In 1819 a certain Scottish lady -- so the story goes -- was preparing Christmas dinner when she had an unexpected visitor -- her local minister. In haste, fearing for the minister's displeasure at her festive preparations, she hid the meal in its iron pot, fresh from the fire, under her bed. During the next few minutes of what was probably sober conversation, the red-hot pot set her bed afire. Fortunately, this event never turned into a Christmas tradition.
The Scottish lady tried to hide the evidence of a Christmas celebration from her minister because by the early 19th century there were still some religious authorities who condemned any festive recognition of Christmas. Fortunately for our contemporary sensibilities, and also fortunately for our modern national economies, the Scottish minister's disapproval was rooted in a puritanical revulsion for public gaiety that was then in its final throes of fading from Anglo society.
Many centuries' worth of English history had created a wealth of Christmas traditions sufficient to overwhelm mere revolutionary attempts at stifling and subduing enjoyment of those traditions. The practice of Christmas celebrations was a tradition that was already well-established for over one thousand years when the English Parliament, acting with the authority of the Puritan Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, outlawed any Christmas holiday observance on Christmas Eve of 1652.
In 1661, less than a decade later, the monarchy and Christmas festivities were restored to England. Almost two centuries were required to return Christmas celebrations to their pre-Puritan levels of acceptance and indulgence. Victorian-era England accomplished that -- with some significant changes -- and in doing so bequeathed fourteen centuries' worth of traditions that have become closely associated with modern festivities marking the Christmas holiday time.
Here is a sampling of Christmas traditions, highlighting their history and how they became traditional:
Christmas holidays -- Pope Gregory I (Gregory the Great) might have been excused for thinking "nobody parties like the pagans" when, in 601, he authorized Augustine, as missionary to the Anglo-Saxons of Britain, to claim the pagan midwinter festival of Yule as a Christmas holiday. Two centuries later, the passionately Christian Alfred (Alfred the Great), King of Wessex, took this several steps further when he royally proclaimed that it would be illegal for anyone in his kingdom to work during the time between the Nativity and the Epiphany of January 6 (the Twelve Days of Christmas). Surviving and flourishing despite -- or perhaps because of -- Viking, Danish and Norman invasions, the Christmas holiday tradition of the English monarchy developed over the succeeding eight centuries, encompassing annual elaborate gatherings, feastings, drinking, play-acting and other entertainment. King Henry VIII was notable for excess in this, as he was in most of his royal activities.
Make it a family affair -- Credit goes to the Victorian British for entrenching family and close friends in the secular center of the Christmas celebrations. This centrality has been constant for a century and a half, and shows no sign of changing. Though earlier forms of Yule-time gatherings would have included family and friends as part of the natural order of things, the style of these more ancient times was guided by the monarchy, whose members, attendants and followers created a more public (and perhaps, in the views of some, a more profane) atmosphere for the festivities. For example, Kings Henry VIII and James I were noted for the extravagance of their Christmastime gambling and gaming events, with entrance only -- and especially -- for those with significant and impressive financial liquidity.
Caroling -- At the beginning of the 19th century, the poet Tennyson observed that most of the old Christmas carols were known only in "odd nooks" of the country; in the cities, the only such song that was well-known was "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen." Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, written and published during the first decade of Queen Victoria's long reign, helped to re-energize popular interest in the many songs of Christmas.
Greenery -- The mere mention of the Christmas tree, a wreath, holly or mistletoe is enough to stimulate the senses in a variety of pleasant ways, and perhaps also to stir the lingering feelings of deeply-rooted, ancient natural relationships, memories of which lurk somewhere just beneath the consciousness. Germany and the Germans have long been custodians of the primeval linkage between the human spirit and the natural denizens -- both flora and fauna -- of the wooded lands. The Hanoverian occupants of the British throne -- including notably George III -- brought the long-time Teutonic custom of decorated holiday trees to Great Britain; within a few years, the Saxon Prince Albert, husband to Queen Victoria, was publicly endorsing the virtues of decorated evergreen trees as a part of the annual Christmas celebration. Germans and other northern Europeans had already achieved wide-spread common acceptance of the Christmas tree, starting as early as the 1300s; the English-speaking lands required a few more decades of the 19th century to find the tree in working-class and middle-class homes, as well as in the abodes of the wealthy and the royal.
Food and drink -- Or should it be "drink," and then "food?" Legend tells of the ancient British King Vortigern -- leader, after the departure of the protective Roman legions, of the Romanized British of the 5th century -- presiding over a Christmastime celebration that apparently included some number of the recently-arrived Saxons. Among the representatives of that noble Germanic tribe was a beautiful young woman named Rowena, who served the king with a bowl of hot, spiced ale, and she spoke to him, saying "Waes-hael!" In her language, those words would have meant "your health!" And so began the traditional Christmas beverage known as wassail, a concoction of alcoholic ale, sugar, cinnamon and other spices, and roasted apples.
And now, for the meal itself -- One or more types of meat -- depending, of course, on financial wherewithal -- have occupied the central place of the Christmas feast since the earliest celebration time in Britain; now, and especially here in America, the tradition is more often than not satisfied by a roasted turkey. But the turkey is native only to North America, and was unknown in Europe or the British Isles until it was brought back by the Spanish in the 16th century. England might not have seen its first turkey until well into the following century, and goose was the predominant meat for Christmas dinner in Victorian England, if only because it was much less expensive than was turkey. When, in A Christmas Carol, Scrooge anonymously buys the prize turkey for the Cratchit family's dinner, he was gifting them with something that was remarkable for a working-class setting not only because of auspicious size, but also because the species was food for the rich. Tradition continues to require that the special meal be finished with a special dessert -- pies have always been a tasty completion. Plum pudding is a centuries' old choice, too, but apparently it has never included plums. The name seems to derive from an ancient use of the word "plumb," when that word was used in the way that we might now use the term "plump," as in "to swell." Raisins have been a common ingredient in plum pudding since at least the 1700s, and during the cooking process the pronounced swelling of the raisins is one of the primary causes of the pudding's notable increase in size.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year to All!
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