Today is Nollaig na mBan (also known as Womens Christmas, Little Christmas, and The Feast of the Ephipany) where the men get to take over the house and the women get to enjoy themselves.
After a long cold Christmas the women amongst us deserve to put up their feet for the day and enjoy themselves for once if they can … with the hope of not getting food poisoning! 😉
For those that have never heard of it, the tradition of “Nollaig na mBan” is an old custom that’s still celebrated by women all over Ireland (and indeed in Irish emigrant communities all over the world). It goes back to the days when large families were the norm. Men never lifted a finger in the house to help, and were never expected to. If a man washed the dishes, he would be called an “auld woman” by other men. No full blooded Irish man was prepared to risk that! I’m not really sure that it applies in these days where work is less well defined between the sexes, but it still a good tradition which celebrates the importance of the women amongst us.
There’s a nice article that you can read here on Womens Christmas
