{"id":4844,"date":"2020-01-07T14:25:32","date_gmt":"2020-01-07T19:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/?p=4844"},"modified":"2020-01-14T08:25:28","modified_gmt":"2020-01-14T13:25:28","slug":"old-christmas-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/?p=4844","title":{"rendered":"Old Christmas 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"

For most, the holiday season ends with a celebration of New Year\u2019s Day. But in the villages where I live, many of us extend the festivity to\u00a0 another lesser known holiday. Old Christmas<\/strong><\/em> is a remnant of the Julian<\/em> carried over to the Gregorian<\/em> calendar. In Rodanthe it occurs the first Saturday after New Year\u2019s Day, has a local history dating back a couple hundred years, and is celebrated at our community building.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Originally an early 1900’s schoolhouse, the building has been renovated and expanded to serve the community.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Festivities start with the oyster shoot where participants fire shotguns at paper targets. Whoever has a pellet closest to the bullseye wins a bag of oysters.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Folks mill around and wait for their turn to shoot.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Young Owen O’Neal tries his luck at a bag of oysters. Old Christmas has long been part of his family heritage.<\/p>\n

\"\" \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/a>Santa wants a bag of oysters too.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Skating is an activity recently added to the events.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0Joey O’Neal shovels oysters roasting on his homemade grills.<\/p>\n

\"\" \u00a0 <\/a>Eddie O’Neal and Eric Anglin are some of the first to shuck a few.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Empty shells begin to pile up under the table.<\/p>\n

\"\" \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/a>Phillip Beck shucks one out for a youngster.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Cooks in the kitchen prepare a traditional meal of stewed chicken and pie bread.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The deserts are to die for!<\/p>\n

\"\" \u00a0 \u00a0<\/a>By the time night falls, the shells continue to fall.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Joey has gotten his groove on the grills. I’d give him an A+.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Back inside, the band Chicamacomico<\/strong><\/em> plays on in anticipation of Old Buck.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Justin O’Neal prepares the legendary bull before entering. Like ancestors before him, Justin has become Old Buck’s latest caretaker.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The appearance of Old Buck is an evening highlight.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kids love meeting him.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Briggs McEwen sets his son on Old Buck’s back for a fun ride. But as soon as he came, he’s quickly gone for another year.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/a>In the end, I asked if Old Buck needed a ride home, so we loaded him into the back of my Toyota. It was another Merry Old Christmas!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For most, the holiday season ends with a celebration of New Year\u2019s Day. But in the villages where I live, many of us extend the festivity to\u00a0 another lesser known holiday. Old Christmas is a remnant of the Julian carried over to the Gregorian calendar. In Rodanthe it occurs the first Saturday after New Year\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,22,36,26,23,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animals","category-buildings","category-history","category-outer-banks","category-oysters","category-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4844"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4888,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4844\/revisions\/4888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}