Twelfth Night celebrated in Gallup

By Kevin Killough
Staff writer

GALLUP — While most people have put away their stockings, packed decorations back in their boxes, and recycled the Christmas tree, the Christmas celebrations were still going Sunday night at Martin Link’s house in Gallup. A couple dozen people gathered for the Twelfth Night Celebration, which is the last night of the traditional Christmas season.

“It’s the traditional way to celebrate the New Year,” Link said.

Following more traditional Christmas customs, the host blessed the fruit trees for the coming year that they may bare much fruit the coming year. Link watered them with a bit of wine, said a prayer, and all toasted.

The celebration included a skit that followed the knighting of Christmas roast. According to Link, in the Middle Ages, the king would knight the roast. And from that, we get the term for the finest beef, sirloin. A feast that contained several traditional dishes included Welsh rarebit. Rarebit, pronounced rabbit, is not Welsh and contains no meat. It is a cheese sauce poured over bread.

“The celebration is a great way for people in the community to come together and get acquainted,” Link said.

Moving a bit outside tradition, a play was held at the party. Allison Dollar wrote the script for the play earlier in the day. She called it, “Twelfth Night Unnamed Play.” The play was set, most likely, in ancient Egypt and opened with a man waking up after a night of drinking to find himself about to be mummified. The embalmer assured the man pre-death mummifications were the in thing. After hearing some pretty compelling arguments, the man agreed to undergo the procedure.