Spotted in an Edinburgh windae, Fae Leith Navidad… a Christmas Cracker for St Stephen’s Day.
Which only goes to show that there’s a Dad Joke for every day of the year if you only know where to find them.
Now yours have been pulled and disposed of among crumpled gift wrapping for collection which gags will be keeping?
Not ‘why did Santa’s reindeers have sore heads on St Stephen’s Day/Boxing Day?’
‘Because they’d been on the tiles’.
Which had Daddy’s Little Girl’ scratching her green and white Suntie hat.
St Stephen’s Day gag
And on the subject of St Stephen, his one and only gag.
An old standard which I’m surprised she hadn’t heard did raise a smile.
‘What was Good King Wenceslas’s favourite pizza?’
‘Deep pan, crisp and even’
You know the oul’ Christmas carol… ‘Good King Wenceslas first looked out on the Feast of Stephen…
‘Where the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even.’
And like me you may have been given a tin of Dancing Dad jokes this year.
Although I reckon I probably wrote them all.
Wenceslas Square
Now back on Good King Wenceslas you can find him, of course, in proud Prague.
Peerless on his stead in Wenceslas Square.
Wenceslas Square is where Czechs assemble at their most perilous moments.
And they, of course, met there for a poignant candle procession for the Charles University shootings.
Just as they have throughout their history.
As with all the best legends there is a myth surrounding it.
And this one surrounds a young adventurer Bruncvik and his quest to return to his true love Neomenia.
And a secret magic sword (aren’t they all) hidden somewhere among the stones of Charles Bridge.
The Sword of Truth
Yes, you guessed it, only one man knows where it is, King Wenceslas.
And he will return to wield it when his people are at their most vulnerable.
The stone of the Statue will burn away and from the ashes will emerge King Wenceslas.
When he will issue his cri de coeur ‘Sleeping Army of Blanik, rise from your slumber!”
Be warned.
Czech out the history
Of course, the Czechs have long endured invaders, from the Hapsburgs through the Nazis to the Communists.
Biding their time before striking back.
As they did in 1945, to chase the Nazis out of Wenceslas Square.
And again in 1968 where they bravely took the fight to the Soviets who met that by rolling their tanks into the Czech capital.
The Czechs did what they had always done, bedded down, and took on the ‘power to the people’ exhortations of John Lennon, at the Lennon wall.
Before they had their salvation with the Velvet Revolution in 1989 which they celebrated you know where.
A Square deal
So, if you’re lucky enough to be in Wenceslas Square then get yourself your selfie with the our hero.
If you’re a local you’ll probably have met at his tail for a date which is tradition.
And you’ll certainly want to buy something from their dinky tabak kiosks.
And note to Son and Heir who finished off my Becherovka and said he would buy another bottle.
You can get them here, and obviously anywhere in the Czech capital but it’s more fun from a kiosk shaped like a Becherovka bottle.
So Prague is where you want to be today, and many other days tbh.
Wenceslas Square where it’s a Christmas Cracker for St Stephen’s Day.