Christmas

In this lesson we look at some of the customs and traditions of Christmas.

To begin with, here is an extract from Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh, which describes a Christmas in 1920s.

[Adam and Nina Littlejohn are spending Christmas with her father, the Colonel. Mr and Mrs Florin and Ada work in the Colonel's house.]

N

ext morning Adam and Nina woke up under Ada's sprig of mistletoe to hear the bells ringing for Christmas across the show. `Come all to church, good people; good people come to church'. They had each hung up a stocking the evening before, and Adam had put a bottle of scent and a scent spray into Nina's, and she had put two ties and a new kind of safety-razor into his. Ada brought them their tea and wished them a happy Christmas. Nina had remembered to get a present for each of the Florins, but have forgotten Ada, so she gave her the bottle of scent.

`Darling', said Adam, `it cost 25 shillings.'

After luncheon they went down to see all the decorations in the servants' hall.

This was a yearly custom of some antiquity, and the Florins had prepared for it by hanging paper streamers from the gas brackets. Ada was having middle-day dinner with her parents who lived among the petrol pumps in Doubting village, so the Florins ate their turkey and plum pudding alone.

The Colonel knocked in the door and said, `May we come in, Mrs Florin?'

`That you may, sir, and welcome', said Mrs Florin.

Then Adam and Nina and the Colonel admired the decorations and handed over their presents wrapped in tissue paper. Then the Colonel said, `I think we should take a glass of wine together.'

Florin opened a bottle of sherry which he had brought up this morning and poured out the glasses, handing one first to Nina, then to Mrs Florin, then to the Colonel, then to Adam, and, finally, taking one for himself.

`My very best wishes to you, Mrs Florin', said the Colonel, raising his glass, `and to you, Florin. The years go by, and we none of us get any younger, but I hope and trust that there are many Christmases in store for us yet. Mrs Florin certainly doesn't look a day older than when she first came here. My best wishes to you both for another year of health and happiness.'

Mrs Florin said, `Best respects, sir, and thank you, sir, and the same to you.'

Florin said, `And a great pleasure it is to see Miss Nina - Mrs Littlejohn, I should say - with us once more at her old home, and her husband too, and I'm sure Mrs Florin and me wish them every happiness and prosperity in their married life together, and all I can say, if they can be as happy together as me and Mrs Florin has been, well, that's the best I can wish them.' Then the family went away, and the house settled down to its afternoon nap.

Later, Nina came in to say that there were carol singers outside the drawing-room window.

`Bring `em in,' said the Colonel. `Bring `em in. They come every year. And tell Florin to bring up the punch'.

Florin brought up the punch in a huge silver punch bowl and Nina brought in the waits. They stood against the sideboard, caps in hand, blinking in the gaslight, and very red about the nose and cheeks with the sudden warmth.

`Oh, tiding of comfort and joy,'

they sang, `comfort and joy,

`Oh, tiding of comfort and joy.'

They sang Good King Wenceslas, and `The First Noёl, and Adeste Fideles, and White Shepherds Watched Their Flocks. Then Florin ladled out the punch, seeing that the younger ones did not get the glasses intended for their elders, but that each, according to his capacity, got a little more, but not much more, than was good for him.

The Colonel tasted the punch and pronounced it excellent. He then asked the carol singers their names and where they came from, and finally gave their leader five shillings and sent them off into the snow.

`It's been just like this every year, as long as I can remember,' said the Colonel.

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So what exactly is Christmas all about? Here is a brief history of the origin and development of the festival by Frank Muir.

Christmas Time

C

hristmas, or a similar festival, has been celebrated from the earliest days of recorded history, and each era and race has pasted a colourful sheet of new customs and traditions over the old.

Telling the story of Christmas is like peeling away centuries of old wallpapers. `And she brought forth her first-born son and wrapped him up in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger: because there was no room at the inn.' That was how St Luke described the Nativity. St Matthew provided a few more details: `Jesus therefore was born in Bethlehem of Judaea, in the days of king Herod.' The early Christians wanted to venerate the birthday of the Saviour but they hit a snag; neither Luke nor Matthew had mentioned the time of day, nor the date in the year. Many and furious debates were held to decide upon a date. During the fourth century the Christians of western Europe settled on 25 December. The Eastern Church at first chose 6 January, but by the fifth century they too agreed to 25 December. The reasoning behind this held to a pleasant logic; 25 March was a date sacred since pre-Christian times. The festival of spring, celebrating creation and the return of life to the soil, had always been held on the 25th, and the Church took over the date to commemorate the Annunciation of the Virgin, the Church's own celebration of fertility. The date for the Nativity was reached by adding nine months on to 25th March!

The date of Christmas also dovetailed in neatly with the winter festival of the Norsemen, Yule, which celebrated the winter solstice and the returning sun. King Hakon the Good actually decreed that the Yule festival should run concurrently with Christmas, that everyone should brew malt with his ale and keep Yule holy in his own way. Many old pagan customs leaked through into the new Christian festival of Christmas.

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A traditional feature of Christmas in Britain is the Christmas tree. Queen Victoria and prince Albert popularised this German tradition in Britain. The first Christmas trees were introduced here about 160 years ago, and now most families buy a small fir tree to decorate and put in their homes at Christmas.

Here is a description of one of the first Christmas trees seen in Britain taken from Charles Dickens's `A Christmas Tree' in Household Words, 1850

A Christmas Tree

I have been looking on, this evening, at a merry company of children, assembled round that pretty German toy, a Christmas tree. The tree was planted in the middle of a great round table, and towered high above their heads. It was brilliantly lighted by a multitude of little tapers; and everywhere sparkled and glittered with bright objects. There were rosy-cheeked dolls, hiding behind the green leaves; and there were real watches (with movable hands, at least, and the endless capacity of being wound-up) dangling from innumerable twigs; there were French-polished tables, chairs, bedsteads, wardrobes, eight-day clocks, and various other articles of domestic furniture (wonderfully made, in tin, at Wolverhampton), perched among the boughs, as if in preparation for some fairy housekeeping; there were jolly, broad-faced little men, much more agreeable in appearance than many real men - and no wonder, for their heads took off, and showed them to be full of sugar-plums; there were fiddles and drums; there were tambourines, books, workboxes, paint-boxes, sweetmeat boxes, peep-show boxes, and all kinds of boxes; there were trinkets for the elder girls, far brighter than any grown-up gold and jewels; there were baskets and pin-cushions in all devices; there were guns, swords and banners; there were witches standing in enchanted rings of pasteboard, to tell fortunes; there were humming-tops, needle-cases, pen-wipers, smelling-bottles, conversation-cards, bouquet-holders; real fruit made artificially dazzling with gold leaf; imitation apples, pears, and walnuts, crammed with surprises; in short, as a pretty child, before me, delightfully whispered to another pretty child, her bosom friend, `There was everything, and more.'

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Evelyn Waugh mentions some traditional English carols in the passage from Vile Bodies. One of these is an old favourite - Good King Wenceslas.

Good King Wenceslas is supposed to have been a Bohemian nobleman who lived in the tenth century. He was murdered by his mother, Drahomira, and his brother Boleslav, at the age of 26. This story probably came to Britain when James I's daughter, Elisabeth, married the Elector Palatine, the ruler of Bohemia.

The language used in this carol is rather old-fashioned, so you might find some of the words a little difficult to understand. (See the footnotes!)

Good King Wenceslas

Good king Wenceslas looked out,

On the Feast of Stephen,

When the snow lay round about,

Deep and crisp and even;

Brightly shone by the moon that night,

Though the frost was cruel,

When a poor man came in sight,

Gath'ring winter fuel.

`Hither page, and stand by me,

If thou know'st it, telling

Yonder peasant, who is he?

Where and what his dwelling?'

`Sire, he lives a good league

hence,

Underneath the mountain,

Right against the forest fence,

By Saint Agnes fountain.'

`Bring me flesh and bring me

wine,

Bring me pine logs hither;

Thou and I will see him dine,

When we bear them thither.'

Page and monarch, forth they

went,

Forth they went together;

Through the rude wind's wild lament

And the bitter weather,

`Sire, the night is darker now

And the wind blows stronger;

Fails my heart, I know not how;

I can go no longer.'

`Mark my footsteps, good my

page

Tread thou in them boldly;

Thou shalt find the winter rage

Freeze thy blood less coldly.'

In his master's steps he trod,

Where the snow lay dinted;

Heat was in the very sod

Which the Saint had printed.

Therefore, Christian men, be sure,

Wealth or rank possessing,

Ye who now will bless the poor

Shall yourselves find blessing.

Christmas Quiz

Now see how much you know about Christmas! Here are some light-hearted questions for you to answer - turn to page 6 for the correct solutions.

2. When was the first Christmas tree introduced to Britain?

1. about 1920

2. about 1950

3. about 1830

4. about 1870

3. Who made the Christmas tree popular in Britain?

1. Father Christmas

2. Queen Victoria

3. Good King Wenceslas

4. Queen Elizabeth II

4. Which of these things would you use to decorate your house with at Christmas time?

1. Punch

2. mistletoe

3. streamers

4. holly

5. What would you expect to find in a Christmas stocking?

1. a plum pudding

2. money

3. old clothes

4. small presents

6. Which of these things would you not find on your plate at Christmas?

1. turkey

2. plum pudding

3. ivy

4. snow

7. Where does the tradition of decorating a house with mistletoe at Christmas come from?

1. Germany

2. the Druids

3. Bohemia

4. Turkey

Father Christmas's Muddle

Children in Britain believe that Father Christmas travels through the sky on Christmas Eve, on a sledge pulled by reindeer. They think that he comes down every chimney to deliver presents to each person in the house.

Father Christmas has got into a muddle: he has put a pile of presents into his sack to deliver to a house, but he can't remember which present was for which person. Can you help him?

The presents are:

diary, razor, chocolates, knitting-bag, saw, cigarettes, grapes, fishing-rod.

The people are:

Mr Brown (has a beard, likes wood-work, but doesn't smoke)

Mrs Brown (ill, in bed, but able to sit up and use her hands)

John Brown (20 years old, clean-shaven, does not like fishing)

Mary Brown (12 years old, keen on writing, likes sweets)

Can you distribute the presents to each member of the family? There are two presents for each person. Compare your answers with Father Christmas's list on page 6.

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Answers to tests on page 5.

Christmas Quiz

• c

• b

• b, c & d

• d

• c & d

• b

Father Christmas's List

Mr Brown saw and fishing-rod

Mrs Brown grapes and knitting bag

John Brown razor and cigarettes

Mary Brown diary and chocolates

mistletoe decorating a house with mistletoe at Christmas is a very old custom. It may have something to do with the Druidical belief in its powers of fertility. The custom is to hang mistletoe from the ceiling, for people to kiss under.

stocking children traditionally hang up a stocking or sock at he end of their beds on Christmas Eve for Father Christmas.

decorations at Christmas everyone decorates their houses with holly, ivy and mistletoe.

paper streamers decorations made with coloured paper.

gas brackets in the 1920s many houses were still lit by gas, and the lights were on brackets or supports.

middle-day dinner an old-fashioned expression for the midday meal, usually called lunch.

turkey and plum pudding the traditional Christmas meal is roast turkey and vegetables, followed by plum pudding or Christmas pudding - a very rich steamed pudding made with dried fruit, eggs, sugar, flour and brandy!

carol singers carols are Christmas songs, and most churches have groups of carol singers who go around towns and villages, singing carols and collecting money for charity.

punch punch is a drink made from a mixture of alcohol - wine and brandy or rum is a very popular mixture. In the winter it is usually served hot.

waits another word for carol singers.

swaddling clothes clothes used to cover new-born babies in Biblical times.

manger a wooden box in which food for cows and horses was placed. Jesus is believed to have been born in a stable, and His Mother, Mary, used a manger as a cradle.

`And she brought forth her first-born son and wrapped him up in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger: because there was no room at the inn.'

`Jesus therefore was born in Bethlehem of Judaea, in the days of king Herod.'

venerate respect or worship.

snag a problem or difficulty

sacred to be respected and treated with reverence

dovetailed fitted closely together

tapers small candles

dangling hanging

sugar-plum sweets

sweetmeat sweet-tasting food, often made of sugar or chocolate

trinkets jewellery or ornaments of little value

gold leaf gold covering

bosom friend very close friend

the Feast of Stephen 26 December, also known as Boxing Day. St. Stephen was the first Christian martyr.

fuel material such as wood or coal that is used to produce heat or energy.

hither here

page young boy who acts as an attendant or servant

thou old form of you, used as a more intimate way of talking to someone. It is no longer in use, except in the religious language or hymns and carols such as this one

yonder over there

dwelling a place to live

league an old measurement of distance - it is the equivalent of 4.8 kilometres.

hence from here

flesh meat

thither there

monarch king or queen

forth out

bitter very cold

fails my heart I'm losing courage

mark pay attention to

thy old form of you

dinted hollowed out

sod earth

rank high position in society

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