Christmas down the ages

Press, 24 December 1986, Page 17

Christmas down the ages

■ pagan, Christian, commercial, or whatever

By

MAVIS AIREY

“The impulse to spend seizes everyone. He who the whole year through has taken pleasure in saving and piling up his pence, becomes suddenly extravagant ... People are not only generous towards themselves, but generous towards their fellow men. A stream of presents pours itself out on all sides.”

The description sounds so like Christmas fever that it comes as a shock to discover the writer is Libanus, the fourth century Greek sophist, and the event he is describing is the Kalends, the pagan New Year festival. It, and the earlier festival of Saturn, Saturnalia, spread to Europe with the Roman Empire, and were taken over by the Christian church, along with various other pagan rites of the

winter solstice. Christmas, the festival of Christ’s nativity, took on the ancient spirit — and has never really lost it. Libanus goes on: “The Kalends festival banishes all that is connected with toil, and allows men to give themselves up to undisturbed enjoyment. From the minds of young people it removes two kinds of dread: the dread of the schoolmaster and the dread of the stern pedagogue ... Another great quality of the festival is that it teaches men not to hold too fast to their money, but to part with it and let it pass into other hands.” Turkeys, geese, pigs, and wild boar, peacocks, swans, and guinea fowl ... the traditional slaughter for the groaning tables of Christmas feasts may also go back to the animal sacrifices of midwinter festivals in earlier days. The Venerable Bede (673735) uses the Anglo-Saxon word “Blot-monath” — slaughter or sacrifice month — for November.

The English seem to have taken to the feasting with particular relish: an Old Italian saying describes a very busy person as having “more to do than the ovens in England at Christmas.” The extravagance reached its height in Tudor times. Cavendish, the biographer of Cardinal Wolsey, describes the Christmas benquets given for King Henry VIII: “The banquets were set forth, with masks and mummeries, in so gorgeous a sort, and costly manner, that it was a heaven to behold. There was all kind of music and har-' mony set forth, with excellent voices both of men and children. I have seen the King suddenly come thither in a mask, with a dozen other maskers, all in garments like shepherds, made of fine cloth of gold and fine crimson satin, paned (particoloured), and caps of the same, with visors of good proportion of visnomy (covering most of the face); their hairs and beards either of fine gold wire or else of silver, and some being of black silk; having 16 torchbearers, besides their drums, and other persons, attending upon them, with visors, and clothed all in satin, of the same colours.” The Puritans reacted strongly against the courtly extravagance and pagan associations of Christmas. Here is William Bradford’s account of the Pilgrim Fathers’ “celebration” in 1621 at Plymouth Rock. “On ye day called Christmasday ye Gov’r caled them out to worke (as was used), but the most of this new company excused themselves, and said it went against their consciences to

worke on ye day. So the Gov’r tould them that if they made it a mater of conscience, he would spare them till they were better informed. So he led away ye rest, and left them: but when they came home at noone from their worke, he founde them in ye streete at play, openly; some pitching ye barr, and some at stoole ball, and such like sports.

“So he went to them and tooke away their implements, and told them that it was against his conscience that they should play, and others worke. If they made the keeping of it a matter of devotion, let them keepe their houses, but there should be no gameing or revelling in ye streets. Since which time nothing hath been attempted that way, at least openly.” However, in England, many of the old customs persisted. In defiance of the ordinance abolishing the traditional Lords of Misrule, who superintended the revelries, Richard Evelyn, father of the famous diarist, drew up “articles” for the guidance of his own Lord of Misrule for the twelve days of Christmas, in 1634, just before the English Civil War. He well reflects the social attitudes of his day: "If any man shall bee drunke, or drinke more than is fitt, or offer to slepe during the time abovesaid, or do not drinke up his bowle of beere, blit flings away his snuffe (that is to say) the second draught, he shall drinke two, and afterwards be excluded.

“If any person shall come into the kitchen while meate is a dressinge, to molest the cookes, he shall suffer the rigour of his Lordship’s law. “If any man shall kisse any maid, widdow or wife, except to bid welcome or farewell, without his Lordship’s consent, he shall have punishment as his Lordship shall thinke convenient. “The last article: I give full power and authoritie to his Lordship to break up al lockes, bolts, barres, doores, and latches, and to flinge up all doores out of hendges to come at those who presume to disobey his Lordship’s commaunds. “God save the King.” Christmas was reinstated after the restoration, but even then it was a much more muted affair than before. This is how James Boswell spent Christmas Day in 1762: “The night before I did not rest well. I was really violently in love with Louisa. I thought she did not care for me. I thought that if I did not gain her affections, I would appear despicable to myself. “This day I was in a better frame of mind, being Christmas

Day, which always inspired me with most agreeable feelings. I went to St Paul’s Church and in that magnificent temple fervently adored the God of goodness and mercy, and heard a sermon by the Bishop of Oxford on the publishing of glad tidings of great joy.”

It is the Victorian “rediscovery” of Christmas that we hark back to nowadays, typified by Prince Albert’s favourite, the Christmas tree. “To think,” said Queen Victoria in her Journal, “that we have two children now, and one who enjoys the sight already, is like a dream!” The Prince Consort, writing to his father, echoes the same sentiment: “This is the dear Christmas Eve, on which I have so often listened with impatience for your step, which was to usher us into the present-room. Today I have two children of my own to give presents to, who, they know not why, are full of happy wonder at the German Christmastree and its radiant candles.” The burden of the festivities tended to lie — then as now — on the women’s shoulders. Jane Carlyle wrote to Jeannie Walsh on December 23, 1843: “ ... I have just had to swallow a bumper of my uncle’s Madeira (which IS capital drink!) to nerve me for writing at all! A huge boxful of dead animals from the Welshman arriving late on Saturday night, together with the visions of SCROOGE, had so worked on Carlyle’s nervous organisation that he has been seized with a perfect CONVULSION of hospitality, and has actually insisted on IMPROVISING TWO dinner parties with only a day between. Now, IMPROVISATION of dinner parties is all very well for the parties who have to EAT them simply, but for those who have to ORGANISE them and HELP TO COOK THEM, C’EST AUTRE CHOSE MA CHERE!”

Wherever they went, the British took their traditions with them. William Sansom tells a good and possibly true story of a group of English students puddingless in Paris at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Unable to get an orthodox British pudding from the grocer, they decided it might be made up by ,a chemist, for, the pharmacies, of those days normally stocked the necessary raw ingredients, such as eggs and almonds for emulsion, suet for ointments, raisins for boluses, laxative prunes, and so forth. So a prescription of the order of Ova viii, Fruct. parv. Corynthii, zinziber pulv., etc. was despatched. The result? A fine pudding elegantly wrapped in parchment and labelled in medical Latin: Apply the hot poultice to the affected part. The Victorian Christmas was

exported to America, where it was adopted with enthusiasm. Eliza Ripley describes the festivities on their Louisana plantation: “Christmas before the war. There never will be another in any land, with any peoples, like the Christmas of 1859 — on the old plantation. Days beforehand preparations were in progress for the wedding at the (slave) quarters, and the ball at the “big house.” Children coming home for the holidays were both amused and delighted to learn that Nancy Brackenridge was to be the quarter bride .... ~ ‘‘While the young school girls were busy ‘letting out* the white satin balldress that had descended from the parlor dance to the quarter bride ... and while the boys were ransacking the distant woods for holly branches and magnolia boughs ... the family were busy with the multitudinous preparations for the annual dance ... “The children made molasses gingerbread and sweet potato pies, and one big bride’s cake, with a. real ring on it. They

spread the table in the big quarters nursery and the boys decorated it with greenery and a lot of cut paper fly catchers, laid on the roast mutton and pig, and hot biscuits from the big house kitchen, and the pies and cakes of the girls’ own make ... “The very last Christmas on the old plantation we had a tree. None of us had ever seen a Christmas tree; there were no cedars or pines, so we finally settled upon a tall althea bush, hung presents on it, for all the house servants, as well’as for the family, and>a, few, guests. The tree had to be lighted up, so it was postponed till evening. “The idea of the house servants having such a celebration quite upset the little negroes. I heard one remark: “All us house niggers is going to be hung on the tree.” Before the dawn of another Christmas the negroes had become discontented, demoralised, and scattered ... The family had already abandoned the old plantation home.”