Christmas Customs
including some weird ones
Christmas hasn’t always been celebrated. At one point, Oliver Cromwell condemned it saying it was too decadent.
Since the Middle Ages, Christmas has been seen as a merry time with holly and ivy decorating people’s houses, carols, plum pudding, drinking and general merriment until Twelfth Night.
It was 1649 and Cromwell, having won the Civil War and seen King Charles I beheaded, now began setting the country straight. He was a Puritan and they were anti-fun. Singing, he said, was sinful — so carols were banned.
Festivities, food and drink and all that happiness was sinful too.
There’s always one misery-guts has to spoil it for everyone else.
Fortunately, Cromwell’s tight rein didn’t last very long and by 1660 he was dead and the monarchy was restored with the reign of the new king, Charles II.
Now people could sing again. They were allowed, once more, to enjoy Christmas traditions such as wassailing.
Nothing to do with boats, this was a special drink made of mulled ale, apples, eggs and spices. The word ‘wassail’ comes from ancient Anglo-Saxon ‘waes hael’ which means ‘good health.’ (If we are ever able to go back a thousand years in time, we wouldn’t understand a word of what anyone was babbling on about as the language was so different then. Fascinating how it’s changed, but that’s another subject)
The steaming hot wassail in a great bowl was carried in with great ceremony and a special song sung about it. They still do this in some parts of England today. The wassail is carried into an apple orchard, the merrymakers sing jolly songs — and then soak a piece of toast in the wassail.
Yes, weird. Apparently, the toast is then placed on the apple tree to ‘thank it’ for giving us apples. That’s where the phrase ‘to toast someone with a drink’ comes from.
Mumming is another strange one. Again, nothing to do with mothers as the word might suggest, this involves people dressing up, putting on masks and going round to people’s houses to welcome in the New Year.
I’ve actually experienced this, back in the 1970s and it scared the life out of me. A group of five or six masked people more or less burst into our house and roamed around all the rooms whilst humming under their breath. It was supposed to bring good luck.
It’s possible that Mumming goes way back to Roman times. In the Middle Ages and onward, it was seen as a way for people to go round to their neighbours begging for money or robbing them. Henry VIII made it a crime for mummers to wear masks, effectively stopping the crimes.
Christmas traditions today include the exchange of Christmas cards. This idea came from a man called John Calcott Horsley who printed and sent the first card in 1843. The Victorians would have sent cards to one another.
Here in the UK, we can’t have Christmas without mince pies. They were originally small pies filled with meat and they were shaped to copy the manger in which Jesus slept. Meat was often mixed with fruit and eventually, the recipe left out the meat altogether and was all raisins, sultanas and mixed peel.
Mistletoe goes back to the time of the Druids — wise men of ancient times whose history goes back over 2000 years. Coming from Norse mythology, it’s a plant which has legendary powers, bringing good luck, shunning evil spirits and showering everyone with love — which is why we kiss under the mistletoe.
There are lots more traditions, including Christmas Crackers, Christmas Trees, turkeys, Yule logs and the giving of presents. It’s a jolly time, it has to be said and brightens up the dark days of winter. Probably invented by the Romans and called Saturnalia, we’ve taken it over and made it our own.
What will Christmas be like in the future? As long as it involves goodwill, friends and family, we’ll be fine.
