Britain’s Christmas—A Very Old Festival

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29082, 19 December 1959, Page 10

Britain’s Christmas —A Very Old Festival

[By HAROLD CHAMPION}

4ipHRISTMAS comes but once a year, and when it does we’ll have good cheer.” That quotation from a piece of ancient doggerel becomes part of every British child’s vocabulary as soon as he learns to put words together in a sentence. For whatever truth there may be in the jibe that the English take their pleasures sadly, it is certainly not true of Christmas time.

And, except for a very brief period in Britain’s history, it has been so from time immemorial.

In rougher days, when the only social security enjoyed by the poor was afforded by the castle or the great house, Christmas was the great “get-together” time. Then the lord and lady made merry in their vast draughty hall with rich and poor alike. Whatever divisions of wealth might be manifest through the rest of the year, Christmas was the season for democracy. It is interesting to observe that many apparently modern Christmas customs are not really modern at all, but are derived, in however modified a form, from those early days. The feudal lords from the 11th to the 17th centuries decked their halls with holly and invited one and all to feasting, singing, games, and dancing. Mummers presented masques and masquerades. The yule log was cut in the lord’s woods and was dragged into the hall with great rejoicing. Enormous quantities of food were provided, the piece de risistance being a boar’s head (which later yielded pride of place to a baron of beef); and all the proceedings, which appear to have continued from Christmas Day to Twelfth Night, were directed by a “Lord of Misrule.”

Holly And Feasting Holly, feasting, singing, games —all these are still essential to the British Christmas. But historical influences have led to a prime emphasis on the true, religious meaning of the festival, and to the delight of children and families gathered round the home fireside.

Paradoxically, 20-Century Britain owes the joyful Christmas family character of the season in large part to the Puritans, who well-nigh abolished it by law, and the common sense > of Englishmen who afterwards revolted against the idea that, unlike their forefathers, they ought to take their pleasures dismally at Yuletide. For the Puritans, plum-pudding, holly and yule logs were a crass superstition. They decreed that England must have none of it. That might well have been one of the more powerful reasons for the profound reaction against Puritanism in the Caroline period. “Christmas comes but once a year,” we can imagine them saying, “and when it comes we’ll have good cheer.” So today, we in Britain enjoy a Christmas which is, above all,

a family festival. It is the time of year when everybody who can returns home, however distant from his home he may be. And, of course, the Christmas presents to take home to family and friends are an essential part of the pre-holiday packing. It is still illuminating, and moving, to re-read Charles Dickens’s Christmas books, which include “A Christmas Carol” and its classic characters of Scrooge, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim, and Christmas Stories. They epitomise what every Briton feels about Christmas today—so completely, indeed, that it is often said that Dickens was the founder of modern Christmas. It is more likely, however, that he wrote about customs and points of view already warmly held by the average Briton of the early 19th century. Dickens’s Christmas is our Christmas, and Tiny Tim’s “God bless us, one and all’’ is the spirit which inspires us still. This is not to say, of course, that a certain commercialism has not crept into the Christmas season. It may be a little chilling to reflect that the Christmas cards and gifts adorning shop windows throughout the Christmas shopping season were the subject of carefully calculated manufacture and trade purchasing eight months or more earlier; that the very decorations we ceremonially put up in our homes before Christmas and take down on Twelfth Night have been stored in warehouses awaiting our pleasure for half a year.

The Simple Things

Yet it is still true that the British Christmas is not, in essence, commercial. On Christmas Day not a shop opens its doors. Public transport is diminished, so that in London even the bus services cease about lunch-time. And, in spite of commercial persuasions to sophistication, it is the simple things we enjoy on this day of days—oldfashioned parlour games like spinning the trencher, hunt the slipper, consequences and guessing. Father may yearn for his game of bridge. Nonetheless, he will play .the games of his youth with the family, even the youngest of whom is allowed to stay up long after the accustomed bedtime.

This is, of course, the day for presents. For the very young, perhaps, the age-old story of Father Christmas, or Santa Claus, may really mean a red-gowned, bearded and benevolent gentleman who arrives on the roof-tops

by reindeer-sleigh and fills the stockings confidently made ready. For the elders it means, as it did for Dickens, the Spirit of Christmas, past, present and future. The boar’s head was given place to the turkey, the yule log to central heating or the electric radiator. The merrymaking is more restrained than that which offended our puritan forefathers. What remains unchanged is the conception of Christmas as a time for family rejoicing. In many parts of Britain “family” must be interpreted broadly as meaning “circle of friends.” For this is the party season. How many British folk recall all their lives their first party—often at Christmas time. (Alas for that child’s party-giving prospects whose birthday falls on Christmas Day!) A visit to the pantomime, that peculiarly British theatrical presentation which owes its origins to the oldtime mummers’ masques i and simple plays, is often associated with a party, in London as well as in provincial cities.

Traditional Dishes

While a turkey, Christmas pudding (often with sixpences concealed within) and mince pies are a “must” all over Britain at Christmas, many localities retain traditional dishes special to them. In Cornwall, saffron cake is an indispensable offering to neighbours calling to wish one a happy Christmas. In some of the Yorkshire dales rich Christmas cake, laced with brandy, is accompanied by a glass of port wine when offered as a mid-morning snack. As long ago as Mr Pepys, of the Diary, mince pies were served at every Christmas meal. In many parts of the rural north and the Midlands of England a favourite Christmas dish is “furmety,” variably spelt “frumety” or “frumenty.” It is prepared by steeping whole grains of wheat in water overnight, boiling this in milk, sweetening it with sugar and flavouring with spices. The relationship of the word with the Latin “frumentum” suggests that this dish may well be one of the few surviving words from the Roman occupation of Britain.

The Royal Broadcast

Carol singing in the streets by church choirs, and by groups of children at the door, are as familiar a feature as holly and mistletoe. So' is the Christmas tree, introduced to Britain by Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria.

In recent years a broadcast speech by the Sovereign on the afternoon of Christinas Day has become part of the Commonwealth Christmas tradition. People who have heard the voice of their Sovereign at this time ever since King George V began the custom in the 1930’s would feel that something vital was missing from Christmas Day if the Queen did not speak to them.