Sunday, September 14, 2014

Pranks and Practical Jokes...



Photo by Jim McGuigan 9.6.14
Pomeranian Weddings are filled with merriment including pranking the Bride and Groom.  This can include practical jokes and/or attempts to get the Bride or Groom drunk. Often these pranks can happen days before the celebration or anytime during the 3 day wedding celebration.
The Polterbend was the climax of the pranks.  The day before the wedding friends would gather around the bride’s home making noise and general ruckus while banging on pots, ringing bells, hollering and whistling. Pranks could include stuffing old quilts down smoking chimneys, stole her clothes or removed wheels from the family’s wagon/carriage.

One of the tamer tricks was to wrap a box of broken china in very decoratively. A bridesmaid or friend would present the bride with this gift and as she reached for it, it would drop to the ground shattering. We chose to represent this prank because it was safe in a museum setting BUT I didn’t expect the pomp and circumstance between my brother and sister in presenting me with the gift. ….I began to have doubts as to what was in the box.

Only days earlier, my bridesmaid, Sandy had an unfortunate moment at home.  A shelf in her china cabinet became loose, fell and sent china crashing everywhere.   Although the loss of sentimental china pieces is never a happy moment, it did provide opportunity to fill a box with broken china. I had believed this to be the contents of the box until I stood on the back porch that afternoon and watched my brother and sister dance around and ceremoniously present the gift to me. The thought had seriously crossed my mind that the broken china had been replaced with something much less innocuous. After all, many interesting even nasty things can be found in a farmyard….
I was relieved when I found the gift truly contained broken china!

1 comment:

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