CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS

‘Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat’.

So goes the old rhyme, but these days it’s usually turkey.

Christmas is the greatest festival of the Christian church. The birth of Jesus Christ is a time for rejoicing, and Christians everywhere celebrate. We sing carols and attend special Church services and give thanks to God for his greatest gift to mankind that of his son Jesus. It is indeed a time for great celebration.

If we put the sacred celebrations to one side, we are left with a curious collection of customs observed by both Christians and non-believers alike. We bring trees, shrubs, parasitic plants and huge logs into our homes. We eat special food. We send each other brightly coloured cards and hang paper chains and tinsel around our rooms. We watch fairy stories portrayed on stage by women dressed as men and men dressed as women.

Some of these customs go back to the Dark Ages and beyond while others are quite modern. In ancient times, the behaviour of the sun was of vital importance and the summer and winter solstices were times of ritual and celebration. The winter solstice ceremonies, the Roman festival of Saturnalia and the Norse Yule were all dedicated to the ‘bringing back’ of the sun to the heavens. These festivals included several elements of our modern celebrations, adapted and altered down the years, but still displaying their roots in the distant past. One thing the festivals had in common - enjoyment was a high priority!

In Scandinavian cultures evergreens, which were still visibly living plants, were brought into homes in the belief that woodland spirits remained alive in the greenery and the warmth of the houses would help the plants grow again in the spring. The holly and the ivy in particular became symbols of Christ; the holly’s white flowers representing Mary’s purity, the red berries his blood, the prickly leaves the crown of thorns. The modern Scandinavian name for holly is Christ-thorn. The mistletoe, originally sacred to the Druids because it grew on oak trees, became a symbol of love in Scandinavian mythology. Christians also adopted it as such and the custom of ‘kissing under the mistletoe’ was to remind them of Christ’s teaching to love one another.

The fir tree became a Christmas tree through St. Boniface. Originally from Devon, he went to Germany in the eighth century. At this time several old pagan traditions had been incorporated into Christmas celebrations. One not acceptable was that of human sacrifice to the old gods. The story goes that St. Boniface came across a group of people about to sacrifice a child beneath an oak tree. Boniface rescued the child and the oak was felled. At its foot was a small fir which Boniface gave to the people as a holy symbol - the ‘Tree of the Christ-child’ .For the succeeding centuries the fir-tree was an integral part of Christmas. The Christmas tree only became part of British Christmases when Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg, husband of Queen Victoria, introduced it. In pagan times the trees were decorated with brightly painted apples in honour of the Norse god Woden. These have nowadays been replaced with glass baubles. Candles, both on and off the trees, represent Christ as the light of the world. The star on the tree represented the Star of Bethlehem and the fairy, the Christmas angel. There is also a legend about tinsel.. One night spiders spun their webs on a Christmas tree belonging to the family of a poor woman, who had worked hard for her family, and the legend goes that the Christ Child turned the webs to silver as a reward for her goodness. Tinsel is supposed to represent the silver webs.

The Christmas Yule-log (now often only appearing in chocolate form) comes from the Norse festival of Yule. This was a three day celebration full of the usual feasting, singing and saga-telling. A popular story concerned the god Odin travelling across the sky on his great horse Sleipnir. A special large log, from a fruit bearing tree, was cut down and placed on the fire. A libation was poured over it and it was lit using the remains of the previous year’s log to get the fire going. It was burned for three days to celebrate the return of the sun and if it could be kept burning for up to twelve days, good fortune would follow.

Wassailing has its origins in pagan times - the word comes from the Anglo-Saxon ‘Waes haeil’ which means ‘good health to you’ .The master of the house would invite everyone in the household to drink hot mead or ale from a special large wooden bowl. In later times, when the peasants no longer lived under the lord’s roof, they would take an empty bowl around the houses of their wealthier neighbours begging for food and drink to fill the ‘wassailing bowl’ as it was then known. This was accompanied by a special carol. Nowadays wassailing has mainly become merged with carol singing around the streets..

What of the food we eat at Christmas? The Christmas dinner, like the Saturnalian and Yule feast, has always been something special. In mediaeval times, the boar’s head was favourite at the table of the lord of the manor. In more humble dwellings it was usually a fowl - often the goose (the turkey being a comparative newcomer). Originally served with the meat was plum porridge, the forerunner of our Christmas pudding. Minced pies were made with meat as well as fruit in the early days. The shape of the pastry crust, it was said, resembled the manger. An old belief is that for every mince pie eaten that has been baked by another, there is the promise of a happy month. The custom of hiding silver charms or small coins in the pudding is Victorian. Its purpose was to encourage children to eat up their pudding in the hope of finding a treasure!

Christmas cards are a comparatively recent development, although at Saturnalia greetings were exchanged. The first card as we would know it, was sent by John C. Horsley to Sir Henry Cole. This is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. However, in the fifteenth century engravers produced prints at Christmas time with religious scenes and greetings for the new year. Initially Christmas cards bore scenes of the Nativity and of family groups but as time passed, robins, holly, Christmas roses, stage coaches, snow covered country scenes, candles, and yule logs became popular subjects. In fact anything seems to be used nowadays to decorate Christmas cards.

Similarly the Christmas cracker was a recent development. Queen Mary had a considerable collection of Christmas cards which included several mechanical cards. One of them contained three scenes: the second scene showing a pattern of roses shaped like a cracker with a hand at each end to pull it apart. In the final scene the cracker is parted to reveal a verse in an envelope. This card was thought to have been sent around 1870 and was believed to have been the forerunner of the cracker. An alternative theory is that it was ‘invented’ by a London baker called Thomas Smith as a device to sell his bon-bons. He got the idea of the ‘crack’ after poking his Yule log one Christmas Day and hearing a small bang when it suddenly burst into flame. He successfully manufactured the ‘cracker’ and by 1898 he was producing over 13 million per year. Crackers became very elaborate and remain very popular today.

Finally, pantomime - an essential part of Christmas for many families. The origins go back to the Middle Ages to the Italian ‘Commedia dell’Arte of Harlequin and Columbine. The British pantomime is a combination of this form of theatre and the traditional British music hall. The stories are traditional fairy stories with all the elements of good fighting evil. This concept is also shared with the medieval morality plays and the mummers’ plays. Even today, traditionally the villain should be the first to enter stage left (the dark side) followed by his adversary the good fairy on the right. Clowns and other comic characters come directly from the ‘Commedia dell’Arte .When performed on the British stage, mime became important because the foreign actors did not speak English. Consequently, much of the comedy was visual and ‘slapstick’ (from the sword carried by Harlequin and used to slap his fellow actors) was born. The tradition of men playing women’s parts goes back to the early days of theatre when it was deemed unsuitable for women to enter the theatrical profession. The pantomime dame was a creation from the music hall of the Victoria era. Popular comedians of the day took the role of these somewhat grotesque characters. The Principal Boy, played by a girl, became very popular in Victorian times. Women were expected to go about corseted, crinolined or bustled in the street, but on stage, artistic licence allowed them to reveal their legs providing they were playing a male role!

There are various other Christmas customs still practised today. Unless we share the opinions of Ebenezer Scrooge, we will all be enjoying something come ‘the festive season’ - eating, visiting friends and family, dragging in the Yule log, wassailing, opening presents, decorating the Christmas tree, shouting ‘it’s behind you!’ at the pantomime or simply reading a good book with a box of chocolates or a plate of mince pies in front of the telly! Whatever it is you plan to do - be it energetic or relaxing, I wish you all a very merry Christmas!