Christmas Wassail to Promote Good Health of Britain's Trees & Crops & Animals

1861 'Wassailing apple-trees with hot cider in Devonshire on twelfth eve'

Wassailing Orchards & Crops & Livestock

Now I imagine that only a garden historian would post this particular history. But here goes...

It is difficult to tell when "wassailing" orchards in the Christmas season first began, wishing the trees health and abundant crops in the coming year. Soon hopeful farmers wassailed both crops and animals to encourage fertility. An observer recorded, "They go into the Ox-house to the oxen with the Wassell-bowle and drink to their health."

In the 18C, farmers in the west of Britain toasted the good health of apple trees to promote an abundant crop the next year. Some placed cider-soaked bread in the branches to ward off evil spirits. Others splashed the trees with cider while firing guns or beating pots and pans. Sometimes they sang special songs:
Let every man take off his hat
And shout out to th'old apple tree
Old apple tree we wassail thee
And hoping thou will bear.

It was recorded at Fordwich, Kent, in 1585, and appears in Devon in the 1630s, according to the poem by Robert Herrick:
Wassail the Trees, that they may bear
You many a plum, and many a pear...In the west of Britain the good health of the apple trees was toasted on Twelfth Night. The luck of next year's crop of cider apples was wished. Bread soaked in cider was put into the branches of trees to keep evil spirits away. Ritual songs were sung. It was reported thatcelebrants poured the remains of the cider kegs around trees in an orchard, dancing and singing the Wassailing song to ensure a good crop of apples for the following year.

It appears to feature again in the diary of a Sussex parson in 1670 and is quite frequently recorded thereafter. The fact that traces of it are found in fruit-growing areas of England under Elizabeth and the Stuarts argues for an origin at latest in the early Tudor or medieval periods. Modern guides to English folk-customs have frequently described it as a relic of pre-Christian ritual, and so indeed it may be. It may , nevertheless, also be an extension of the custom of the household wassail, made after the end of the Middle Ages.

In The Book of Days, Chambers describes a celebration on the eve of Epiphany, January 12: "In Herefordshire, at the approach of the evening, the farmers with their friends and servants meet together, and about six o’ clock walk out to a field where wheat is growing. In the highest part of the ground, twelve small fires, and one large one, are lighted up. The attendants, headed by the master of the family, pledge the company in old cider, which circulates freely on these occasions. A circle is formed round the large fire, when a general shout and hallooing takes place, which you hear answered from all the adjacent villages and fields. Sometimes fifty or sixty of these fires may be seen all at once. This being finished, the company return home, where the good housewife and her maids are preparing a good supper. A large cake is always provided, with a hole, in the middle. After supper, the company all attend the bailiff (or head of the oxen) to the wain-house, where the following particulars are observe: The master at the head of his friends, fills the cup (generally of strong ale), and stands opposite the first or finest of the oxen. He then pledges him in a curious toast: the company follow his example, with all the other oxen, and addressing each by his name. This being finished, the large cake is produced, and, with much ceremony, put on the horn of the first ox, through the hole above mentioned. The ox is then tickled, to make him toss his head: if he throw the cake behind, then it is the mistress’s prerequisite; if before (in what is termed the boosy), the bailiff himself claims the prize. The company then return to the house, the doors of which they find locked, nor will they be opened till some joyous songs are sung. On their gaining admittance, a scene of mirth, and jollity ensues, which lasts the greatest part of the night."—

The custom is called in Herefordshire Wassailing. The fires are designed to represent the Saviour and his apostles, and it was customary as to one of them, held as representing Juas Iscariot, to allow it go burn a while and then put it out and kick about the materials.Gentleman’s Magazine, February, 1791.

At Pauntley, in Gloucestershire, the custom has in view of the prevention of the smut in wheat "all the servants of every farmer assemble in one of the fields that has been sown with wheat. At the end of twelve lands, they make twelve fires in a row with straw: around one of which, made larger than the rest, they drink a cheerful glass of cider to their master’s health, and success to the future harvest; then returning home they feast on cakes made with carraways, soaked in cider which they claim as a reward for their past labour in sowing the grain"- Rudge’s Gloucester.

Wassail Song
Here we come a-wassailing
Among the leaves so green,
Here we come a-wand’ring
So fair to be seen.
Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail, too,
And God bless you, and send you
A Happy New Year,
And God send you a Happy New Year.

We are not daily beggers
That beg from door to door,
But we are neighbors’ children
Whom you have seen before
Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail, too,
And God bless you, and send you
A Happy New Year,
And God send you a Happy New Year.

Good master and good mistress,
As you sit beside the fire,
Pray think of us poor children
Who wander in the mire.
Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail, too,
And God bless you, and send you
A Happy New Year,
And God send you a Happy New Year

We have a little purse
Made of ratching leather skin;
We want some of your small change
To line it well within.
Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail, too,
And God bless you, and send you
A Happy New Year,
And God send you a Happy New Year.

Bring us out a table
And spread it with a cloth;
Bring us out a cheese,
And of your Christmas loaf.
Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail, too,
And God bless you, and send you
A Happy New Year,
And God send you a Happy New Year.

God bless the master of this house,
Likewise the mistress too;
And all the little children
That round the table go.
Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail, too,
And God bless you, and send you
A Happy New Year,
And God send you a Happy New Year.

Christmas Before Colonial British America - Tradition of Wassail

William Hogarth (1697-1764) 'The Midnight Conversation', Detail. c 1732

"Wassail" appears in English literature as a salute as early as the 8C poem Beowulf, in references such as "warriors' wassail and words of power" and:
The rider sleepeth,
the hero, far-hidden; no harp resounds,
in the courts no wassail, as once was heard.

An anonymous Anglo-Norman Poet, who witnessed the Saxon toasting cry before the Battle of Hastings in 1066, wrote:
Rejoice and wassail
Pass the bottle and drink healthy
Drink backwards and drink to me
Drink half and drink empty.

In Saxon times the original Wassail was was a greeting meaning: "be in good health." In 12C, it became a toast, the response to the toast became drink hail, or "drink good health." Norman conquerors who arrived in the 11C regarded the toast as distinctive of the English natives.

A story told in Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, written in 1135, purports to explain the origin of the toast:
The story of toasting 'wassail' begins when Renwein presented King Vortigern with a cup of wine and the salute 'Was hail.'
The story of toasting "wassail" begins when Renwein presented King Vortigern with a cup of wine and the salute "Was hail."
While Vortigern was being entertained at a royal banquet, the girl Renwein came out of an inner room carrying a golden goblet full of wine. She walked up to the King, curtsied low, and said "Lavert King, was hail!" When he saw the girl's face, Vortigern was greatly struck by her beauty and was filled with desire for her. He asked his interpreter what it was that the girl had said and what he ought to reply to her. "She called you Lord King and did you honour by drinking your health. What you should reply is 'drinc hail.'" Vortigern immediately said the words "drinc hail" and ordered Renwein to drink. Then he took the goblet from her hand, kissed her and drank in his turn.

Ronald Hutton in his The Rise and Fall of Merry England. Oxford, 1996, reports:"A 14Ctext by Peterd e Langtoft describes in detail the custom involving this vessel, to which the Tudor sources only refer in passing: the leader of a gathering took it and cried "Wassail" Old English for "your health". He was answered "Drink hail," and then passed it to another person with a kiss, so that these actions could be repeated by each. At the early Tudor court it was accompanied into the king's presence by the chief officers of the household, bearing staves. In great families it was made of precious metal- Edmund earl of March, leaving a silver one upon his death in 1382."

Wooden Lignum Vitae Wassail Bowl Owned by Arthur Chichester, Brought from Devon to Ulster in 1599

"The bowl is first mentioned by Matthew Paris in the 13C, as one in which cakes and fine white bread were communally dipped."

"Near the end of the 13C, Robert of Gloucester retold the legend of the marriage of the British king Vortigern with the Saxon princess Rowena, making the latter drink to the former with the words "waes heal."

"When Peter de Lantoft repeated the story in the 1320s, he portrayed people drinking alternately from the same cup with the exchange "wassaille" and "drinkhaille", exactly as in Tudor England. This sequence raises the possibility that the exchange became customary around 1300, but this, again cannot be proved."

English Lead Glazed Earthenware Wassail Bowl from Wilshire Dated 14-12-1682

On the introduction of Christianity, the custom of wassailing was not abolished, but it assumed a religious aspect. The monks called the wassail bowl the poculum caritatis (loving cup), a term still retained in the London companies, but in the universities the term Grace Cup is more general. Immediately after grace the silver cup, filled with sack (spiced wine) is passed round. The master and wardens drink welcome to their guests; the cup is then passed round to all the guests. A loving or grace cup should always have two handles, and some have as many as four. Loving Cup. This ceremony, of drinking from one cup and passing it round, was observed in the Jewish paschal supper, and our Lord refers to the custom in the words, “Drink ye all of it.”“He [the master of the house] laid hold of the yesset with both hands, lifted it up, and said- Blessed be Thou, O Lord our God, thou king of the world, who hast given us the fruit of the vine; and the whole assembly said `Amen.' Then drinking first himself from the cup, he passed it round to the rest."

FromEldad the Pilgrim, chap. ix."

 

English Wooden Lignum Vitae Wassail Bowl and Cover Late 17C

On the Twelfth Day, January 8, & Wassail from Le Neve,The Royalle Book, Henry VII: "As for the void on the Twelfth Night, the king and the queen ought to have it in the hall. And as for the wassail, the steward, the treasurer, and the controller, shall come for it with their staves in their hands; the king's server and the queen's having fair towels about their necks, and dishes in their hands, such as the king and queen shall eat of; the king's carvers and the queen's shall come after with chargers or dishes, such as the king or queen shall eat of, and with towels about their necks. And no man shall bear anything unless sworn for three months. And the steward, treasurer, comptroller, and marshall of the hall shall ordain for all the hall. And, if it be in the great chamber, then shall the chamberlain and ushers ordain, after the above form; and if there be a bishop, his own squire, or else the king's such as the officers choose to assign shall serve him; and so of all the other estates, if they be dukes or earls; and so of duchesses and countesses. And then there must come in the ushers of the chamber, with the pile of cups, the king's cups and the queen's and the bishop's with the butlers and wine to the cupboard, and then a squire for the body to bear the cup, and another for the queen's cup such as is sworn for hire. The singers (of the chapel) may stand at one side of the hall, and when the steward cometh in at the hall-door, with the wassail, he must cry thrice "Wassail," &c, and then shall the chapel answer it aon with a good song, and thus in likewise, if it pleased the king to keep the great chamber. And when the king and queen have done, they will go into the chamber. And there belongeth for the king, two lights with the void, and two lights with the cup; and for the queen as many."

English Lead Glazed Earthenware Wassail Bowl from Wilshire Dated 14-12-1682

Lead Glazed Earthenware Wassail Bowl & Cover from Wiltshire Dated 1702

The Wassail Cup Scottish 1871

Wooden Lignum Vitae Wassail Bowl Dated 1685

English Silver Mounted Lignum Vitae Wassail Bowl c. 1720

1759 George Washington's Christmas Gifts for his 2 new Stepchildren

The Colonial Williamsburg website notes that  George Washington's Christmas list for his young stepchildren was ambitious: in 1759, when Washington gave the following presents to his new wife's young children: "a bird on Bellows; a Cuckoo; a Turnabout Parrot; a Grocers Shop; an Aviary; a Prussian Dragoon; a Man Smoking; a Tunbridge Tea Set; 3 Neat Books, a Tea Chest. A straw parchment box with a glass & a neat dress'd wax baby."

At the time they married, Martha Dandridge Custis was only 27 years old, owned nearly 300 enslaved people, & had more than 17,500 acres of land— worth more than £40,000. At the end of 1758, Washington resigned his military commission. On January 6, 1759, Martha Dandridge Custis married George Washington at her home, White House, in New Kent County.

When she married George Washington, Martha had 2 surving children with Daniel Parke Custis: John Parke Custis (“Jacky”), who was born in 1754, & Martha Parke Custis (“Patsy”), born in 1756.

 John Parke Custis, known as "Jacky" when younger & "Jack" as he got older, was around 4 years old, when his mother Martha married George Washington. As a result, George Washington became Jacky's legal guardian. On February 3, 1774, Custis & Eleanor Calvert, the fifteen-year-old daughter of a prominent Maryland family. were married. Jack & Nelly lived at Abingdon Plantation & had 7 children, 4 of whom would survive, over the next 7 years. On November 5, 1781, just weeks before he turned 27, John Parke Custis, Martha’s sole remaining child, contracted a fever & died.

Martha Parke Custis was Martha Washington & Daniel Parke Custis's youngest child. Known to the family as Patsy, she was only a toddler, when her mother married George Washington. By the time Patsy was 11 or 12, she was plagued with seizures, which grew worse over time. After a particularly violent episode on June 19, 1773, Patsy died at age 17. In his diary, George Washington wrote simply on June 19th, 1773: "At home all day. About 5 oclock poor Patcy Custis Died Suddenly." In a letter to his brother-in-law written the following day, George Washington relayed the news that Patsy, described as his "Sweet Innocent Girl," had been buried earlier in the day & that the situation had "almost reduced my poor Wife to the lowest ebb of Misery."

See:

George Washington to Burwell Bassett, 20 June 1773," The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series, Vol. 9, eds. W.W. Abbot & Dorothy Twohig (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1994), 243-244. Eliza Custis, "Self-Portrait: Eliza Custis 1808," Virginia Magazine of History & Biography 53, ed. William D. Hoyt, Jr. (1945): 92. "Nelly Custis Lewis to Jared Sparks, 26 February 1833," ed. Jared Sparks, The Life of George Washington (Boston: Published by Ferdinand Andrews, 1839), 522.

"George Washington to Burwell Bassett, 20 June 1773," The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series, Vol. 9, 243-4.

Wilstach, Paul. Mount Vernon: Washington's Home & the Nation's Shrine. 1916.

1779 Absent John Jay's Christmas Letter from his Lonely Wife Sarah (1756-1802)

 

Sarah "Sally" Van Brugh Livingston Jay (1756-1802)

Sarah "Sally" Van Brugh Livingston Jay (1756-1802) & her politically ambitious patriot husband John Jay (1745-1829) were apart during the holiday season of 1778-1779. John would be in Philadelphia serving in the Continental Congress, & Sarah in New Jersey with their son Peter Augustus. 

Sally was depressed by the absence of her husband. However, in a letter, she dutifully assured him that “The company of your dear little boy proved a great consolation to me since you’ve been absent.” She ended her letter to him: “Accept the Compts: of the season,” the lovely expression typical of the time, adding to it “& may we repeat the same to each other fifty years hence.” 

Christmas was not widely celebrated in the colonies. Its observance was generally prohibited in New England by Calvinists & other Protestant sects, & by the Quakers in Philadelphia & elsewhere. On the other hand, Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Lutherans & Moravians in the Middle Colonies & the South did celebrate the Christmas season with both religious services & secular festivities. 

1794 John Jay by Gilbert Stuart, National Gallery of Art

Sarah "Sally" Jay was an American socialite & young wife of founding father John Jay, in which capacity she came to serve as the wife of the President of the Continental Congress, the wife of the Chief Justice of the United States, & First Lady of New York.

Sarah was born in 1756. She was the eldest daughter of wealthy landowner William Livingston (1723–1790) & Susannah French (1723–1789).  Her father was an attorney who was a signer of the United States Constitution & later served as the 1st post-colonial Governor of New Jersey during the American Revolutionary War from 1776, until his death in 1790.

At the age of 18 in 1774, Sarah married John Jay (1745–1829), a member of a prominent merchant family in New York City. He was one of 7 surviving children born to Peter Jay & Mary Van Cortlandt, the daughter of mayor Jacobus Van Cortlandt. 

Following her wedding to Jay in 1774, she spent the early years of their marriage at her father's house in Elizabethtown, New Jersey. Her husband would visit her there, when he was not serving as a state official in New York. 

In 1779, he was appointed commissioner to Spain & Sarah finally joined him, moving abroad. In France, she would plan & host the Americans' celebration of the signing of the Treaty of Paris, albeit in absentia, because she had only just given birth (in Benjamin Franklin's house) when the event took place. Participating in Parisian society was part of Franklin's strategy for tightening the bonds of French-American relations.

Sarah Livingston Jay with 2 of her Children by James Sharples (c. 1751-1811)

Together, John & Sarah Jay had 6 children:

Peter Augustus Jay, who was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, in 1776

Susan Jay, who was born & died in Madrid in 1780

Maria Jay, who was born in Madrid in 1782

Ann Jay, who was born in Paris in 1783

William Jay, who was born in New York City in 1789

Sarah Jay, who was born in New York City in 1792.

In 1801, John Jay & Sarah Livingston Jay moved to a farm near Bedford, New York, where Sarah soon died in 1802. 

 See: Louise North, Janet Wedge, & Landa Freeman. Selected Letters of John Jay & Sarah Livingston Jay

1774 Christmas Celebrations in Alexandria, Virginia

 Nicholas Cresswell (1750-1804) by an unidentified artist, c 1780.  Cresswell was the son of a landowner & sheep farmer in Edale, Derbyshire. At the age of 24, he sailed to the American colonies to visit a native of Edale who was then living in Alexandria, Virginia. For the next 3 years he kept a journal of his experiences, before returning to England.  Cresswell wrote while in Alexandria on December 25, 1774: “Christmas Day but little regarded here.”

However Cresswell did attend a lively ball on Twelfth Night; "There was about 37 Ladys Dressed and Powdered to the like, some of them very handsom, and as much Vanity as is necessary. All of them fond of Dancing. But I do not think they perform it with the greatest elleganse. Betwixt the Country Dances they have What I call everlasting Jiggs. A Couple gets up, and begins to dance a Jig (to some Negro tune) others comes and cuts them out, these dances allways last as long as the Fiddler can play. This is social but I think it looks more like a Bacchanalian dance then one in a polite Assembly. Old Women, Young Wifes with young Children on the Laps, Widows, Maids, and Girls come promsciously to these Assemblys which generally continue til morning. A Cold supper, Punch, Wine, Coffee, and Chocolate, But no Tea. This is a forbidden herb. The men chiefly Scotch and Irish. I went home about Two Oclock, but part of the Company stayd got Drunk and had a fight."

1702 Christmas School Pranks at William & Mary in Virginia

Rev James Blair (ca. 1655–1743) probably painted by Charles Bridges

By 1702, Christmas pranking had become popular in Virginia. The Reverend James Blair, founder of the College of William and Mary, was awakened about midnight 2 weeks before Christmas 1702, by the sound of "great nails," as he called them, being pounded in "to fasten and barricade the doors of the Grammar School."  

An English schoolboy custom of "barring out" the teachers, a ceremonial lockout that signaled the start of a month of Christmas games & celebration.  The hammering surprised Blair, he said, because that very custom had been outlawed at the school years earlier.  

As Blair was forcing his way inside the school, he wrote that "the students fired off 3 or 4 Pistols & hurt one of my servants in the eye with a wadd as I suppose of one of the Pistols, while I press'd forward, some of the boys, having a great kindness for me, call'd out "for God's sake sir don't offer to come in, for we have shot, & shall certainly fire at any one that first enters."

Christmas Wassail - Ben Franklin's favorite Punch Recipe

In the British American colonies, even Benjamin Franklin had a favorite punch recipe. Franklin included the recipe in a letter to his friend James Bowdoin, on October 11, 1763. "To make Milk Punch. Take 6 quarts of Brandy, and the Rinds of 44 Lemons pared very thin; Steep the Rinds in Brandy 24 Hours, then strain it off. Put to it 4 Quarts of Water, 4 Large Nutmegs grated, 2 Quarts of Lemon Juice, 2 pounds of double refined Sugar. When the Sugar is dissolv’d boil 3 Quarts of Milk and put to the rest hot as you take it off the Fire, and stir it about. Let it stand 2 Hours; then run it thro’ a Jelly-bag til it is clear; then bottle it off."

Wassailing is a Christmas tradition that has been practiced in Britain for centuries. It has its roots in a wintertime pagan custom of visiting orchards to sing to the trees & spirits in the hope of ensuring a good harvest the following season. During the orchard visit, a communal wassail bowl – filled with a warm spiced cider, perry or ale – would be shared amongst revelers.

The carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas" & Shakespeare’s "Twelfth Night" offer clues to some of the ways people celebrated Christmas in the past. Advent, a time of fasting, was observed from the 1st to the 24th of December. Christmas would then last 12 days, ending with lots of feasting & drinking  on the 5th of January – the eve of Epiphany in the Christian calendar – with wassailing a key part of the celebrations.  

The word Wassail expanded from being a greeting to be a term used to refer to the punch drink related to the toast. Party-goers typically visited local orchards & fruit trees, sang songs, raised a ruckus (often by banging pots & pans. 

The word "wassail" is thought to be derived from the Old English "was hál", meaning "be hale" or "good health." Clebrants were wishing both the trees & their owners Good Health. Visitors were often rewarded by the orchard’s grateful owner with some form of warm, spiced alcoholic beverage from a communal "wassail" bowl or cup. Sometimes a topping of one of the longed-for apple, known as "lamb's wool," would be added.  

Early Wassail reportedly resembled the ancient Roman drink hypocras, which survived into the early Middle Ages as a libation for the wealthy. The necessity of importing the wine plus ginger, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and nutmeg from outside England made it costly.

When ales & cider replaced the wine, more people could afford it, and recipes varied according to the means of each family. Though usually prepared for immediate consumption, wassail sometimes was bottled to ferment.

The Wassail Bowl was sometimes composed of ale instead of wine - with nutmeg, sugar, toast, ginger, and roasted crabs ; in this way the nut-brown beverage is still prepared in some old families, and round the hearths of substantial farmers at Christmas. It is also called Lambs Wool, and is celebrated by Herrick in his “Twelfth Night:”

“Next crowne the bowle full
With gentle Lambs Wool,
Add sugar, nutmeg, and ginger,
With store of ale too ;
And thus ye must doe
To make the Wassaile a swinger.”

In Lamb's Wool, ale or dark beer was whipped to form a surface froth in which floated roasted crab apples. The hissing pulp bursting from them resembled wool. Shakespeare alluded to Lamb's Wool in Midsummer Night's Dream:
Sometimes lurk I in the gossip's bowl
In very likeness of a roasted crab
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And down her withered dewlap pours the ale.
Likewise in Love's Labour's Lost:
When all aloud the wind doth blow
And coughing drowns the parson's saw
And birds sit brooding in the snow
And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit,
Tu-who—a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Some report that at the bottom of some Wassail bowls was a crust of bread, that particular drink was offered to the most important person in the room & then passed around. This was the origin of a "toast" which survives to this day as part of the drinking ritual.

1773 Christmas Santa in New York City

Icon of Nicholas of Myra. The legend of Santa Claus goes back hundreds of years to a monk named St. Nicholas. It is believed that Nicholas was born sometime around 280 A.D. in Patara, near Myra in modern-day Turkey. Much admired for his piety & kindness, St. Nicholas became the subject of many legends. It is said that he gave away all of his inherited wealth & traveled the countryside helping the poor & sick. Over the course of many years, Nicholas's popularity spread, & he became known as the protector of children & sailors. His feast day is celebrated on the anniversary of his death, December 6. This was traditionally considered a lucky day to make large purchases or to get married. By the Renaissance, St. Nicholas was the most popular saint in Europe. Even after the Protestant Reformation, when the veneration of saints began to be discouraged, St. Nicholas maintained an honored reputation, especially in Holland.

Sinter Klaas Comes to New York
The name Santa Claus evolved from Nick's Dutch nickname, Sinter Klaas, a shortened form of Sint Nikolaas (Dutch for Saint Nicholas). St. Nicholas made his first inroads into American popular culture towards the end of the 18th century. In December 1773, and again in 1774, a New York newspaper reported that groups of Dutch families had gathered to honor the anniversary of his death.

The British demanded taxes from the American colonies but refused to give them a representative in Parliament. Following the incident known as the "Boston Tea Party," patriots started to organize societies to obstruct the British imperialists. In New York, they called themselves "Sons of Saint Nicholas", as an alternative to the pro-British societies of Saint George. In this way, Nicholas became a symbol of New York's non-English past, and he was therefore accepted as patron of the newly founded New York Historical Society.

In 1810, John Pintard, a member of the New York Historical Society, distributed woodcuts of St. Nicholas at the society's annual meeting. The background of the engraving contains now-familiar Santa images including stockings filled with toys and fruit hung over a fireplace.  Pintard took an especially keen interest in the legend and the Society hosted its first St. Nicholas anniversary dinner in 1810. Artist Alexander Anderson was commissioned to draw an image of the Saint for the dinner. He was still shown as a religious figure, but now he was also clearly depositing gifts in children's stockings which were hung by the fireplace to dry. There was an engraving of Saint Nicholas, in a bishop’s cloak; the background contains now-familiar Santa images including a stocking filled with toys and fruit hung over a fireplace (for the good little girl; the bad little boy received a stocking containing a bundle of switches). The woodcut had the following inscription:

               

Saint Nicholas, good holy man!

Put on the Tabard, best you can,

Go, clad therewith, to Amsterdam,

From Amsterdam to Hispanje,

Where apples bright of Oranje,

And likewise those granate surnam’d.

Saint Nicholas, my dear good friend!

To serve you ever was my end,

If you will, now, me something give,

I’ll serve you ever while I live.

In 1809, Washington Irving (1783-1859), helped to popularize the Sinter Klaas stories when he referred to St. Nicholas as the patron saint of New York in his book, The History of New York. As his prominence grew, Sinter Klaas was described as everything from a "rascal" with a blue three-cornered hat, red waistcoat, and yellow stockings to a man wearing a broad-brimmed hat and a "huge pair of Flemish trunk hose."   In fact, Irving invented a tradition. His Nicholas resembled a corpulent Dutch citizen, smoking a Goudse pijp (a long white pipe made of clay, produced in Gouda). The venerable bishop had become "a chubby and plump, right jolly old elf", as he is called in the anonymous poem called A Visit From Saint Nicholas (1823). Within 15 years, Father Christmas, including his fur-trimmed red dress, reindeers, sleigh, and cherry nose had been invented.

One the earliest illustrations (artist unknown) of Santa Claus, the secular character having evolved from St. Nicholas. This picture shows him on a rooftop with his sleigh & a reindeer for the first time.

In 1821, a small, 16-page booklet appeared, titled A New Year’s Present for the Little Ones from Five to Twelve, Part III. It was about Christmas, and was the first to picture Santa Claus in a sleigh   drawn by a reindeer. Published by William B. Gilley of New York, no credit was given to either the author or the illustrator. Part of the verse is reproduced below:

Old Santeclaus with much delight

His reindeer drives this frosty night,

O’er chimney tops, and tracks of snow,

To bring his yearly gifts to you.

The steady friend of virtuous youth,

The friend of duty, and of truth,

Each Christmas eve he joys to come

Where love and peace have made their home.

Through many houses he has been,

And various beds and stockings seen;

Some, white as snow, and neatly mended,

Others, that seem’d for pigs intended.

Where e’er I found good girls or boys,

That hated quarrels, strife and noise,

I left an apple, or a tart,

Or wooden gun, or painted cart;

To some I have a pretty doll,

To some a peg-top, or a ball;

No crackers, cannons, squibs, or rockets,

To blow their eyes up, or their pockets.

No drums to stun their Mother’s ear,

Nor swords to make their sisters fear;

But pretty books to store their mind

With knowledge of each various kind.

But where I found the children naughty,

In manners rude, in temper haughty,

Thankless to parents, liars, swearers,

Boxers, or cheats, or base tale-bearers,

I left a long, black, birchen rod.

Such as the dread command of God

Directs a Parent’s hand to use

When virtue’s path his sons refuse. 

In 1822, Clement Clarke Moore, an Episcopal minister, wrote a long Christmas poem for his three daughters entitled "An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas." Moore's poem, which he was initially hesitant to publish due to the frivolous nature of its subject, is largely responsible for our modern image of Santa Claus as a "right jolly old elf" with a portly figure and the supernatural ability to ascend a chimney with a mere nod of his head! Although some of Moore's imagery was probably borrowed from other sources, his poem helped popularize the now-familiar image of a Santa Claus who flew from house to house on Christmas Eve–in "a miniature sleigh" led by eight flying reindeer–leaving presents for deserving children. "An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas" created a new and immediately popular American icon.

1848 T. C. Boyd A visit from Saint Nicholas, Poem

Robin Ranger's Picture Book. New York.  Carlton & Porter, Methodist Sunday School Union, 1865

Thank God for Children (now grown) & their Children who Fill the House with Joy at Christmas

Walther Firle (German artist, 1859–1929) The Fairy Tale 

with plants in pots overseeing the wonder it all

The Pricey Christmas Turkey in 16C-18C "Mother" England - True Inflation

About the Christmas turkey in England. In the 1570s, the price of a large turkey was 3s 4d & average weekly wage of a laborer was 2s 9d.  A Christmas turkey cost over 1 week’s wages for the working poor. But Tomas Tusser had reported in 1557 that, “Beef, mutton, and pork, and good pies of the best, Pig, veal, goose, and capon, and turkey well drest,” was the dinner of choice for the British gentry.  

By the early 1600s, when the British were beginning to establish colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America, turkey in London had begun to replace the tougher meats of peacock & swan at major Tudor banquets held by the rich & powerful. 

In the 1740s before the American Revolution, a large turkey in England was 6s 3d & average weekly wage of a laborer was 8s 2d.  The celebrated Christmas turkey had dropped to just under a week’s wages for poorer British subjects.

1770s Christmas in Virginia observed by New England Tutor Philip Vickers Fithian

Philip Vickers Fithian (1747-1776) from Project Gutenberg

New Jersey-born Fithian experienced a religious conversion in 1766 & began attending Enoch Green's Presbyterian academy in Deerfield, New Jersey. In his junior year, he enrolled at the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University) at Princeton in 1770 & studied under John Witherspoon, the college's president & a prominent clergyman.  

A diarist for much of his life, Fithian is known best for the journal he kept in Virginia from October 1773 to October 1774, while working as a tutor for Robert Carter (1728–1804) at his Westmoreland County mansion, Nomony Hall.  

Back in New Jersey, the church assigned Fithian to a missionary tour of the Pennsylvania & Virginia back-country. Between May 1775 & February 1776 he preached to Scots-Irish Presbyterian congregations along the Susquehanna River & in the Shenandoah Valley.

Fithian's journal entry of Saturday, December 18, 1773: "Nothing is to be heard of in conversation, but the Balls, the Fox-hunts, the fine entertainments, and the good fellowship, which are to be exhibited at the approaching Christmas"? I almost think myself happy that my Horses lameness will be sufficient Excuse for my keeping at home on these Holidays.” 

December 22, 1773, Fithian wrote: "Evening Mr. Carter spent in playing on the Harmonica. It is the first time I have heard the instrument. The music is charming! He played, 'Water Parted from the Sea.' "

Fithian noted on his first Christmas Day at Nomini Hall in 1773 that he “was waked this morning by guns fired all around the house…Before I was Drest, the fellow who makes the Fire in our School Room, drest very neatly in green, but almost drunk…our dinner was no otherwise than common, yet as elegant a Christmas Dinner as I ever set down to.” 

Sunday, December 26, 1773, Fithian and the Carters went to church. The minister "preach'd from Isaiah 9.6 For unto us a child is Born &c. his sermon was fifteen Minutes long! very fashionable—," but few attended. On December 29 of that same year he wrote “we had a large Pye cut today to signify the conclusion of the Holidays.”

On this Christmas Day, 1773, Fithian wrote in his journal that he felt obliged to contribute to the "Christmas Box, as they call it." And so he gave money to the men & women who blacked his shoes, groomed his horse, made his bed, kindles fires in his bedroom & schoolroom, & waited on him at table.

Fithian left Carter's employ to become a Presbyterian missionary among the Scotch and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians in western Virginia. On Christmas Eve in 1775, Philip Fithian wrote in his diary from Staunton, Virginia: The Evening I spent at Mr. Guys--I sung for an Hour, at the good Peoples Desire, Mr. Watts admirable Hymns--I myself was entertaind; I felt myself improvd; so much Love to Jesus is set forth--So much divine Exercise. 

His diary entry for December 25, 1775: Christmas Morning--Not A Gun is heard--Not a Shout--No company or Cabal assembled--To Day is like other Days every Way calm & temperate-- People go about their daily Business with the same Readiness, & apply themselves to it with the same Industry.

The Yule Log during Advent in Europe

 

The venerable, dried log, which would crackle a warming welcome for all-comers, was drug in triumph from its resting-place in the woods. During Advent as Christmas neared, a big log was brought into the home. Songs were sung a& stories told. Children danced. Offerings of food & wine and decorations were placed upon it. Personal faults, mistakes & bad choices were burned in the flame, so everyone's new year would start with a clean slate. 

In Scandinavia, the Norse celebrated Yule from December 21, their winter solstice, through January. In recognition of the return of the sun, fathers & sons would bring home large logs, which they would set on fire. The people would feast until the log burned out, which could take as many as 12 days. The Norse believed that each spark from the fire represented a new pig or calf that would be born during the coming year.

Early on, burning a Yule log was a celebration of the winter solstice. In Scandinavia, Yule ran from several weeks before the winter solstice to a couple weeks after. This was the darkest time of year, & the people celebrated, because days would start getting longer after the solstice. There was quite a bit of ritual & ceremony tied to the Yule log, for it marked the sun's rebirth from its southern reaches.

The Yule Log often was an entire tree, that was carefully chosen & brought into the house with great ceremony. Sometimes, the largest end of the log would be placed into the fire hearth, while the rest of the tree stuck out into the room!  The log would be lit from the remains of the previous year's log which had been carefully stored away & often slowly fed into the fire through the Twelve Days of Christmas. Tradition dictated that the re-lighting process was carried out by someone with clean hands

The burning of the Yule log is an ancient Christmas ceremony, transmitted from Scandinavian ancestors, who, at their feast of Juul, at the winter-solstice, used to kindle huge bonfires in honor of their god Thor.  The bringing in & placing of the ponderous tree trunk on the hearth of a wide chimney was one of the most joyous of the ceremonies observed on Christmas Eve in feudal times.

Early bards wrote of the Yule-log...

The following song is supposed to be of the time of Henry VI:

WELCOME YULE

Welcome be thou, heavenly King,
Welcome born on this morning,
Welcome for whom we shall sing,
                              Welcome Yule,

Welcome be ye Stephen & John,
Welcome Innocents every one,
Welcome Thomas Martyr one,
                             Welcome Yule.

Welcome be ye, good New Year,
Welcome Twelfth Day, both in fere,
Welcome saints, loved & dear,
                             Welcome Yule.

Welcome be ye, Candlemas,
Welcome be ye, Queen of Bliss,
Welcome both to more & less,
                             Welcome Yule.

Welcome be ye that are here,
Welcome all, & make good cheer,
Welcome all, another year,
                             Welcome Yule.'

And Robert Herrick (1591-1674) writes of the Yule log:

‘Come bring with a noise,
My merry, merry boys,
   The Christmas log to the firing,
While my good dame she
Bids ye all be free,
   And drink to your heart's desiring.

With the last year's brand
Light the new block, &,
   For good success in his spending,
On your psalteries play
That sweet luck may
   Come while the log is a teending.

Drink now the strong beer,
Cut the white loaf here,
   The while the meat is a shredding;
For the rare mince-pie,
And the plums stand by,
   To fill the paste that's a kneading.'
The reference in the 2nd stanza, is to the practice of laying aside the half-consumed block after having served its purpose on Christmas Eve, preserving it carefully in a cellar or other secure place till the next Christmas, & then lighting the new log with the charred remains of its predecessor. It was believed that the preservation of last year's Christmas log was a most effective security to the house against fire. A few other traditions lingered into the 20C.  It was regarded as a sign of bad-luck if a squinting person entered the hall, when the log was burning, or a bare-footed person, &, above all, a flat-footed woman!  As an accompaniment to the Yule log, a candle of monstrous size, called the Yule Candle, or Christmas Candle, usually shed its light on the food table during the evening.

The Yule Log is still used.  In some parts of France, the family sings a traditional carol, when the log is brought into the home, usually on Christmas Eve. The carol prays for health & fertility of mothers, nanny-goats, ewes, plus an abundant harvest.  In France, it is also traditional that the whole family helps to cut the log down & that a little bit is burnt each night. If any of the log is left after Twelfth Night, it is kept safe in the house until the next Christmas to protect against lightning! In some parts of Holland, this is also done, but the log had to be stored under a bed.

In Yugoslavia, the Yule Log was cut just before dawn on Christmas Eve & carried into the house at twilight. The wood itself was decorated with flowers, colored silks & gold, and then doused with wine plus an offering of grain.

In Devon & Somerset in the UK, some people collect a very large bunch of Ash twigs instead of the log. This tradition stems from a local legend that Joseph, Mary & Jesus were very cold, when the shepherds found them on Christmas Night. So the shepherds got some bunches of twigs to burn to keep them warm.  In some parts of Ireland, people have a large candle instead of a log, which this is only lit on New Year's Eve and Twelfth Night.  In some eastern European countries, the Yule Log is cut down on Christmas Eve morning & lit that evening.

The ashes of Yule logs were believed to be very good for plants. Today the ash from burnt wood contains a lot of "potash," which helps plants flower. But if the revelers throw the ashes from the Yule Log out on Christmas day, it is still supposedly very unlucky.

Thomas Jefferson's Moods during Christmas Season

 John Trumbull (American painter, 1756-1843) Portrait of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) 1788

Thomas Jefferson was not always jolly at Christmas. Jefferson wrote to John Page on December 25, 1762, "This very day, to others the day of greatest mirth and jollity, sees me overwhelmed with more and greater misfortunes then have befallen a descendant of Adam for these thousand years past I am sure; and perhaps, after exception Job, since the creation of the world."

Jefferson did note the joy of his grandchildren. On Christmas Day 1809, he said of 8-year-old grandson Francis Wayles Eppes: "He is at this moment running about with his cousins bawling out 'a merry christmas' 'a christmas gift' Etc."

And he did seem to enjoy a Christmas Mince pie.  "I will take the liberty of sending for some barrels of apples, & if a basket of them can now be sent by the bearer they will be acceptable as accomodated to the season of mince pies." 

1805 Gilbert Stuart (American painter, 1755-1828) Portrait of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

Celebration of Christmas with Thomas Jefferson (Primary Source References)

1762 December 25. (Jefferson to John Page). "This very day, to others the day of greatest mirth & jollity, sees me overwhelmed with more & greater misfortunes then have befallen a descendant of Adam for these thousand years past I am sure; & perhaps, after exception Job, since the creation of the world."

1779 December 25. "Gave Christmas gifts 48/."

1791 January 22. (Maria Jefferson to Jefferson). "Last Christmas I gave sister the 'Tales of the Castle' & she made me a present of the 'Observer' a little ivory box, & one of her drawings; & to Jenny she gave 'Paradise Lost' & some other things."

1796 January 1. (Martha Jefferson Randolph to Jefferson). "We have spent hollidays & indeed every day in such a perpetual round of visiting & receiving visits that I have not had a moment to my self since I came down."

1799 January 19. (Thomas Mann Randolph to Jefferson). "We remained at Monticello after you left us till Christmas day in which we paid a visit to George Divers with as many as we could carry, Virginia, Nancy & Ellen--We passed the Christmas with Divers, P. Carr, & Mrs. Trist, assisted at a ball in Charlottesville on the first day of the year & returned on the 4th. to Monticello where we found our children (whom I had not neglected to visit) in the most florid health."

1808 January 8. "Sister Ann spent her Christmas in the North Garden with Cousin Evelina." (Ellen Wayles Randolph to Jefferson).

1808 December 19. (Jefferson to Thomas Jefferson Randolph). "Will there be such an intermission of your lectures about Christmas as that you can come & pass a few days here [Washington D.C.]"

1808 December 20. (Jefferson to Ellen Wayles Randolph). "I have written to Jefferson [Thomas Jefferson Randolph] if there is sufficient intermission in his lectures at Christmas, to come & pass his free interval with us."

1809 December 25. (Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes). "He [Francis Wayles Eppes] is at this moment running about with his cousins bawling out 'a merry christmas' 'a christmas gift &c...With the compliments of the season accept assurances of my constant affection & respect." 

1809 December 29. (Jefferson to Anne Bankhead). "Mr. Bankhead I suppose is seeking a Merry Christmas in all the wit & merriments of Coke Littleton."

1809 December 30. (Jefferson to Thomas Jefferson Randolph). "But I presume you have lately seen them [family members] as it was understood you meant to pass your Christmas with them."

1810 December 14. (John Wayles Eppes to Jefferson). "When I parted with Francis I promised either to call for him or send for him at Christmas." 

1813 December 25. (Jefferson to Mary Walker Lewis). "I will take the liberty of sending for some barrels of apples, & if a basket of them can now be sent by the bearer they will be acceptable as accomodated to the season of mince pies." 

1815 August 5. (Jefferson to William Wirt). "You ask some account of Mr. [Patrick] Henry's mind, information & manners in 1759-60, when I first became acquainted with him. We met at Nathanl. Dandridge's, in Hanover, about the Christmas of that winter, & passed perhaps a fortnight together at the revelries of the neighborhood & season."

1817 December 18. (Jefferson to Joseph Cabell). "I have been detained a month by may affairs here [Popular Forest] but shall depart in three days & eat my Christmas dinner at Monticello." 

1819 January 1. (John Wayles Eppes to Francis Wayles Eppes). "The old mode of keeping Christmas seems to be going generally out of fashion. It has changed very much since my recollection. Formerly all classes of society kept it as a kind of feast. It is now merely kept by labouring people. All other classes of society resume their accustomed occupations, after Christmas day. Perhaps no period for mirth & relaxation can with greater propriety be chosen by have ceased & before commencing the new year they devote to mirth & relaxation a few days at the close of the year."

This post is based on the research of Mindy Keyes Black, Monticello Department of Development & Public Affairs, November 1996; Updated November 2006 with text by Elizabeth Chew & Dianne Swann-Wright. For much more information, click this link.

Christmas for America’s Slaves - Rest or Resist???

What Was Christmas Like for America’s Enslaved People? 

For some, it was a rare time of respite; for others, an opportunity for resistance.

By Farrell Evans Dec 21, 2020 History.com

How did Americans living under slavery experience the Christmas holidays? While early accounts from white Southerners after the Civil War often painted an idealized picture of owners’ generosity met by grateful workers happily feasting, singing & dancing, the reality was far more complex.

In the 1830s, the large slaveholding states of Alabama, Louisiana & Arkansas became the 1st in the United States to declare Christmas a state holiday. It was in these Southern states & others during the antebellum period (1812-1861) that many Christmas traditions—giving gifts, singing carols, decorating homes—firmly took hold in American culture. Many enslaved workers got their longest break of the year—typically a handful of days—and some were granted the privilege to travel to see family or get married. Many received gifts from their owners & enjoyed special foods untasted the rest of the year.

But while many enslaved people enjoyed some of these holiday pleasures, Christmas time could be treacherous. According to Robert E. May, a professor of history at Purdue University & author of Yuletide in Dixie: Slavery, Christmas & Southern Memory, owners’ fears of rebellion during the season sometimes led to pre-emptive shows of harsh discipline. Their buying & selling of workers didn’t abate during the holidays. Nor did their annual hiring out of enslaved workers, some of whom would be shipped off, away from their families, on New Year’s Day—widely referred to as “heartbreak day.”

Christmas afforded some enslaved people an annual window of opportunity to challenge the subjugation that shaped their daily lives. Resistance came in many ways—from their assertion of power to give gifts to expressions of religious & cultural independence to using the relative looseness of holiday celebrations & time off to plot escapes.

For slaveholders, gift-giving connoted power. Christmas gave them the opportunity to express their paternalism & dominance over the people they owned, who almost universally lacked the economic power or means to purchase gifts. Owners often gave their enslaved workers things they withheld throughout the year, like shoes, clothing & money. 

According to Texas historian Elizabeth Silverthorne, one slaveholder from that state gave each of his families $25. The children were given sacks of candy & pennies. “Christmas day we gave out our donations to the servants, they were much pleased & we were saluted on all sides with grins, smiles & low bows,” wrote one Southern planter. 

In his book The Battle for Christmas, historian Stephen Nissenbaum recounts how a white overseer considered giving gifts to enslaved workers on Christmas a better source of control than physical violence: “I killed twenty-eight head of beef for the people’s Christmas dinner,” he said. “I can do more with them in this way than if all the hides of the cattle were made into lashes.”

Enslaved people rarely made reciprocal gifts to their owners, according to historians Shauna Bigham & Robert E. May: “Fleeting displays of economic equality would have controverted the [enslaved workers] prescribed role of childlike dependency.” Even when they played a common holiday game with their owners—where the first person who could surprise the other by saying “Christmas Gift!” received a present—they were not expected to give gifts when they lost.

In some instances, enslaved people did reciprocate with gifts to the masters when they lost in the game. On one plantation in the Low Country South Carolina, some enslaved house workers gave their owners eggs wrapped in handkerchiefs. Yet overall, the one-sided nature of gift-giving between slaveowners & those they enslaved reinforced the dynamic of white power & paternalism.

For enslaved workers, Christmastime represented a break between the end of harvest season & the start of preparation for the next year of production—a brief sliver of freedom in lives marked by heavy labor & bondage. “This time we regarded as our own, by the grace of our masters; & we therefore used or abused it nearly as we pleased,” wrote famed writer, orator & abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who escaped slavery at age 20. “Those of us who had families at a distance were generally allowed to spend the whole six days [between Christmas & New Year’s Day] in their society.”

Some used these more relaxed holiday times to run for freedom. In 1848, Ellen & William Craft, an enslaved married couple from Macon, Georgia, used passes from their owners during Christmastime to concoct an elaborate plan to escape by train & steamer to Philadelphia. On Christmas Eve in 1854, Underground Railroad icon Harriet Tubman set out from Philadelphia to Maryland’s Eastern Shore after she had heard her three brothers were going to be sold by their owner the day after Christmas. The owner had given them permission to visit family on Christmas Day. But instead of the brothers meeting with their families for dinner, their sister Harriet led them to freedom in Philadelphia.

For enslaved people, resistance during Christmastime didn’t always take the form of rebellion or flight in a geographical or physical sense. Often it came in the way they adapted the dominant society’s traditions into something of their own, allowing for the purest expression of their humanity & cultural roots. In Wilmington, North Carolina, enslaved people celebrated what they called John Kunering (other names include “Jonkonnu,” John Kannaus” & “John Canoe”), where they dressed in wild costumes & went from house to house singing, dancing & beating rhythms with rib bones, cow’s horns & triangles. At every stop they expected to receive a gift. “Every child rises on Christmas morning to see the John Kannaus,” remembered writer & abolitionist Harriet Jacobs in her autobiography Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. “Without them, Christmas would be shorn of its greatest attraction.”

These public displays of joy were not universally loved by all whites in Wilmington, but many encouraged the activities. “It would really be a source of regret, if it were denied to slaves in the intervals between their toils to indulge in mirthful past times,” said a white antebellum judge named Thomas Ruffin. For historian Sterling Stuckey, author of Slave Culture, the Kunering reflected deep African roots: “Considering the place of religion in West Africa, where dance & song are means of relating to ancestral spirits & to God, the Christmas season was conducive to Africans in America continuing to attach sacred value to John Kunering.”

Enslaved peopledid exhibit a long memory of Christmastime. They remembered how they used it to mark time around the planting season. They knew they could count on it for a measure of freedom & relaxation. Their inability to participate fully in gift exchange—one of the most basic aspects of the season—helped reinforce their place as men & women who couldn’t benefit from their labor. Some, like Harriet Tubman & the Crafts, saw it as a time best suited to challenge the whole society. 

The adults remembered the gifts. “Didn’t have no Christmas tree,” recounted a formerly enslaved man named Beauregard Tenneyson, in a WPA interview. “But they set up a long pine table in the house & that plank table was covered with presents & none of the Negroes was ever forgot on that day.”