping (Neuberg et al., 1997). Consistent with this line of thought, the study by Batson and Moran (1999) that found a positive effect for empathy required participants to allocate lottery tickets, and the mean expected pay-off was only $0.50. Employing at least moderate monetary incentives in future studies on the effects of empathy on pros-social behavior and altruistic motivation could be highly revealing.
Some explanations of DG behavior allude to morality. People generally wish to consider themselves moral (Aquino and Reed, 2002), and judgments about right and wrong could thus guide Dictators' behavior. Some researchers within moral psychology have viewed empathy as a source of principled moral judgment (Nussbaum, 1996, 2001; Haidt, 2003) and as a mechanism selected by evolution as a proximate mechanism to generate altruism (De Waal, 2008). If an equal allocation (5/5) is judged more moral than an unfair allocation (8/2), our results suggest that feeling empathy toward someone does not always lead to more moral behavior toward that person. However, we also note that even though the manipulation of empathy was effective, empathy was still rather low, well below the midpoint of the empathy scale. One reason that empathy has by some researchers been argued to be a poor guide to moral judgments is that we may feel empathy only toward in-group members (Batson, 2011; Jordan et al., 2016; Bloom, 2017). It seems possible that the anonymous Recipient was not considered an in-group member and thus failed to elicit much empathy. The interplay or even interdependence of empathy and group membership (in-group vs. out-group Recipient) in the determination of Dictator behavior should be an interesting topic for future research.
Some other limitations of the present research need to be acknowledged. The independent variable, the manipulation check, and the dependent variable can all be criticized. Our manipulation was rather broad in the sense that it did not allow us to differentiate between affective and cognitive components of empathy. Regarding the manipulation check, the items that we employed to assess the effectiveness of the manipulation were very blatant in their content and could have been subject to demand effects – participants in the empathy condition could have noticed the connection between the instructions to write about "how they imagined the Recipients' feelings and how their decision would affect the Recipient" and the items asking them to rate how much they felt "sympathetic", "caring", etc. A standardized questionnaire allowing for the assessment of various components of empathy would have been preferable as a manipulation check. It is now possible that participants did not really feel empathy but were simply providing answers they thought the experimenter wanted. These lines of criticism all suggest that the manipulation was at fault – it did not really induce empathy (only demand effects), it did not induce the relevant type of empathy, or it induced only weak empathy. These are all valid criticisms, all the more important because we employed the most commonly used and face-valid manipulation of empathy that we could find. How exactly empathy and other states can best be manipulated and how the success of such manipulations can best be measured are very basic and very important topics for future research. Regarding the dependent variable, constraining the action space of the Dictator to a dichotomous choice could be argued to have affected the behavior of the Dictator. However, meta-analyses that have investigated the effects of action space on Dictator behavior have, depending on the type of analysis, found no statistically significant effects or extremely small effects (amount of explained variance < 0.001) for action space on Dictator behavior (Engel, 2011). Nevertheless, in the absence of prior empirical research directly comparing dichotomous and more continuous measures of DG behavior, we are forced to acknowledge that a more continuous measure of DG behavior could have given a different result. A continuous measure of DG giving would also have given us slightly more power to detect a small effect.
Our results could be sensitive to population differences. For example, non-student populations could be more affected by empathy (students of at least some disciplines, such as philosophy, may be less affected by feelings when making moral judgments; Haidt, 2001). Nevertheless, we caution that moderator effects are best detected when the relation between predictor and outcome is substantial (Chaplin, 1991). The present results show that empathy is even at best not a strong predictor of DG giving, implying that statistical tests of interaction effects would require extremely large samples.
We are also forced to acknowledge that our sample size was not only too small to investigate possible moderator effects, but it was also too small to rule out the possibility of a true small effect. Although we had a 99% chance of detecting a typical social psychology effect (r = 0.20), we would have needed 1,076 participants – above double the amount that we actually had – to have 80% power to detect a small effect (r = 0.10). The reason for the lack of prior published research on the hypothesis that we set out to test; i.e., that empathy would lead the Dictator to make more generous allocations in the DG, could be that the effect is so small that the results of prior empirical studies have typically not reached conventional levels of statistical significance. Publication bias could have led to under-reporting of such findings. In fact, chronically low statistical power and some degree of selective reporting bias have led to an overestimation of effect sizes in social psychology (Stanley et al., 2019), which means that if there is a small effect of empathy of DG giving, something we cannot rule out with the current sample size, it could well be that the size of that effect is not that different from the real size of a typical social psychology effect.
Also supporting the view that empathy, even at best, is not a strong predictor of DG behavior is that research on the effects of trait empathy on DG giving has produced miscellaneous results. A currently popular view in research on individual differences is that states can be viewed as density distributions of states (Fleeson, 2001). This would suggest that one could expect similar behavioral effects for traits and states. Research on the effects of trait empathy on DG giving has produced mixed results, with some studies finding an effect for some aspects of empathy (Edele et al., 2013) and some not finding an effect (Artinger et al., 2014; Zhao et al., 2017). These results together with our results suggest that if an effect does exist, it is likely to be rather small.
Sample size is more generally an issue within research on the DG. Many of the most-cited papers, with the number of citations running into the thousands, could be underpowered, with sample sizes beginning from the 20s and rarely reaching even 200 participants, even when collapsing data across all sub-studies, conditions, or treatments (e.g., Eckel and Grossman, 1996, 1998; Hoffman et al., 1996; Haley and Fessler, 2005). The hazards of small sample sizes are well illustrated by the entire research programs on the "watching eyes" or "minimal social cues" phenomena that were inspired by one study with 124 dictators (Haley and Fessler, 2005). This frenzy of research resulted in numerous high-impact publications from different laboratories. But more recent large-scale studies (Raihani and Bshary, 2012) and meta-analysis (Northover et al., 2017) have cast much doubt on the existence of the phenomena.
The above referred to research on "watching eyes" is only one small example of the literature that has sought the determinants of pro-social behavior in the DG. Highly cited researches conducted according to the stringent scientific procedures set out by the experimental economics community (e.g., real monetary incentives, no deception) have identified for instance guilt (Gummerum et al., 2010), inequality aversion (Fehr and Schmidt, 1999), moral costs (Brañas-Garza, 2007), and affect (Schulz et al., 2014) as determinants of pro-social behavior in the DG (the sample sizes of these studies vary from the low 20s to just under 140). The designs and conditions in which the experiments have been run could be argued to be rigorous and free of bias, making the general lack of statistical power considerations all the more surprising. This raises the possibility that many of these studies, and perhaps most other studies, on the determinants of DG are likely to have been underpowered. Feelings of empathy, although not a determinant of DG giving according to our results, could be expected to be strongly associated with many of the above suggested determinants of DG behavior, such as guilt (e.g., Leith and Baumeister, 1998). We therefore wish to raise the question of the replicability of previous findings and suggest that the determinants of DG behavior need to be explored further. It could be that we actually know very little about what drives behavior in the DG and thus also very little about what the DG actually measures.
The datasets generated for this study can be found in the [Open Science Framework] doi: 10.17605/OSF.IO/HFD6W.
The authors declare that full review and approval by an ethics committee were not required according to the local guidelines. However, experiments run at the Cologne Laboratory for Economic Research must conform to the guidelines of the experimental economics society. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants.
J-EL and GW conceived, designed, and performed the experiments; analyzed the data; and wrote the paper.
Financial support of the German Research Foundation through the research unit "Design and Behavior" (FOR 1371), of the University of Cologne by the Center of Social and Economic Behavior (C-SEB), and by the Center Digitization Bavaria, is gratefully acknowledged.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
We are grateful to Margarita Buchholz for her excellent research assistance. Pre-prints of this manuscript are available at the SSRN (Lönnqvist and Walkowitz, 2018a) and MPRA (Lönnqvist and Walkowitz, 2018b) working paper series.
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Wishing you a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
As this is the last newsletter before Christmas I thought I'd put out a different type of newsletter this week. And given that around Christmas I usually get loads of Auto Response emails saying you're on holiday I thought it would be good to get this out now :-)
I'm likely going to skip the newsletter next week due to it being Christmas but just check out our What's New page to see what I'm posting up on the site. The What's New page gives you the last 100 items I've put up.
And so... First and foremost I'd like to wish you and your families a Very Merry Christmas when it comes and hope that you'll have a happy time with lots of good food and drink and many presents to enjoy :-)
As the wee lassie puts it...
I'm gaun to hing a stockin up,
I'll borrow my big brither's,
It's bigger nor my sister's ane
And strang-er nor my mither's.
I'll be in bed on Yule E'en
When Faither Christmas comes.
I ken he'll wale oor chimley oot
Amang the ither lums.
On Yule richt early I'll be up
Afore the screich o day
To see what ferlies Santa Claus
Has brocht me for my play.
I hope he'll mind a cuddly bear,
And cups for dolly's tea
Wi lots o ither bonnie toys
For a guid wee lass like me.
I am now going to give you three stories about Christmas which I hope you'll enjoy and after that a poem, recipe and some links to good Christmas resources and fun links on Electric Scotland...
A Tribute to Christmas
Here is a wee story we have on the site from Janet MacKay...
One day in mid December, a few years back, a friend looked out his window and saw a huge tree going by, as if under its own power. It was so huge that it effectively hid the small car on which it had been strapped. "I don't know who is driving that car," he said, "But that is Janet's tree!"
Often, when I got my special tree home, it touches the furniture on all sides of the room. The top always has to be cut off, so the tree can fit below the ceiling. But, somehow a miracle happens, and it finds space in the living room and still leave room for the furniture and visiting friends. I return to childhood at Christmas; I must have my trees, and my own special ornaments which bring back memories of how they came into my life and onto my tree and of the friends and family involved. Most of my ornaments are homemade.
Several bushy ropes of glimmering white tinsel snow are wrapped around the tree trunk and out onto the inner parts of its branches. I have two dozen snowballs to hang near the root of those branches, and a wide selection of clear plastic ornaments. I have several strings of lights in clear icicle form, with tiny coloured mini-bulbs inside. My other lights are white pine-cones with a clear white mini-bulb inside each. Clear plastic angels surround the top of the tree, on which an angel in white dress and wings reigns. Ivory coloured angels grace the branches of the tree below them, and give way to red apples, quilted calico and gingham balls, and the several ornaments that have been special to me through the years. Christmas corsages of many Christmases before are placed at the junction of the branches, on the flat lower branches.
With the lights of the living room turned off, this Christmas tree is magical. It brings back comfy memories, putting me in touch with those important to me but are with us on earth no longer. Perhaps Christmas is much like the Eucharist as celebrated in the Roman Catholic and Anglican communion; during those rituals, I am told, one gathers with family and friends who have gone on before.
I remember about 12 years ago, making Christmas ornaments of calico and gingham, in red and green designs, and for some reason feeling my Great-Grandmother Isabella Macdonald, wife of Black Robert MacKay, very much with me. I felt she also revelled in the colourful Christmas designs of the cloth, and very interested in the creations I was evolving from them. Isabella Macdonald MacKay and her husband departed this life in the early 1870s, before my father was born, and now rest in the Murray cemetery deep in the woods of Earltown.
This amazed me, and I felt quite close to her in a sharing companiable way. In the Gaelic tradition, I am told, our ancestors are still with us, very present as we go through the days of our lives.
Occasionally the veil between us parts slightly. Did it part, briefly, for my Great-grandmother and myself, over a shared delight? Or had I been thinking about her, which brought her into my mind in an seemingly real communication? She had passed on, more than 100 years before this experience with the calico and gingham Christmas prints.
I have always known snow at Christmas; if no snow on December 25th, a full graveyard was prophesized. It seems to hold true, for the snow has an effective way of killing germs. I'll leave it to the scientists and the medical folks among us to explain why.
We lived half a mile from the main road, and my father often hired a snowplow to clear the lane which went through woods. Drifts seemed higher those days, perhaps because children are shorter than adults! I wish I could look out over those fields under snow again, surrounding our home which was built on a hill with the farmlands all around. Scenery in towns and cities cannot match it. I enjoy snow, and being out walking during snowstorms. Robert Frost wrote Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening and The Dust of Snow. I think I know just how he felt.
I remember mail bags coming in on the sleigh, for we never drove our car in the winter time. My father had married late in life, and there were lots of aunts and uncles around to enjoy delighting the "baby" of that extended family with Christmas presents, secure in brown paper over the merry Christmas wrappings. I loved shaking each one, guessing. Mine were the parents who insisted breakfast was over and the dishes washed before we sat down in ritual, to open our gifts. There is nothing like the delight of anticipation, as one gets through breakfast, opens the presents, listens to the Queen give her Christmas speech, enjoy Christmas dinner and visits with relatives and friends.
One of my Christmas memories is of going to the woods with my father, and crossing the brook on a plank provided for that purpose. Snow was on the ground, and the water was high and rapid. I remember some fear, but when I was with my father such adventures were always safe for me. We went up the hill and into the woods behind, to select that one significant tree.
It was always in the corner of the dining room, decorated with those red paper bells that unfold to an intricate rich diamond designs. I still love those bells, and modern ones are now in vogue again.
Those are memories of early childhood on the family farm, which had been in our family since the 1850s. 200 acres of field and forest, for a young girl to grow up among and roam about; at Christmas, it was winter wonderland.
Christmas with Grandma
A story from Margo Fallis...
Blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and white lights twinkle on trees and around windows, reminding us that it is Christmas time. Snow falls, landing softly on the browning grass, blanketing it in whiteness.
Inside the house, warm and secure, Nelson and his sister, Kira sat in front of the fire. "Tell us a story about Christmas, Grandma," Nelson begged. "Tell us about when you were a little girl."
His grandma smiled. "Nelson, when I was a wee lass, we didn't even know what Christmas was. Did you know that until the 1960's it wasn't celebrated in Scotland, so I can't tell you about Christmas in my days. When your dad was a wee lad, we started enjoying Christmas."
"No Christmas?" Kira said softly, in disbelief.
"No, my wee hen. It wasn't like it is today. I didn't have a tree with colored lights. I didn't know who Santa Claus was, and I never had any presents. I didn't even know Christmas existed," her grandma explained.
Kira and Nelson looked at the tree. He loved how the colored lights sparkled and made the ornaments prettier. "Tell me, Kira, what do you like about Christmas?" Grandma asked.
"I like everything," she said. "I like Christmas trees."
"Did you know that the idea of a Christmas tree came from Germany? When I was a lass, in the wintertime we decorated our house with mistletoe and junipers. They were symbols of life during the cold months," Grandma explained.
"What about you, Nelson? What do you like about Christmas?" she asked.
Nelson looked into the flames of the fire that was roaring in the fireplace. "I like the Yule log," he answered.
"Did you know in Scotland, the Yule log should be cut from a birch tree?" Grandma said.
"I didn't know that, Grandma. What does a Yule log mean anyway?" Nelson asked.
"A log was put in the fireplace to remind us to keep our hearts warm and filled with good thoughts," Grandma explained. "There's a lot of tradition with Yule logs, but right now, I want to talk about you both. You know what I love about Christmas now?"
"What, Grandma?" Kira asked.
"I love the food and having my family together. Remember last year when you came to my house? We had a big feast. There were meat pies, and fresh salmon and trout, roasted goose and beef, venison, pheasant, lamb and grouse. We also had roasted apples, bridies and pasties, and hot bannocks. Pine logs burned in the fireplace, filling the house with a sweet smell," she reminded them. "I think there was enough food on that table to feed an entire village for a year." She chuckled.
"I remember that, Grandma," Nelson spoke. "I remember the clootie dumpling. I found ten pence in my piece."
"I liked the shortbread and tablet," Kira said, licking her lips. "Oh, and the plum pudding. I remember it being on fire."
"You're right, wee Kira. It was a feast. Now, it's time to tuck you in. Santa Claus will be coming tonight when you are fast asleep and leaving you some gifts," Grandma said. She took them upstairs and tucked them in. ""Goodnight, my wee bairns," she whispered and went back down to the fire.
She sat quietly, remembering the days when she'd help her father cut mistletoe from high in the trees and tie branches of juniper trees, covered with little whitish-green berries, with big red ribbons. A smile lit her face and glowed as brightly as the roaring fire. Merry Christmas.
Black Rock, by Ralph Connor
I've enjoyed this book very much and thus I got a copy of it from Project Guttenberg and posted it up on the site. Here is the first chapter to read here about Christmas Eve in a Logging Camp...
CHRISTMAS EVE IN A LUMBER CAMP
It was due to a mysterious dispensation of Providence, and a good deal to Leslie Graeme, that I found myself in the heart of the Selkirks for my Christmas Eve as the year 1882 was dying. It had been my plan to spend my Christmas far away in Toronto, with such Bohemian and boon companions as could be found in that cosmopolitan and kindly city. But Leslie Graeme changed all that, for, discovering me in the village of Black Rock, with my traps all packed, waiting for the stage to start for the Landing, thirty miles away, he bore down upon me with resistless force, and I found myself recovering from my surprise only after we had gone in his lumber sleigh some six miles on our way to his camp up in the mountains. I was surprised and much delighted, though I would not allow him to think so, to find that his old-time power over me was still there. He could always in the old 'Varsity days--dear, wild days--make me do what he liked. He was so handsome and so reckless, brilliant in his class-work, and the prince of half-backs on the Rugby field, and with such power of fascination, as would 'extract the heart out of a wheelbarrow,' as Barney Lundy used to say. And thus it was that I found myself just three weeks later--I was to have spent two or three days,--on the afternoon of the 24th of December, standing in Graeme's Lumber Camp No. 2, wondering at myself. But I did not regret my changed plans, for in those three weeks I had raided a cinnamon bear's den and had wakened up a grizzly--But I shall let the grizzly finish the tale; he probably sees more humour in it than I.
The camp stood in a little clearing, and consisted of a group of three long, low shanties with smaller shacks near them, all built of heavy, unhewn logs, with door and window in each. The grub camp, with cook-shed attached, stood in the middle of the clearing; at a little distance was the sleeping-camp with the office built against it, and about a hundred yards away on the other side of the clearing stood the stables, and near them the smiddy. The mountains rose grandly on every side, throwing up their great peaks into the sky. The clearing in which the camp stood was hewn out of a dense pine forest that filled the valley and climbed half way up the mountain-sides, and then frayed out in scattered and stunted trees.
It was one of those wonderful Canadian winter days, bright, and with a touch of sharpness in the air that did not chill, but warmed the blood like draughts of wine. The men were up in the woods, and the shrill scream of the blue jay flashing across the open, the impudent chatter of the red squirrel from the top of the grub camp, and the pert chirp of the whisky-jack, hopping about on the rubbish-heap, with the long, lone cry of the wolf far down the valley, only made the silence felt the more.
As I stood drinking in with all my soul the glorious beauty and the silence of mountain and forest, with the Christmas feeling stealing into me, Graeme came out from his office, and, catching sight of me, called out, 'Glorious Christmas weather, old chap!' And then, coming nearer, 'Must you go to-morrow?'
'I fear so,' I replied, knowing well that the Christmas feeling was on him too.
'I wish I were going with you,' he said quietly.
I turned eagerly to persuade him, but at the look of suffering in his face the words died at my lips, for we both were thinking of the awful night of horror when all his bright, brilliant life crashed down about him in black ruin and shame. I could only throw my arm over his shoulder and stand silent beside him. A sudden jingle of bells roused him, and, giving himself a little shake, he exclaimed, 'There are the boys coming home.'
Soon the camp was filled with men talking, laughing, chaffing, like light-hearted boys.
'They are a little wild to-night,' said Graeme; 'and to morrow they'll paint Black Rock red.'
Before many minutes had gone, the last teamster was 'washed up,' and all were standing about waiting impatiently for the cook's signal--the supper to-night was to be 'something of a feed'--when the sound of
bells drew their attention to a light sleigh drawn by a buckskin broncho coming down the hillside at a great pace.
'The preacher, I'll bet, by his driving,' said one of the men.
'Bedad, and it's him has the foine nose for turkey!' said Blaney, a good-natured, jovial Irishman.
'Yes, or for pay-day, more like,' said Keefe, a black-browed, villainous fellow-countryman of Blaney's, and, strange to say, his great friend.
Big Sandy M'Naughton, a Canadian Highlander from Glengarry, rose up in wrath. 'Bill Keefe,' said he, with deliberate emphasis, 'you'll just keep your dirty tongue off the minister; and as for your pay, it's little he sees of it, or any one else, except Mike Slavin, when you're too dry to wait for some one to treat you, or perhaps Father Ryan, when the fear of hell-fire is on to you.'
The men stood amazed at Sandy's sudden anger and length of speech.
'Bon; dat's good for you, my bully boy,' said Baptiste, a wiry little French-Canadian, Sandy's sworn ally and devoted admirer ever since the day when the big Scotsman, under great provocation, had knocked him clean off the dump into the river and then jumped in for him.
It was not till afterwards I learned the cause of Sandy's sudden wrath which urged him to such unwonted length of speech. It was not simply that the Presbyterian blood carried with it reverence for the minister and contempt for Papists and Fenians, but that he had a vivid remembrance of how, only a month ago, the minister had got him out of Mike Slavin's saloon and out the clutches of Keefe and Slavin and their gang of bloodsuckers.
Keefe started up with a curse. Baptiste sprang to Sandy's side, slapped him on the back, and called out, 'You keel him, I'll hit (eat) him up, me.'
It looked as if there might be a fight, when a harsh voice said in a low, savage tone, 'Stop your row, you blank fools; settle it, if you want to, somewhere else.' I turned, and was amazed to see old man Nelson, who was very seldom moved to speech.
There was a look of scorn on his hard, iron-grey face, and of such settled fierceness as made me quite believe the tales I had heard of his deadly fights in the mines at the coast. Before any reply could be made, the minister drove up and called out in a cheery voice, 'Merry Christmas, boys! Hello, Sandy! Comment ca va, Baptiste? How do you do, Mr. Graeme?'
'First rate. Let me introduce my friend, Mr. Connor, sometime medical student, now artist, hunter, and tramp at large, but not a bad sort.'
'A man to be envied,' said the minister, smiling. 'I am glad to know any friend of Mr. Graeme's.'
I liked Mr. Craig from the first. He had good eyes that looked straight out at you, a clean-cut, strong face well set on his shoulders, and altogether an upstanding, manly bearing. He insisted on going with Sandy to the stables to see Dandy, his broncho, put up.
'Decent fellow,' said Graeme; 'but though he is good enough to his broncho, it is Sandy that's in his mind now.'
'Does he come out often? I mean, are you part of his parish, so to speak?'
'I have no doubt he thinks so; and I'm blowed if he doesn't make the Presbyterians of us think so too.' And he added after a pause, 'A dandy lot of parishioners we are for any man. There's Sandy, now, he would knock Keefe's head off as a kind of religious exercise; but to-morrow Keefe will be sober, and Sandy will be drunk as a lord, and the drunker he is the better Presbyterian he'll be; to the preacher's disgust.' Then after another pause he added bitterly, 'But it is not for me to throw rocks at Sandy; I am not the same kind of fool, but I am a fool of several other sorts.'
Then the cook came out and beat a tattoo on the bottom of a dish-pan.
Baptiste answered with a yell: but though keenly hungry, no man would demean himself to do other than walk with apparent reluctance to his place at the table. At the further end of the camp was a big fireplace, and from the door to the fireplace extended the long board tables, covered with platters of turkey not too scientifically carved, dishes of potatoes, bowls of apple sauce, plates of butter, pies, and smaller dishes distributed at regular intervals. Two lanterns hanging from the roof, and a row of candles stuck into the wall on either side by means of slit sticks, cast a dim, weird light over the scene.
There was a moment's silence, and at a nod from Graeme Mr. Craig rose and said, 'I don't know how you feel about it, men, but to me this looks good enough to be thankful for.'
'Fire ahead, sir,' called out a voice quite respectfully, and the minister bent his head and said-- 'For Christ the Lord who came to save us, for all the love and goodness we have known, and for these Thy gifts to us this Christmas night, our Father, make us thankful. Amen.'
'Bon, dat's fuss rate,' said Baptiste. 'Seems lak dat's make me hit (eat) more better for sure,' and then no word was spoken for quarter of an hour. The occasion was far too solemn and moments too precious for anything so empty as words. But when the white piles of bread and the brown piles of turkey had for a second time vanished, and after the last pie had disappeared, there came a pause and hush of expectancy, whereupon the cook and cookee, each bearing aloft a huge, blazing pudding, came forth.
'Hooray!' yelled Blaney, 'up wid yez!' and grabbing the cook by the shoulders from behind, he faced him about.
Mr. Craig was the first to respond, and seizing the cookee in the same way, called out, 'Squad, fall in! quick march!' In a moment every man was in the procession.
'Strike up, Batchees, ye little angel!' shouted Blaney, the appellation a concession to the minister's presence; and away went Baptiste in a rollicking French song with the English chorus--
'Then blow, ye winds, in the morning,
Blow, ye winds, ay oh!
Blow, ye winds, in the morning,
Blow, blow, blow.'
And at each 'blow' every boot came down with a thump on the plank floor that shook the solid roof. After the second round, Mr. Craig jumped upon the bench, and called out--
'Three cheers for Billy the cook!'
In the silence following the cheers Baptiste was heard to say, 'Bon! dat's mak me feel lak hit dat puddin' all hup mesef, me.'
'Hear till the little baste!' said Blaney in disgust.
'Batchees,' remonstrated Sandy gravely, 'ye've more stomach than manners.'
'Fu sure! but de more stomach dat's more better for dis puddin',' replied the little Frenchman cheerfully.
After a time the tables were cleared and pushed back to the wall, and pipes were produced. In all attitudes suggestive of comfort the men disposed themselves in a wide circle about the fire, which now roared and crackled up the great wooden chimney hanging from the roof. The lumberman's hour of bliss had arrived. Even old man Nelson looked a shade less melancholy than usual as he sat alone, well away from the fire, smoking steadily and silently. When the second pipes were well a-going, one of the men took down a violin from the wall and handed it to Lachlan Campbell. There were two brothers Campbell just out from Argyll, typical Highlanders: Lachlan, dark, silent, melancholy, with the face of a mystic, and Angus, red-haired, quick, impulsive, and devoted to his brother, a devotion he thought proper to cover under biting, sarcastic speech.
Lachlan, after much protestation, interspersed with gibes from his brother, took the violin, and, in response to the call from all sides, struck up 'Lord Macdonald's Reel.' In a moment the floor was filled with dancers, whooping and cracking their fingers in the wildest manner. Then Baptiste did the 'Red River Jig,' a most intricate and difficult series of steps, the men keeping time to the music with hands and feet.
When the jig was finished, Sandy called for 'Lochaber No More'; but Campbell said, 'No, no! I cannot play that to-night. Mr. Craig will play.'
Craig took the violin, and at the first note I knew he was no ordinary player. I did not recognise the music, but it was soft and thrilling, and got in by the heart, till every one was thinking his tenderest and
saddest thoughts.
After he had played two or three exquisite bits, he gave Campbell his violin, saying, 'Now, "Lochaber," Lachlan.'
Without a word Lachlan began, not 'Lochaber'--he was not ready for that yet--but 'The Flowers o' the Forest,' and from that wandered through 'Auld Robin Gray' and 'The Land o' the Leal,' and so got at last to that most soul-subduing of Scottish laments, 'Lochaber No More.' At the first strain, his brother, who had thrown himself on some blankets behind the fire, turned over on his face, feigning sleep. Sandy M'Naughton took his pipe out of his mouth, and sat up straight and stiff, staring into vacancy, and Graeme, beyond the fire, drew a short, sharp breath. We had often sat, Graeme and I, in our student-days, in the drawing-room at home, listening to his father wailing out 'Lochaber' upon the pipes, and I well knew that the awful minor strains were now eating their way into his soul.
Over and over again the Highlander played his lament. He had long since forgotten us, and was seeing visions of the hills and lochs and glens of his far-away native land, and making us, too, see strange things out of the dim past. I glanced at old man Nelson, and was startled at the eager, almost piteous, look in his eyes, and I wished Campbell would stop. Mr. Craig caught my eye, and, stepping over to Campbell, held out his hand for the violin. Lingeringly and lovingly the Highlander drew out the last strain, and silently gave the minister his instrument.
Without a moment's pause, and while the spell of 'Lochaber' was still upon us, the minister, with exquisite skill, fell into the refrain of that simple and beautiful camp-meeting hymn, 'The Sweet By and By.' After playing the verse through once, he sang softly the refrain. After the first verse, the men joined in the chorus; at first timidly, but by the time the third verse was reached they were shouting with throats full open, 'We shall meet on that beautiful shore.' When I looked at Nelson the eager light had gone out of his eyes, and in its place was kind of determined hopelessness, as if in this new music he had no part.
After the voices had ceased, Mr. Craig played again the refrain, more and more softly and slowly; then laying the violin on Campbell's knees, he drew from his pocket his little Bible, and said--
'Men, with Mr. Graeme's permission, I want to read you something this Christmas Eve. You will all have heard it before, but you will like it none the less for that.'
His voice was soft, but clear and penetrating, as he read the eternal story of the angels and the shepherds and the Babe. And as he read, a slight motion of the hand or a glance of an eye made us see, as he was seeing, that whole radiant drama. The wonder, the timid joy, the tenderness, the mystery of it all, were borne in upon us with overpowering effect. He closed the book, and in the same low, clear voice went on to tell us how, in his home years ago, he used to stand on Christmas Eve listening in thrilling delight to his mother telling him the story, and how she used to make him see the shepherds and hear the sheep bleating near by, and how the sudden burst of glory used to make his heart jump.
'I used to be a little afraid of the angels, because a boy told me they were ghosts; but my mother told me better, and I didn't fear them any more. And the Baby, the dear little Baby--we all love a baby.' There was a quick, dry sob; it was from Nelson. 'I used to peek through under to see the little one in the straw, and wonder what things swaddling clothes were. Oh, it was all so real and so beautiful!' He paused, and I could hear the men breathing.
'But one Christmas Eve,' he went on, in a lower, sweeter tone, 'there was no one to tell me the story, and I grew to forget it, and went away to college, and learned to think that it was only a child's tale and was not for men. Then bad days came to me and worse, and I began to lose my grip of myself, of life, of hope, of goodness, till one black Christmas, in the slums of a faraway city, when I had given up all, and the devil's arms were about me, I heard the story again. And as I listened, with a bitter ache in my heart, for I had put it all behind me, I suddenly found myself peeking under the shepherds' arms with a child's wonder at the Baby in the straw. Then it came over me like great waves, that His name was Jesus, because it was He that should save men from their sins. Save! Save! The waves kept beating upon my ears, and before I knew, I had called out, "Oh! can He save me?" It was in a little mission meeting on one of the side streets, and they seemed to be used to that sort of thing there, for no one was surprised; and a young fellow leaned across the aisle to me and said, "Why! you just bet He can!" His surprise that I should doubt, his bright face and confident tone, gave me hope that perhaps it might be so. I held to that hope with all my soul, and'--stretching up his arms, and with a quick glow in his face and a little break in his voice, 'He hasn't failed me yet; not once, not once!'
He stopped quite short, and I felt a good deal like making a fool of myself, for in those days I had not made up my mind about these things. Graeme, poor old chap, was gazing at him with a sad yearning in his dark eyes; big Sandy was sitting very stiff, and staring harder than ever into the fire; Baptiste was trembling with excitement; Blaney was openly wiping the tears away. But the face that held my eyes was that of old man Nelson. It was white, fierce, hungry-looking, his sunken eyes burning, his lips parted as if to cry.
The minister went on. 'I didn't mean to tell you this, men, it all came over me with a rush; but it is true, every word, and not a word will I take back. And, what's more, I can tell you this, what He did for me He can do for any man, and it doesn't make any difference what's behind him, and'--leaning slightly forward, and with a little thrill of pathos vibrating in his voice--'O boys, why don't you give Him a chance at you? Without Him you'll never be the men you want to be, and you'll never get the better of that that's keeping some of you now from going back home. You know you'll never go back till you're the men you want to be.' Then, lifting up his face and throwing back his head, he said, as if to himself, 'Jesus! He shall save His people from their sins,' and then, 'Let us pray.'
Graeme leaned forward with his face in his hands; Baptiste and Blaney dropped on their knees; Sandy, the Campbells, and some others, stood up. Old man Nelson held his eyes steadily on the minister.
Only once before had I seen that look on a human face. A young fellow had broken through the ice on the river at home, and as the black water was dragging his fingers one by one from the slippery edges, there came over his face that same look. I used to wake up for many a night after in a sweat of horror, seeing the white face with its parting lips, and its piteous, dumb appeal, and the black water slowly sucking it down.
Nelson's face brought it all back; but during the prayer the face changed, and seemed to settle into resolve of some sort, stern, almost gloomy, as of a man with his last chance before him.
After the prayer Mr. Craig invited the men to a Christmas dinner next day in Black Rock. 'And because you are an independent lot, we'll charge you half a dollar for dinner and the evening show.' Then leaving a bundle of magazines and illustrated papers on the table--a godsend to the men--he said good-bye and went out.
I was to go with the minister, so I jumped into the sleigh first, and waited while he said good-bye to Graeme, who had been hard hit by the whole service, and seemed to want to say something. I heard Mr. Craig say cheerfully and confidently, 'It's a true bill: try Him.'
Sandy, who had been steadying Dandy while that interesting broncho was attempting with great success to balance himself on his hind legs, came to say good-bye. 'Come and see me first thing, Sandy.'
'Ay! I know; I'll see ye, Mr. Craig,' said Sandy earnestly, as Dandy dashed off at a full gallop across the clearing and over the bridge, steadying down when he reached the hill.
'Steady, you idiot!'
This was to Dandy, who had taken a sudden side spring into the deep snow, almost upsetting us. A man stepped out from the shadow. It was old man Nelson. He came straight to the sleigh, and, ignoring my presence completely, said--
'Mr. Craig, are you dead sure of this? Will it work?'
'Do you mean,' said Craig, taking him up promptly, 'can Jesus Christ save you from your sins and make a man of you?'
The old man nodded, keeping his hungry eyes on the other's face.
'Well, here's His message to you: "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."'
'To me? To me?' said the old man eagerly.
'Listen; this, too, is His Word: "Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out." That's for you, for here you are, coming.'
'You don't know me, Mr. Craig. I left my baby fifteen years ago because--'
'Stop!' said the minister. 'Don't tell me, at least not to-night; perhaps never. Tell Him who knows it all now, and who never betrays a secret. Have it out with Him. Don't be afraid to trust Him.'
Nelson looked at him, with his face quivering, and said in a husky voice, 'If this is no good, it's hell for me.'
'If it is no good,' replied Craig, almost sternly, 'it's hell for all of us.'
The old man straightened himself up, looked up at the stars, then back at Mr. Craig, then at me, and, drawing a deep breath, said, 'I'll try Him.' As he was turning away the minister touched him on the arm, and said quietly, 'Keep an eye on Sandy to-morrow.'
Nelson nodded, and we went on; but before we took the next turn I looked back and saw what brought a lump into my throat. It was old man Nelson on his knees in the snow, with his hands spread upward to the stars, and I wondered if there was any One above the stars, and nearer than the stars, who could see. And then the trees hid him from my sight.
You can read the rest of this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/etexts/3245.txt
And should you be interested in getting the words and sheet music for "Lochaber no more" then you can find it over 3 pages at...
http://www.electricscotland.com/music/minstrelsie/vol4p125.jpg
Sounds on a Christmas Morn
A poem by Francis Kerr Young
Wee bairns kecklin' late at nicht,
cries o', "Git tae sleep!"
Wee bairns wishin', een shut ticht,
bit naebidy's coontin' sheep.
Squeezed-oot whispers wauken dawn
wi' oo's an' ah's an' aw's!
Thochts o' sleep hiv lang syne gone;
"Look at them! An' those!"
Tuggin' grand bows, rustlin' paper,
Skirls o' sheer delicht.
Openin' boaxes, weans a-caper,
Oh, for Silent Nicht!
Clanks an' whirrs wi' bangs an' bumps;
Faint chimin' frae a bell;
Crunches, thuds an' clangs an' thumps;
an' noise that soonds like . . . Well!
Music is near, playin' guid cheer,
Echoin' Christ his been born;
Soonds that we hear, soonds we haud dear,
Soonds oan a Christmas morn.
You can also listen to this poem being read to you by Peter Wright at http://www.scotsindependent.org/features/scots/SoondsOan.rm
And a recipe would be good to include so here is...
Christmas Morning Wife Saver...
Superb! Make the day before and pop it in the oven on Christmas morning. Serves 8.
16 slices white bread, with crusts removed
slices of back bacon or ham, sliced thinly
slices of sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 to 1 tsp dry mustard powder
1/4 cup green pepper, finely chopped (optional)
1 to 2 tsp worcestershire sauce
dash red pepper sauce (tabasco)
Special K or crushed corn flakes
In a 9" x 13" buttered glass baking dish, put 8 pieces of bread. Add pieces to cover dish entirely. Cover bread with slices of back bacon, sliced thin. It's best if your meat is about the size of the bread slice, for ease of cutting after it's cooked. Lay slices of cheddar cheese on top of bacon and then cover with slices of bread to make it like a sandwich. In a bowl, beat eggs, salt and pepper.
To the egg mixture add dry mustard, onion, green pepper, Worcestershire sauce, milk and tabasco. Pour over the sandwiches. Cover and let stand in fridge overnight. In the morning, melt 1/4 lb. butter, pour over the top. Cover with Special K or crushed corn flakes (I use the Special K) and bake, UNCOVERED for 1 hour at 350 degrees. Let sit for at least 10 minutes before serving. It's very nice served with fresh, cutup fruit.
How to make your own gifts
And given that some people are having a hard time this Christmas due to this global depression here are some ideas for low cost presents you can make yourself which Jeanette sent into us. Here is what she had to say...
There are many quick and easy gift ideas that are as much fun for the giver to put together as they are for the recipient to receive. If you have the ideas in your head, you can shop all year for little items for some of them and be ready to assemble them for the special occasion whether Christmas or birthday or other event you want to celebrate. The little extra touches make all the difference in the world. You easily can make those around you feel very special and loved.
Gold Boxes with Pajamas
Family Reunion - Cookbook, Calendar, Address Book, Ornaments, Napkin Rings, Memories Cassette, Family History Photo Album, Ancestry Research, Sightseeing, Ladies' Tea, Family Bowl-a-thon.
Old Quilt Stockings
Souvenir Ornaments
Potpourri Boxes
Tea Break Muffins
Pearl-studded Oranges
Bowl of Ornaments
Imprinted Velvet
You can see these at http://www.electricscotland.com/lifestyle/gifts/
I've also created a 2009 calendar for you which you could print off onto glossy paper or light card and give to someone as a gift which you can find at http://www.electricscotland.com/calander2009.htm. It's designed to print out on letter sized paper and enough room round the edges to make notes. I've also added a second one which includes a famous Scottish Toast in the header at http://www.electricscotland.com/calander2009toast.htm.
And if you'd like to read about Old Time Customs of our Pioneers you can read a story of their Christmas at http://www.electricscotland.com/history/articles/oldcustoms11.htm
And here are some links to bits of Electric Scotland which might come in handy...
I know that many kids will be getting sophisticated toys but they might still enjoy "Dressing the Chief" at http://www.electricscotland.com/kids/dress1.html and make their own Christmas picture.
What better way to celebrate the holiday season than to read stories to your kids about polar bears, Christmas monsters and candy canes. http://www.electricscotland.com/kids/stories/xmas.htm
You can also try out the Merry Christmas jigsaw puzzle at http://www.electricscotland.com/kids/jigsaws/xmas.htm
See if you can discover how this card trick works at http://www.electricscotland.com/kids/card_trick.htm
And if you've given the Kids some neat crayons then you can find some black and white pictures for them to colour in at http://www.electricscotland.com/kids/colouring_book.htm
We also have a collection of games you can play offline at http://www.electricscotland.com/kids/offline_games.htm
and if you are struggling to find games to play then you can do no better than have a read at the etext book "Entertainments for Home, Church and School" at http://www.electricscotland.com/etexts/nthcs10.txt
And of course we also have our own Arcade with some 300 games to play at http://www.scotchat.org/vbull/arcade.php?
Should you still want to read about all the history that went up this week see our What's New page at http://www.electricscotland.com/rss/whatsnew.php
Also.. if you are still stuck at getting all your Christmas presents then why not send some Christmas flowers and a gift from Grower Flowers at http://www.growerflowers.com/feature.asp?id=46469
And you can order some Celtic, Scottish and Irish music CD's from the All Celtic Music Store at http://electricscotland.allcelticmusic.com/ and if you'll real late in ordering you can of course order and download individual tracks and master them onto a memory stick, MP3 player or a CD.
And finally for those that like cats... I've just been told that Steve has now got himself 3 cats at our new location in Michigan... one long haired oldster and two kittens.
Alastair McIntyre
http://www.electricscotland.com
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


that can be back-tested in OmniTrader. Chart Patterns measure the essence of market psychology – a solid pattern event is oftentimes followed by an explosive move.
This plug-in will significantly enhance your ability to find and trade the most powerful Chart Pattern events as they occur in the market. Trading Systems are used to create Strategies in OmniTrader and we have created robust Strategies for each of the CPS Systems. Each Strategy in CPS 3.0 has been tuned with filters and other strategy elements to get the best signals. CPS 3.0 has filters that help it avoid taking Long trades when the market is going down. As the market starts to rally again, the Strategies will do just the opposite, automatically favoring the Long side.
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Performance results for all Strategies on the S&P 500 from January 1, 2008 through December 31, 2008.
*APR is the average net Annual Percentage Rate of the return for each Strategy, including both winning and losing trades.


text:
Who's Hot and Who's Not
Soler and Santana are killin' it
By Matthew LaMar Apr 27, 2021, 12:00pm EDT
Share All sharing options for: Who's Hot and Who's Not
Kansas City Royals designated hitter Jorge Soler (12) rounds the bases after hitting a home run against the Tampa Bay Rays during the fourth inning at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jay Biggerstaff
Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports
Now that we're 20 games into the season, stat lines have stabilized somewhat. While an extremely good or poor game can still affect a player's hitting line—sometimes by a lot, especially if they hit a couple dingers in the same game—we're a little past the point where most performances are going to radically alter a player's season statistics. It will grow harder and harder for that to happen as players accrue more plate appearances.
As such, it can be somewhat difficult to determine which players in the lineup are doing well—and which ones aren't. Therefore, I'm kicking off a new weekly column here: who's hot and who's not. I'll sort players into three categories: hot, meh, and not, taking a look at the previous 10 days and including all players with at least 25 plate appearances. And for every week in the "hot" category, each player will get a point, and at the end of the year I'll dub someone as the hottest performer of the year. Maybe I'll call it something else then to get around the obvious connotations. Maybe I won't, for chaos' sake. We'll see!
Anyway, in this first edition, we'll be looking at the previous 10 days, from Friday, April 16 through Sunday, April 25.
Who's Hot
.323./447/.613
194 wRC+
0.5 WAR
.259/.364/.519
Nicky Lopez
Jorge Soler has always been a streaky hitter, from year-to-year and from game-to-game. In 2017, he put up a wRC+ of 32 over 110 plate appearances; two years later, he put up a 136 wRC+ over 679 PAs. Similarly, just this year, Soler has already had 14-game stretch where he hit .133/.216/.178 with no homers and a strikeout rate of 44%. But in his past 10 games, Soler has looked a lot like the Good Soler that we all know and love.
Of course, Soler has been outgunned by Carlos Santana, who has swatted home runs, hit for average, and showcased his trademark elite plate discipline. Over this stretch, he's walked 18.4% of the time against a strikeout rate of only 7.9%. And speaking of walking more than striking out, Nicky Lopez has walked at an 8% clip and only struck out at a 4% clip over this stretch, a nearly impossible feat in an era where the average player strikes out in one out of every four plate appearances.
Who's Meh
99 wRC+
A lot of boom and bust recently for the Royals, but Taylor has been mostly, well, meh so far. He's been on base a decent amount, thanks to some walks, but doesn't have a single extra base hit in this time. He hasn't hurt the team, though, and his defense is always welcome.
Who's Not
Andrew Benintendi
Salvador Perez
-0.1 WAR
Hunter Dozier
Hunter Dozier's struggles have been rather well documented. He has assuredly been getting unlucky, as his only hits as of late have been ones that have left the yard—he's not striking out a huge amount, and his BABIP is .150, which will come up. And despite Benintendi's home run, he has been mostly underwhelming so far this season. He hasn't had a good stretch at the plate, and his numbers show it.
The surprising players in this category are Salvador Perez and Whit Merrifield. Merifield was definitely hot to start the year, but he's been pretty cold for a while, with little power and little OBP to show. Perez, meanwhile, is hitting for power, but his average and OBP are extremely poor, and he's striking out at a career high rate this year.
One would expect Dozier, Perez, and Merrifield to rebound due to their track records. Benintendi is the wild card, but hey, it's a long season. Slumps happen, even at the beginning.
Hot Leaders
Carlos Santana (1)
Jorge Soler (1)
Nicky Lopez (1)


English title: The root system of birch (Betula pubescens and B. verrucosa).
About 40% forest in Finland are mixed stands that have birch (Betula pubescens and B. verrucosa) as one of the species. The aim of this research was to study the structure of root system of birch and compare it to the other main tree species in Finland.
The root systems were dug out and measured in 28 sample plots in Southern and Central Finland, representing different forest site types. Birch roots correspond 30‒100% of the volume of the stem, the largest root systems being in the sandy soils or peatlands. Also the longest lateral roots can be found at these sites. The size variation of root system of birch is larger than in Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.), and the vertical root system is in general smaller in birch. Birch seems to be better than pine able to adapt its root system to the existing conditions. The smallest root systems were found in the good forest site types, but the roots grow in the good sites denser than in the poor sites. The lateral roots of the main tree species in Finland, birch, Scots pine and Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) H. Karst.) grow in different depths, which decreases the competition between the species. This finding gives support to cultivation of mixed stands.


Dennis and Patty Whalen arrived in Bangkok, Thailand, in August. Dennis serves as the pastor of Mission and Communications at the Evangelical Church of Bangkok. They have three married children and six grandchildren.


Adjustable Force Tension Springs - Ameritool Mfg.
These units can withstand a wide range of temperatures from -40º F to 300º F.
The Guard Tube accessory protects the piston rod from damage due to incidental impacts. This accessory adds 0.1 inches to the extended length of the gas springs, please review the "E" dimension. To order add "08" to the end of your ordering number.
Force tolerance is +10-20 lbs over the nominal force.
Tension springs are under pressure. Please dispose of properly. Do not puncture or open.


text:
S-199 ou S.199 peut faire référence à :
 Avia S-199, un avion de chasse tchécoslovaque ;
 Nuages Gris S.199, une pièce pour piano seul composé par Franz Liszt.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


There have been several identical seal failures on subsea valve actuators in the North Sea and other global subsea installations. When the valves are actuated open, excessive hydraulic fluid is leaked to sea. To allow these wells to continue producing, inherently mechanical lock-out devices (LAOT's) have been installed as a temporary measure. Unfortunately, this removes the functionality from the platform to open and close the valves and will no longer respond to an emergency shut-down situation meaning that the valves are not operable without costly ROV intervention.
Neptune engineered and manufactured the PCOL (Platform Controlled Override Linear) system as a permanent solution to overcome all the problems of temporary LAOT's. Three diver-installable PCOL systems were successfully deployed in 2015.
Following the successful deployment of the first three PCOL systems, Neptune were contracted to design and manufacture a ROV-deployable version of the permanent linear actuator override tool. Detailed design and analysis of the tool were completed. FMECA (Failure Mode, Effects and Criticality Analysis), TRAP (Technical Risk Assurance Process) and TRC (Technical Risk Categorisation) were carried out following API17Q and API17N.
Up to four Override Tools can be installed on one XT. Two Override Tools can be controlled by one Auxiliary Skid.


text:
Astrocolor is coming to Victoria this Saturday night
Devon Bidal} October 12, 2018
The electronic music group spoke with the Martlet about live performances, recently-released album
Photo by EP Promotions via www.astrocolormusic.com
As distracted Millenials and Gen Z-ers, we are constantly searching for the newest, edgiest thing that will make us feel like we're ahead of the game — and this includes music. Victoria-based band Astrocolor might just have the chilled-out, funky dance beats you're looking for. And this Saturday night, they're coming home.
The group is only three years old, but they've come a long way. The Martlet spoke with frontman Neil Cooke-Dallin about the creation of the group, their music style, and their recently-released album.
"Astrocolor started out [as] a five-piece funk band — without me," says Cooke-Dallin. "They were called Weird Party," he says. They still play together as a jazz-funk band.
Cooke-Dallin met Weird Party when they came to record at his studio.
"We got along really well," he says.
The album they recorded in Cooke-Dallin's studio went on to be nominated for Best Instrumental at the Western Canadian Music Awards.
"Based on that," he says, "they got a record deal with Last Gang [Records] and put out the Christmas record under the name Astrocolor."
Then, on a weekend in March 2016 when the studio was free, Cooke-Dallin invited them to come in and record.
"I had been hearing these late 90s sounds come back," says Cooke-Dallin.
He wanted to create some tracks in the style of Ninja Tune's records and saw Astrocolor as an alternative to using tired funk samples. So he told the group to come in free of charge and have some fun.
Astrocolor was recently nominated for Electronic Artist of the Year at the 2018 Western Canadian Music Awards.
Using what they recorded that day, they sent some samples the label.
"The label loved it," says Cooke-Dallin. "We ended up making an entire album and they invited me to formally join the band at that point. So that's kind of how Astrocolor came to be what it is now."
And the group seems to only be moving forward. They were recently nominated for Electronic Artist of the Year at the 2018 Western Canadian Music Awards, and have performed at high-profile festivals like Rifflandia and Burning Man.
"The way that we record is to [improvise] and lay down a bunch of stuff and then we go through and pick out the … golden moments and start making a new arrangement out of that," says Cooke-Dallin.
They let the samples they've chosen determine where the song will go, rather than permanently aligning themselves with one genre.
Cooke-Dallin produced their most recent album, Astrocolor III, which was released in April 2018.
"The whole concept of the style of music that we've been making … has purposefully been to make music that sounds huge and danceable on a club system but also sounds dynamic and interesting enough that you could listen to it at a dinner party," he says.
"We're certainly not trying to hit a certain demographic. We're first and foremost trying to make … really good music that keeps evolving for people and is listenable in lots of different environments."
When it comes to live performances, Astrocolor is usually a full, six-piece band, although they sometimes play at venues that only have a DJ booth. In those cases, Cooke-Dallin plays tracks from the band and will have one or two live musicians perform with him if there's room.
"We have this versatility [when we perform] live … of being able to move back and forth between electronic, traditional band, or the culmination of the two."
When they do get to perform as a full band, Cooke-Dallin DJs.
"I'm working with mixes that I've created where I've removed some of the elements that the boys normally play and so they can fill them in live," he says.
Then, if things are going well, he'll loop a section and let the band improvise, and when it feels right, they'll jump back into their regular songs.
Astrocolor is performing at the Capital Ballroom in Victoria, B.C. on Saturday, Oct. 13 at 9 p.m. For tickets, visit their website at http://www.astrocolormusic.com/shows/


text:
Dean Spanley set for Toronto
22 August, 2008 by IF
[release from NZFC}
Confirming its position as the prime North American launch pad, the Toronto International Film Festival has added more world premieres to its line-up. Among the new titles announced today is director Toa Fraser's Dean Spanley starring 8-times Academy Award nominee, Peter O'Toole.
The film will have a red carpet Gala screening during the opening weekend in Toronto, on Saturday 6 September.
Dean Spanley joins a select list of others premiering at Toronto, including new films from critically acclaimed filmmakers Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Mira Nair, Brett Ratner, Caroline Link and Anees Bazmee and feature performances by Brad Pitt, Rachel McAdams, John Malkovich, Julie Christie, Vincent Cassel, Ellen Burstyn, Edward Norton, Christina Ricci, Colin Farrell, Akshay Kumar, Jon Voight, Scarlett Johansson, James Caan, Natalie Portman, George Clooney, Jeremy Northam, Kate Beckinsale, Alan Alda, Matt Dillon, Tim Robbins, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and Angela Bassett.
The Gala programme is described by the Festival as a 'high profile showcase of films with major impact'. The film will premiere at the 2,600 seat theatre, the Roy Thomson Hall. This is the first time a NZ feature film will have a Gala screening at Toronto, which is the most exalted slot the festival offers.
"The gala screening represents a spectacular launching pad for Dean Spanley" says director Toa Fraser. "We put our hearts and souls into making the movie and I can't wait to see it up there on the big screen at one of the world's most prestigious festivals."
Toa Fraser will be in Toronto to introduce his film along with his cast – Peter O'Toole, Jeremy Northam, Sam Neill and Bryan Brown. They will be joined by screenwriter Alan Sharp and producers Matthew Metcalfe and Alan Harris.
Set in the early 1900s, Dean Spanley is a whimsical, poignant tale of a father and son, and their encounters with an eccentric stranger.
NZ Film, which is the sales arm of the NZ Film Commission, is handling world sales of the film.
Dean Spanley will be released in Australia and New Zealand early 2009 by Transmission Films in association with Paramount Pictures.
Following Toronto, the subsequent Canadian release of the film is being handled by of Alliance Pictures (The World's Fastest Indian; The Lord of the Rings).
A UK-NZ co-production, Dean Spanley was financed by Aramid Entertainment, the NZ Film Commission's Film Fund 2, Lipsync Productions and Screen East. Executive Producers are David Parfitt, Finola Dwyer, Simon Fawcett and Alan Sharp.
The thirty-third annual Toronto International Film Festival will be held from September 3 to 13, 2008.
dean-spanley,
nzfc,
toa-fraser
Geena Davis to join NZFC's Power of Inclusion conference
Mason looks forward to his homecoming
'Orange is the New Black' creator Jenji Kohan to headline SPADA conference
NZFC to host global inclusion summit with speakers Jacinda Ardern, Niki Caro and Franklin Leonard
NZFC backs Donaldson, Tamahori projects


The $99 phone has a claimed battery life of 15 years without recharging, if you don't turn it on, or ten hours of continuous talk time if you do. It works on a single double-A battery. The point is to keep it in your car's glove box for emergencies. It has a red button that calls 911, even, they say, if you press it for the first time 15 years later.
If you want to use the Spare One as a regular phone, though, you need to buy a "sim card" from a cell phone service provider. The cost for that will depend on the contract. The lowest we could find was around $35 a month from Virgin Mobile; they let you go month to month.