Christmas Fasting in Orthodox Christian Churches

Celebrated during the Nativity Fast.  Three Young Men in the Fiery Furnace, celebrated during the Nativity Fast as a reminder of the grace acquired through fasting (15C icon of the Novgorod school). Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are the 3 pious Jewish youths thrown into a "fiery furnace" by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.

Across the centuries, some Christians fast (don't eat anything) during advent to help them concentrate on preparing to celebrate Jesus's coming. In many Orthodox & Eastern Catholics Churches, Advent lasts for 40 days and starts on November 15th & is also called the Nativity Fast.The Nativity Fast is a period of abstinence and penance practiced by the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, & Eastern Catholic Churches, in preparation for the Nativity of Christ, (December 25). The corresponding Western season of preparation for Christmas, which also has been called the Nativity Fast & St. Martin's Lent, has taken the name of Advent. The Eastern fast runs for 40 days instead of four (Roman rite) or six weeks (Ambrosian rite) & thematically focuses on proclamation & glorification of the Incarnation of God, whereas the Western Advent focuses on the two comings (or advents) of Jesus Christ: his birth & his Second Coming or Parousia.

The Byzantine fast is observed from November 15 to December 24, inclusively. These dates apply to those Orthodox Churches which use the Revised Julian calendar, which currently matches the Gregorian calendar. For those Eastern Orthodox Churches which still follow the Julian calendar (Churches of Russia, Georgia, Serbia, Ukraine, Macedonia, Mount Athos & Jerusalem), the Winter Lent does not begin until November 28 (Gregorian) which coincides with November 15 on the Julian calendar. The Ancient Church of the East fasts dawn til dusk from the 1st December until the 25th of December on the Gregorian calendar.

Sometimes the fast is called Philip's Fast (or the Philippian Fast), as it traditionally begins on the day following the Feast of St. Philip the Apostle (November 14). Some churches, such as the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, have abbreviated the fast to start on December 10, following the Feast of the Conception by Saint Anne of the Most Holy Theotokos.

Through the discipline of fasting, practiced with humility & repentance, it is believed that by learning to temper the body's primary desire for food, that other worldly desires can be more easily tempered as well. Through this practice one is better enabled to draw closer to God in the hope of becoming more Christ-like. While the fast influences the body, it is important to note that emphasis is placed on the spiritual facet of the fast rather than mere physical deprivation. Orthodox theology sees a synthesis between the body & the soul, so what happens to one affects the other. The church teaches that it is not enough to fast from food; one must also fast from anger, greed & covetousness. In addition to fasting, almsgiving is also emphasized.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the fast traditionally entails fasting from red meat, poultry, meat products, eggs, dairy products, fish, oil, & wine. Fish, wine & oil are allowed on Saturdays & Sundays, & oil & wine are allowed on Tuesdays & Thursdays, except in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

The fasting rules permit fish, &/or wine & oil on certain feast days that occur during the course of the fast: Evangelist Matthew (November 16), Apostle Andrew (November 30), Great-martyr Barbara (December 4), St. Nicholas (December 6), St. Spiridon & St. Herman (December 12), St. Ignatius (December 20), etc.

Orthodox persons who are ill, the very young or elderly, & nursing mothers are exempt from fasting. Each individual is expected to confer with their confessor regarding any exemptions from the fasting rules, but should never place themselves in physical danger.

There has been some ambiguity about the restriction of fish, whether it means the allowance of invertebrate fish or all fish. Often, even on days when fish is not allowed, shellfish may be consumed. More detailed guidelines vary by jurisdiction, but the rules strictly state that from the December 20 to December 24 (inclusively), no fish may be eaten.

The Eve of Nativity (December 24) is a strict fast day, called Paramony (lit. "preparation"), on which no solid food should be eaten until the first star is seen in the evening sky (or at the very least, until after the Vesperal Divine Liturgy that day). If Paramony falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the day is not observed as a strict fast, but a meal with wine & oil is allowed after the Divine Liturgy, which would be celebrated in the morning.

In some places, the services on weekdays during the fast are similar to the services during Great Lent (with some variations). Many churches & monasteries in the Russian tradition will perform the Lenten services on at least the first day of the Nativity Fast. Often the hangings in the church will be changed to a somber, Lenten color.

The Entry of the Virgin Mary into the Temple, the Great Feast which falls during the course of the Nativity Fast (16C Russian icon).

During the course of the fast, a number of feast days celebrate those Old Testament prophets who prophesied the Incarnation; for instance: Obadiah (November 19), Nahum (December 1), Habbakuk (December 2), Zephaniah (December 3), Haggai (December 16), Daniel & the Three Holy Youths (December 17). These last are significant not only because of their perseverance in fasting, but also because their preservation unharmed in the midst of the fiery furnace is interpreted as being symbolic of the Incarnation—the Virgin Mary conceived God the Word in her womb without being consumed by the fire of the Godhead.

As is true of all of the four Orthodox fasts, a Great Feast falls during the course of the fast; in this case, the Entry of the Theotokos (November 21). After the apodosis (leave-taking) of that feast, hymns of the Nativity are chanted on Sundays & higher-ranking feast days.

The liturgical Forefeast of the Nativity begins on December 20, & concludes with the Paramony on December 24. During this time hymns of the Nativity are chanted every day. In the Russian usage, the hangings in the church are changed to the festive color (usually white) at the beginning of the Forefeast.

Two Sundays before Nativity, the Church calls to remembrance the ancestors of the church, both before the giving of the Law of Moses & after. The Menaion contains a full set of hymns for this day which are chanted in conjunction with the regular Sunday hymns from the Octoechos. These hymns commemorate various biblical persons, as well as the prophet Daniel & the Three Young Men. There are also a special Epistle (Colossians 3:4-11) & Gospel (Luke 14:16-24) readings appointed for the Divine Liturgy on this day.

The Sunday before Nativity is even broader in its scope of commemoration than the previous Sunday, in that it commemorates all of the righteous men & women who pleased God from the creation of the world up to Saint Joseph. The Menaion provides an even fuller service for this day than the previous Sunday. At the Vespers portion of the All-Night Vigil three Old Testament "parables" (paroemia) are read: Genesis 14:14-20, Deuteronomy 1:8-17 & Deuteronomy 10:14-21. The Epistle which is read at the Divine Liturgy is a selection from Hebrews 11:9-40; the Gospel is the Genealogy of Christ from the Gospel of Matthew (1:1-25)

Christmas Eve is traditionally called Paramony (Greek: παραμονή, Slavonic: navechérie). Paramony is observed as a strict fast day, on which those faithful who are physically able to, refrain from food until the first star is observed in the evening or after the Vesperal Divine Liturgy, when a meal with wine & oil may be taken. On this day the Royal Hours are celebrated in the morning. Some of the hymns are similar to those of Theophany (Epiphany) & Great & Holy Friday, thus tying the symbolism of Christ's Nativity to his death on the Cross. The Royal Hours are followed by the Vesperal Divine Liturgy of St. Basil which combines Vespers with the Divine Liturgy.

During the Vespers, 8 Old Testament lections ("parables") which prefigure or prophesy the Incarnation of Christ are read, & special antiphons are chanted. If the Feast of the Nativity falls on a Sunday or Monday, the Royal Hours are chanted on the previous Friday, & on the Paramony the Vesperal Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is celebrated in the morning, with its readings & antiphons, & the fasting is lessened to some degree—a meal with wine & oil being served after the Liturgy.

The All-Night Vigil on the night of December 24 consists of Great Compline, Matins & the First Hour. One of the highlights of Great Compline is the exultant chanting of "God is with us!" interspersed between selected verses from the prophesy of Isaiah 8:9-18, foretelling the triumph of the Kingdom of God, & 9:2-7, foretelling the birth of the Messiah ("For unto us a child is born...& he shall be called...the Mighty God....").

The Orthodox do not normally serve a Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve; rather, the Divine Liturgy for the Nativity of Christ is celebrated the next morning. However, in those monasteries which continue to celebrate the All-Night Vigil in its long form—where it literally lasts throughout the night—the conclusion of the Vigil at dawn on Christmas morning will often lead directly into the celebration of the Divine Liturgy. When the Vigil is separate from the Divine Liturgy, the Lenten fast continues even after the Vigil, until the end of the Liturgy the next morning.

On December 25, the Afterfeast of the Nativity of Christ begins. From that day to January 4 (the day before Theophany Eve) is a fast-free Period. The Eve of the Theophany (January 5) is another strict fast day (paramony).

Christmas 18C Food, Dancing, & Gunshots - Virginia & The South

Harold Gill, a retired Colonial Williamsburg historian, tells us that colonial Virginians rarely wrote descriptions of Christmas observations, or, for that matter, any holiday celebrations. We look instead at the writings of visitors who found Virginia customs new or unusual. From their few comments about Christmas, it seems Virginians observed the occasion with balls, parties, visits, & good food. Thomas Jefferson wrote December 25, 1762, that Christmas was a “day of greatest mirth & jollity.”

Nicholas Cresswell, an Englishman who spent years in Virginia & kept a journal, wrote while in Alexandria on December 25, 1774: “Christmas Day but little regarded here.” 

Cresswell did, however, attend a ball on Twelfth Night:  There was about 37 Ladys Dressed & Powdered to the like, some of them very handsom, & 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, & begins to dance a Jig (to some Negro tune) others comes & 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, & Girls come promsciously to these Assemblys which generally continue til morning. A Cold supper, Punch, Wine, Coffee, & Chocolate, But no Tea. This is a forbidden herb. The men chiefly Scotch & Irish. I went home about Two Oclock, but part of the Company stayd got Drunk & had a fight."

The Encyclopedia of Virginia by the Virginia Humanities Council notes that “Country” dances were the prevailing social styleat Virginia dances at this time.. A manual containing the most famous series of country dances, John Playford’s The English Dancing Master (later simply The Dancing Master), was published in London. Over eighteen editions, published from 1651 to 1728, the book collected more than one thousand distinct dances, both steps & music. These dances were often written to accommodate “as many as will” & were performed in two long lines, partners facing one another in what was called a longways set. Unlike the minuet, country dances did not reinforce the established social hierarchy—in fact, they were democratic. They were “progressive” dances, meaning that the dancers moved up & down the long lines & danced with every other couple. Dancers embellished with elaborate steps as they knew them. The different skill levels within country dancing allowed it to be a widespread pastime among the gentry and, increasingly as the century progressed, among the “middling sort.”

The most loosely structured dances were jigs & reels, the first derived from the traditions of African slaves & the second from those of the Scots. Jigs involved two dancers at a time, while reels were more flexible, accommodating 3 to 6 participants, depending on the style. Both dances were regular features of “Virginia hops,” informal dancing parties frequented by lower-class whites or slaves that featured a fiddler responding to the whims of the crowd. Landon Carter‘s daughter Lucy Carter attended a hop at a tavern in 1772. Such gatherings seem to have been a Virginia tradition, and, even when held in other colonies, featured dances particularly associated with Virginia. Jigs & reels also infiltrated formal events. Nicholas Cresswell, an Englishman visiting Alexandria in 1775, described one such event in his journal. He dubbed jigs “everlasting” because fresh dancers frequently cut in to continue the dance until the musician was exhausted.

The following Christmas, Cresswell was in Frederick County where he noted “Christmas Day but little observed in this Country except it is amongst the Dutch.”

Philip Vickers Fithian of New Jersey, tutor to the Carter family of Nomini Hall in Virginia, recorded his first Virginia Christmas experience December 18, 1773: “Nothing is now to be heard of in conversation, but the Balls, the Fox-hunts, the fine entertainments, & 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.” On Christmas, Fithian noted that “Guns are fired this Evening in the Neighbourhood, & the Negroes seem to be inspired with new Life.”

Christmas day was spent quietly, but Fithian said he “was waked this morning by Guns fired all round the House.” He gave slightly more than 3 shillings to the servants for a “Christmas Box, as they call it.” He thought the dinner was “no otherwise than common, yet as elegant a Christmas Dinner as I ever sat Down to.” On December 29th Fithian reopened his school after a five-day holiday, & he recorded that they had a large pie “to signify the Conclusion of the Holidays.”

Gifts were usually given to children & servants. Jefferson recorded in his 1779 account book that at Christmas he spent 48 shillings for Christmas presents. Some advertisements in colonial newspapers offered toys for Christmas treats for children.

Christmas was observed in most southern colonies in much the same way. William Stephens described the holidays in Savannah in 1742. He wrote: "How irregular so ever we may be in many things, very few were to be found who payd no regard to Xmas Holy days, & it was a slight which would ill please our Adversaries, had they seen what a number of hail young Fellows were got together this day, in, & about the Town, at Crickett, & such kinds of Exercise, nor did I hear of any disorders there guilty of over their Cups in the Evening."

In 1805, when James Iredell of North Carolina was attending college at Princeton, he was surprised to learn not everyone observed Christmas. He wrote that Christmas, at home “welcomed with so many demonstrations of joy, is here regarded almost with perfect indifference & passed over as but little more than an ordinary day.”

The Virginia observation of Christmas tended towards good fellowship & good eating. The Virginia Almanac for 1772 carried these sentiments on a December page: "This Month much Meat will be roasted in rich Mens Kitchens, the Cooks sweating in making of minced Pies & other Christmas Cheer, & whole Rivers of Punch, Toddy, Wine, Beer, & Cider consumed with drinking. Cards & Dice will be greatly used, to drive away the Tediousness of the long cold Nights; & much Money will be lost at Whist Cribbage & All fours."

In 1772, the Virginia Gazette published a letter from “An Old Fellow,” who lived in England. He complained about the “Decay of English Customs & Manners.” After describing the old English Christmas when the kitchen was “the Palace of Plenty, Jollity, & good Eating,” he wrote: "Now mark the Picture of the present Time: Instead of that firm Roast Beef, that fragrant Pudding, our Tables groan with the Luxuries of France & India. Here a lean Fricassee rises in the Room of our majestick Ribs, & there a Scoundrel Syllabub occupies the Place of our well-beloved Home-brewed. The solid Meal gives Way to the slight Repast; and, forgetting that good Eating & good Porter are two great Supporters of Magna Charta & the British Constitution, we open our Hearts & our Mouths to new Fashions in Cookery, which will one Day lead us to Ruin." The “Old Fellow” should have come to Virginia.

Overview of Hanukkah

Photo by Lawrence Peskin, History Professor at Morgan State University in Baltimore

Hanukkah, (Hebrew: “Dedication”) also called Festival of Lights, or Feast of the Maccabees, Judaism festival that begins on Kislev 25, the Judaism calendar, & is celebrated for 8 days. Hanukkah reaffirms the ideals of Judaism & commemorates in particular the rededication of the Second Temple of Jerusalem by the lighting of candles on each day of the festival. Although not mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures, Hanukkah came to be widely celebrated & remains one of the most popular Judaism religious observances. 

Origin & History

Hanukkah commemorates the Maccabean (Hasmonean) victories over the forces of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (reigned 175–164 BCE) & the rededication of the Temple on Kislev 25, 164 BCE. Led by Mattathias & his son Judas Maccabeus (died c. 161 BCE), the Maccabees were the first Jews who fought to defend their religious beliefs rather than their lives. According to I Maccabees, a text of the Apocrypha (writings excluded from the Judaismcanon but included in the Roman Catholic & Eastern Orthodox Old Testament canons), Antiochus had invaded Judaea, tried to Hellenize the Jews, & desecrated the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Following the Judaism victory in a three-year struggle against Antiochus, Judas ordered the cleansing & restoration of the Temple. After it was purified, a new altar was installed & dedicated on Kislev 25. Judas then proclaimed that the dedication of the restored Temple should be celebrated every year for eight days beginning on that date. In II Maccabees the celebration is compared to the festival of Sukkoth (the Feast of Tabernacles or Feast of Booths), which the Jews were unable to celebrate because of the invasion of Antiochus. Hanukkah, therefore, emerged as a celebration of the dedication, as the word itself suggests.

Although the traditional practice of lighting candles at Hanukkah was not established in the books of the Maccabees, the custom most likely started relatively early. The practice is enshrined in the Talmud (Shabbat 21b), which describes the miracle of the oil in the Temple. According to the Talmud, when Judas Maccabeus entered the Temple, he found only a small jar of oil that had not been defiled by Antiochus. The jar contained only enough oil to burn for one day, but miraculously the oil burned for eight days until new consecrated oil could be found, establishing the precedent that the festival should last eight days. The early date for this story or at least the practice of lighting eight candles is confirmed by the debate of the 1st-century-CE scholars Hillel & Shammai. Hillel & his school taught that one candle should be lit on the first night of Hanukkah & one more each night of the festival. Shammai held that all eight candles should be lit the first night, with the number decreasing by one each night thereafter.

The celebration of Hanukkah includes a variety of religious & nonreligious customs. Like Purim, Hanukkah is a joyous festival that lacks the work restrictions characteristic of the major festivals of Rosh Hashana & Yom Kippur.

Menorah

The most important of all Hanukkah traditions is the lighting of the menorah each evening. Also known as the Hanukkah lamp, the menorah recalls the Temple lampstand & is a simple or elaborate candelabra with eight branches plus a holder for the shammash (“servant”) candle that is used to light the other eight candles. One candle is lit on the first evening, & an additional candle is lit on each subsequent evening until eight candles are burning on the last evening. Olive oil was traditionally used for lighting the menorah, but it was replaced by candles, which are inserted in the menorah incrementally each night of the festival from right to left but are lit from left to right. A blessing is also offered while the candles are lit each night. The menorah was originally kindled outside the home, but it was brought inside in ancient times to guard against offending neighbors.

Liturgy & Prayers

The Hanukkah observance is also characterized by the daily reading of Scripture, recitation of some of the Psalms, almsgiving, & singing of a special hymn. The liturgy includes Hallel, public readings from the Torah, & the ʿal ha-nissim (“for the miracles”) prayer. The Scroll of Antiochus, an early medieval account of Hanukkah, is read in some synagogues & homes. Along with the daily prayers, thanks are offered to God for delivering the strong into the hands of the weak & the evil into the hands of the good. The word Hanukkah in Hebrew also means “education,” & rabbis & educators try to instill in their congregants & students the notion that the holiday celebrates Judaism's strengths, perseverance, & continuity.

Christmas in 17C England & in its Virginia colony

“Christmas in 17th-century England & Virginia” 

by Nancy Egloff, Jamestown Settlement Historian

Along with their friends & relatives in England, the Englishmen who came to Jamestown in 1607 considered Christmas to be one of the most special times of the year. In England, the season lasted about two weeks, from December 25 to Twelfth Day, January 6. During this period, festivities abounded & little work was accomplished.

The Christmas season evolved from the mid-winter Germanic festival of Yule & the Roman Saturnalia, in which drinking, gaming & general revelry took place, homes were decorated with greens, presents were exchanged & people dressed up in costumes. The English Christmas festivities of the 17th century resulted from the imposition of the Feast of the Nativity upon the pagan mid-winter festivals; Christian & pagan rituals were intermixed.

Contemporary writers shed more light on the secular than on the religious nature of the 17th-century holiday. According to a 1631 account by John Taylor, the festival of Christmas Day began with church attendance. Following that, “some went to cards, some sung Carrols, many mery songs, some to waste the long night would tell Winter-tales …. Then came maids with Wassell, jolly Wassell, cakes, white loafe & cheese, mince pies & other meat. These being gone, the jolly youths & plaine dealing Plow swaines being weary of cards fell to dancing to show mee some Gambols, some ventured the breaking of their shins to make me sport – some the scalding of their lippes to catch at apples tyed at the end of a stick having a lighted candle A Colonial Christmas Musicat the other – some shod the wild mare; some at hot cockles & the like.”

English folk prepared for the season by gaily decking their homes & churches with greens – holly, bay, rosemary, ivy & sometimes mistletoe, which was difficult to acquire in some areas. Sometimes in place of mistletoe, Englishmen & women would gather holly & other greens into a “kissing bush” hung from the ceiling. They carried in a Yule log on Christmas Eve, accompanied by great pomp, & lighted the log with a brand saved from the previous year’s log.

At court & in towns & cities, players prepared plays & masques, or performances with dance, song, spectacle & costuming. The Master of Revels at Court busied himself for weeks, choosing the companies of players to perform for the King. The Master also had to be certain that costumes, candles & props were ready for the plays. Masques involved the guests in dances with the disguised performers, & the fine attire of the guests made the masques the most spectacular of all Court revelries.

In preparation for the season, many towns designated a Lord of Misrule, the “grand captain of all mischief,” who, with 20 or more chosen “lusty guts,” decked themselves in yellow & green scarves, ribbons, laces, rings & jewels, & proceeded through the town on Christmas Day. 

In the late 16th century, Philip Stubbes, of puritanical leanings, related how this “heathen company” marched “towards the church & churchyard, their pipers piping, their drummers thundering, their stumps dancing, their bells jingling, their handkerchiefs swinging about their heads like madmen, their hobby-horses & other monsters skirmishing amongst the rout.” 

Stubbes & others argued for an end to the licentiousness & revelry often Jamestown Settlement Lord of Misrule associated with the Lord of Misrule & his mummers. This custom, however, was so ingrained in the minds of Englishmen of all classes, that even with the rise of Puritans to political power in the 1640s, attempts at controlling Christmas merriment often failed.

Although Puritans objected to the celebration of Christmas as pagan revelry, apparently many made concessions when it came to Christmas festivities. The Presbyterians in Scotland, of puritan persuasion, placed a ban on Christmas in that country in 1583, but such a ban did not take place in England until 1652, & then it was difficult to enforce. Puritans did, however, continue to voice complaints about the use of mince pies & plum puddings at Christmas, considering them to be “popish.” At the New World settlement of Plymouth in 1621, the Pilgrims, when asked to do any work on Christmas day, refused. Later that day, however, when they were found playing in the streets, which supposedly went against their strict religious beliefs, they were told that “if they made the keeping of it (Christmas) matter of devotion, let them keep their houses; but there should be no gaming or reveling in the streets,” according to William Bradford.

Most important to all the Christmas festivities was the feasting. Englishmen loved their food. Thomas Tusser, in his “Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandrie,”

Good bread & good drinke, a good fier in the hall,

brawne, pudding & souse, & good mustard withall.

Beefe, mutton, & porke, shred pies of the best,

pig, veale, goose & capon, & turkey well drest;

Cheese, apples & nuts, joly Carols to heare,

as then in the countrie is counted good cheare.

For those who could afford one, the boar’s head formed the centerpiece of the table, cooked & decorated with a lemon in his mouth. Poorer countryfolk substituted brawne, the flesh of the pig, boiled & pickled. Shred, or mincemeat, pies served as a special part of the dinner, as did white bread & plum pudding, made with beef, raisins, currants & bread. A recipe for six “Minst Pyes” in the state papers of James I called for a half peck of flour, a loin of fat mutton, two pounds each of sugar, butter, raisins, currants, six eggs & spices. 

The English enjoyed turkey, native to North America, ever since the Spaniards introduced it to England in the early 16th century. Spiced ales & wines accompanied meals throughout the festival season.

Certain activities enjoyed by folk of both high & low status included wassailing & mumming, which could be performed at various times throughout the two-week period. Mummers plays & processions on Christmas Eve consisted of costumed characters who went from house to house performing. Wassailers also paraded to the houses in the towns on Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve & Twelfth Night, traditionally carrying a wassail bowl full of spiced ale, sugar & apples, & singing a wassailing song while passing the bowl:

Wassail! Wassail! All over the town

Our toast it is white, our ale it is brown,

Our bowl it is made of a maplin tree;

We be good fellows all, I drink to thee.

Englishmen of this period also observed the custom of wassailing apple trees on Christmas Eve & Twelfth Night, taking a bowl of cider with toast in it to the orchard, placing pieces of toast on the branches & pouring cider on the roots of the trees. The believed this would entice the trees to yield an abundant crop of fruit at harvest time.

Other activities enjoyed during Christmas revels included caroling, dancing & gaming. Carols for the season appeared in the Middle Ages as a derivative of French dance songs. They became songs of the people, & were not necessarily sung by professional choirs. Popular carols took such themes as the boar’s head, wassailing, lullabies & the Nativity. 

People of all ages enjoyed gambling, including children. In the late 16th century, records show that parents gave small amounts of money to their children for “play.” More active games included “hoodman-blind,” or blind-man’s-buff, “stool-ball,” similar to cricket, & “hot-cockles,” in which a blind-folded player tried to guess who tapped him on his back. Children enjoyed leap frog & the daring game of “snap-apple,” in which a player tried to bite into an apple, fastened at one end of a stick, which had a lighted candle fastened to the other end; the stick was suspended from the ceiling by a string.

The English in the 17th century presented gifts on New Year’s Day. Almost everyone from King James to the lowliest peasant received gifts, which varied from foodstuffs to personal items such as jewelry, money, books, gloves, capons, cakes, apples or oranges studded with cloves, spices, nuts & pins; tenants gave their landlords capons; the poor received alms & gifts of food. Thomas Tusser explained:

At Christmas be mery, & thanke God of all:

And feast thy pore neighbors, the great with the small.

Feasting, gaming & revelry continued periodically until Twelfth Day, when special activities such as wassailing, mumming & the eating of a Twelfth cake, loaded with sugar & confections, took place. Twelfth Day, or Epiphany, ended most of the festivities. Some churches held a feast of the star, commemorating the visit of the Magi in Bethlehem, & the day ended with revelry & feasting.

When the first colonists left England to find the riches of the New World, they took with them the culture they had known in England. The travelers to Virginia spent their first Christmas of 1606 on board their ships en route to the New World. Their second Christmas, 1607, most likely was not a happy time. Captain John Smith was being held prisoner for questioning by Powhatan, chief of 32 tribes in Tidewater Virginia at that time. Smith had gone to trade with the Indians for food. 

If those first colonists in Jamestown had the desire & interest in celebrating, they might have cut greens & decorated with boughs of holly, ivy & mistletoe. They could have burned a Yule log & sung some of their favorite carols, following a service in the church. They might have cooked a special meal of venison, oysters, fish, oatmeal & peas from their common store if food had not been so scarce. The dinner certainly would have been much different from their traditional meals at home, especially the first Christmas. Without families, & with less than half of the original number still alive, it must have been hard to be merry.

The following Christmas of 1608 found the colonists in desperate straits – sick, hungry & impoverished. Captain Smith & his men left Jamestown at the end of December to visit Powhatan at Werowocomoco & try to acquire some food.   Inclement weather forced them to stay at the Indian town of Kecoughtan (Hampton) for “6 or 7 daies.”  There, “the extreame wind, raine, frost, & snowe, caused us to keepe Christmas amongst the Salvages, where wee were never more merrie, nor fedde on more plentie of good oysters, fish, flesh, wild foule, & good bread, nor never had better fires in England then in the drie warme smokie houses of Kecoughtan.”

Nevertheless, despite hardships, the English still seemed to keep Christmas as a religious festival. In 1610 William Strachey, secretary of the Virginia colony, recorded a “true reportory of the wracke, & redemption of Sir Thomas Gates Knight: upon, & from the Ilands of the Bermudas.” Strachey related an incident in Bermuda in 1609: “upon Christmas Eve, as also once before, the first of October; our Minister preached a godly Sermon, which being ended, he celebrated a Communion.” The travelers eventually reached Jamestown in 1610.

Following Decembers at Jamestown continued to be difficult. The winter of 1609, traditionally known as the “Starving Time,” found the few remaining colonists dying in large numbers. Life in the New World was a precarious existence at best. However, Christmas celebrations must have entered the minds of these colonists every December. By the 1620s & 1630s, references to Christmas appear in the Statutes at Large, or laws of Virginia; the Christmas season served as a calendar benchmark for various legislative activities. In 1631, for instance, the laws stated that churches were to be built in areas where they were lacking or were in a state of decay, such action to take place before the “feast of the nativitie of our Saviour Christ.” Christmas still served as a focal point of the year, although there is little in the record as to how it was celebrated in Virginia throughout the 17th century.

Christmas - England's Medieval Depictions of Baby Jesus & Mary

Roman du bon roi Alexandre Manuscript by Jehan de Grise, France 1344.

In medieval & pre-medieval times, in parts of England, there were early forms of Nativity scenes called "advent images" or "vessel cups."  They were a box, often with a glass lid that was covered with a white napkin, that contained 2 dolls representing Mary & the baby Jesus. The box usually was decorated with ribbons & flowers (and sometimes apples).  They were carried around from door to door.  It was thought to be very unlucky, if the family did not see the dolls before Christmas Eve!   Bad luck was thought to menace the household not visited by the doll-bearers before Christmas Eve at the latest. People paid the box carriers a halfpenny coin to see the dolls in the box.

Roman du bon roi Alexandre illuminated manuscript at the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

"In the Middle Ages, the doll was not confined to the young.  Operated as marionettes, they were often used to make money.  Adults could buy votive objects to offer at shrines, as well as statuettes of Christ or saints to keep in their houses.  Margery Kemp, the mystic of King's Lynn, when visiting Italy in 1414, met a woman who traveled abut with an image of the baby Jesus.  Other women dressed this image with clothes as an act of reverence, and Margery, seeing this happen, fell into tears for the love of infant Jesus.  Similar dolls of Christ and Mary are said to have been carried about by women during Advent in the north of England." (See Nicholas Orme. Medieval Children. Yale University Press, 2003)

Ms. 251 from Brugge, 13C Puppet Show

1790s - 1821 Christmas for Thomas Jefferson's Slaves

 Portrait of President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) by Revolutionary War hero Tadeusz Kosciuszko (1746-1817)

During the Christmas season, slaves at Monticello sometimes were allowed to visit family members from whom they had been separated by assignments to work at a different Jefferson  location. In 1808, Davy Hern traveled to Washington where his wife Fanny worked at Jefferson's President’s House to be with her for the holidays. Two days before the Christmas of 1813, Davy, Bartlet, Nace, & Eve set out for Jefferson's Poplar Forest possibly to visit relatives & friends but certainly to return with a few hogs for Monticello.

Christmas in the Enslaved Community at Monticello

 (Primary Source References)

1790 December. (Nicholas Lewis, Monticello steward, accounts in Ledger 1767-1770). "To 2 1/2 Gallons Whiskey at Christmass for the Negroes."

1797 December 2. (Jefferson to Maria J. Eppes). "Tell Mr. Eppes that I have orders for a sufficient force to begin & finish his house during the winter after the Christmas holidays; so that his people may come safely after New year's day."

1808 November 17.' (Edmund Bacon to Thomas Jefferson). "Davy Has Petitioned for leave to come to see his wife at Christmass."

1808 November 22. (Jefferson to Edmund Bacon). "I approve of your permitting Davy to come [to Washington] at Christmas."

1810 August 17. (Jefferson to W. Chamberlayne). "I agreed to take them [hired slaves] at that price & they were to come to me after the Christmas Hollidays when their time with him was out."

1813 December 24. (Jefferson to Patrick Gibson). "We shall begin to send [flour] from hence immediately after the Christmas holidays."

1814 December 23. (Jefferson to Jeremiah Goodman, overseer). "Davy, Bartlet, Nace & Eve set out this morning for Poplar Forest. Let them start on their return with the hogs the day after your holidays end, which I suppose will be on Wednesday night [Dec. 28], so that they may set out Thursday morning." 

1818 December 24. (Joel Yancey, Poplar Forest, to Jefferson). "Your two boys Dick & Moses arrived here on Monday night last [Dec. 21]. Both on horse back without a pass, but said they had your permission to visit their friends here this Xmass."

1821 December 27. (Mary Jefferson Randolph to Virginia Jefferson Randolph). "This Christmas has passed away hitherto as quietly as I wished & a great deal more so than I expected. I have not had a single application to write passes or done or seen any of the little disagreeable business that we generally have to do & except catching the sound of a fiddle yesterday on my way to the smokehouse & getting a glimpse of the fiddler as he stood with half closed eyes & head thrown back with one foot keeping time to his own scraping in the midst of a circle of attentive & admiring auditors I have not seen or heard any thing like Christmas gambols & what is yet more extraordinary have not ordered the death of a single turkey or helped to do execution on a solitary mince pie wo you see you lost nothing by being on the road this week."

This research is based on the work 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.

1687 Puritan Minister Increase Mather railed against Christmas.

The Rev. Increase Mather painted by Dutch-born John van der Spriett in 1688, while Mather was visiting London.

In 1687, the Puritan minister Increase Mather (1639-1723) railed against Christmas, among other things. He declared that those who celebrated it “are consumed in compotations, in interludes, in playing at cards, in revelings, in excess of wine, in mad mirth.” In his A Testimony against Several Prophane and Superstitious Customs, Now Practiced by Some in New England, he wrote "In the pure Apostolical times there was no Christ-mass day observed in the Church of God. We ought to keep the primitive Pattern. That Book of Scripture which is called The Acts of Apostles saith nothing of their keeping Christ’s Nativity as an Holy-day...Why should Protestants own any thing which has the name of Mass in it? How unsuitable is it to join Christ and Mass together? ...It can never be proved that Christ’s nativity was on 25 of December...who first of all observed the Feast of Christ’s Nativity in the latter end of December, did it not as thinking that Christ was born in that Month, but because the Heathens’ Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian ones."

1608 Christmas in Colonial Virginia

Captain John Smith (bap. 1580–1631)

When colonists left England to find the riches of Virginia, they spent their first Christmas of 1606 on board their ships en route to the New World. By 1608, Christmas found the colonists in desperate straits – sick, hungry & impoverished. Captain Smith & his men left Jamestown at the end of December to visit Powhatan at Werowocomoco & try to acquire some food. Inclement weather forced them to stay at the Indian town of Kecoughtan for “6 or 7 daies.”

Here Capt. John Smith wrote an account of what may have been the 1st Christmas celebrated in Virginia. (Kecoughtan, in Virginia, was originally named Kikotan and was part of Powhatan’s confederation of tribes.)

The next night being lodged at Kecoughtan; six or seaven dayes the extreame winde, rayne, frost & snow caused us to keep Christmas among the Salvages, where we were never more merry, nor fed on more plentie of good Oysters, Fish, Flesh, Wild-foule, & good bread; nor never had better fires in England, then in the dry smoaky houses of Kecoughtan.

The description originally appeared in Smith's travel tale The Proceedings of the English Colonie in Virginia since the first beginning from England in the yeare of our Lord 1606, till this present 1612, with all their accidents that befell them in their Journies & Discoveries. That 110-page tome was the third of more than a dozen of Smith's literary endeavors that fell from the press. Twelve years later, he recycled the passage in his eighth, the six-part, 248-page The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, & the Summer Isles with the names of the Adventurers, Planters & Government from their first beginning in 1584 to this present 1624.

An Angel for Advent

Melozzo da Forli (Italian Renaissance artist, 1438-1494) Angel from the Vault of the Sacristy of Saint Mark  January 29, 2011. "Without Melozzo, the work of Raphael and Michelangelo would have never existed.” 

The Christmas Advent Wreath

The Advent wreath, or Advent crown, is a Christian tradition that marks the passage of the four weeks of Advent leading to Christmas in the liturgical calendar of the Western church.

The origin of the Advent wreath is uncertain. It is believed that Advent wreaths have their origins in the folk traditions of northern Europe; where in the deep of winter, people lit candles on wheel-shaped bundles of evergreen. It is believed that pagan Mid-Winter rituals sometimes featured a wreath of evergreen with four candles. The candles were placed in each of the four directions to represent the elements of earth, wind, water and fire. Rites were solemnly performed in order to ensure the continuance of the circle of life symbolized by the evergreen wreath.

Like many Church traditions, the use of candles in the late fall and winter was originally a pagan tradition. Rev. William Saunders wrote that “pre-Germanic peoples used wreaths with lit candles during the dark and cold December days as a sign of hope in the future warm and extended sunlight days of spring.” In the middle ages, the Germanic peoples began incorporating a lighted wreath into the Christian season of Advent. It didn’t gain widespread popularity until the 1800s, and it wasn’t until the 1900s, that German immigrants brought the tradition to America.There is evidence of pre-Christian Germanic peoples using wreathes with lit candles during the cold & dark December days as a sign of hope in the future warm & extended-sunlight days of Spring. In Scandinavia during Winter, lighted candles were placed around a wheel, & prayers were offered to the god of light to turn “the wheel of the earth” back toward the sun to lengthen the days & restore warmth. Both the evergreen & the circular shape symbolized ongoing life. The candlelight gave comfort at this darkest time of the year, as people looked forward to the longer days of spring.

By the Middle Ages, the Christians adapted this tradition & used Advent wreathes as part of their spiritual preparation for Christmas. By 1600, both Catholics & Lutherans had more formal practices surrounding the Advent wreath.

The wreath is made of various evergreens which are green yeear round. The Advent Wreath is endlessly symbolic. The evergreens in the wreath itself are a reminder of continuous life. The shaping of them into a circle reinforces that meaning. The circle is also a sign of the eternity of God.The circle of the wreath, which has no beginning or end, symbolizes the eternity of God, the immortality of the soul, & the everlasting life found in Christ.

The four candles represent the four weeks of Advent. In some Christian churches, one purple or blue candle is lit each week, but the Catholic church uses a rose candle on the 3rd Sunday. Purple dyes were once so rare & costly that they were associated with royalty; the Roman Catholic Church has long used this color around Christmas & Easter to honor Jesus. The candles symbolize the prayer, penance, & preparatory sacrifices & goods works undertaken at this time. The light signifies Christ, the Light of the world. Some modern day wreaths include a white candle placed in the middle of the wreath, which represents Christ & is lit on Christmas Eve.

1761 Hymnals for Virginia's Slaves

Reverend John Wright was a Presbyterian minister active in Cumberland County, Virginia, during the 1760s. On the Feast of the Epiphany, 1761, he wrote to several benefactors in England describing the following Christmas scene: "My landlord tells me, when he waited on the Colonel [Cary] at his country-seat two or three days [ago], they heard the Slaves at worship in their lodge, singing Psalms and Hymns in the evening, and again in the morning, long before break of day. They are excellent singers, and long to get some of Dr. Wattss Psalms and Hymns, which I encourage them to hope for."

The Christmas Advent Calendar

An advent calendar is usually a poster with 24 small doors, one to be opened each day from 

December 1 until Christmas Eve. Each door conceals a picture. This popular tradition arose in Germany in the late 1800s & soon spread throughout Europe & North America. Originally, the images in Advent calendars were derived from the Hebrew Bible.

The Advent calendar windows open to reveal an image, poem, a portion of a story (such as the story of the Nativity of Jesus) or a small gift, such as a toy or a chocolate item. Some calendars are strictly religious, whereas others are secular in content.

During the 19C in Germany, the days preceding Christmas were marked off from December 1 with chalk on "believers" doors. Then in the late 19C the German mother of a child named Gerhard Lang made her son an Advent Calendar comprised of 24 tiny sweets stuck onto cardboard. Lang never forgot the excitement he felt when he was given his Advent calendar at the beginning of each December, & how it reminded him every day that the greatest celebration of the whole year was approaching ever nearer. 

As an adult, Lang went into partnership with his friend Reichhold opening a printing office. In 1908, they produced what is thought to be the 1st  printed Advent Calendar with a small colored picture for each day in Advent.  Around the same time, a German newspaper included an Advent calendar insert as a gift to its readers. Lang’s calendar was inspired by one that his mother had made for him and featured 24 colored pictures that attached to a piece of cardboard. Lang modified his calendars to include the little doors that are a staple of most Advent.

The idea of the Advent Calendar caught on with other printing firms as the demand swiftly increased, and many versions were produced, some of which would have printed on them Bible verses appropriate to the Advent period.  By the time that the Advent Calendar had gained international popularity, the custom came to an end with the beginning of the WWI, when cardboard was strictly rationed to be used for purposes necessary to the war effort. 

President Eisenhower's grandchildren with an Advent Calendar

However, in 1946, when rationing began to ease following the end of the WWII, a printer named Richard Sellmer once again introduced the colorful little Advent Calendar, and once again it was an immediate success.  After the war, the production of calendars resumed in 1946, by Selmer. Selmer credits President Eisenhower with helping the tradition grow in the United States during his term of office. A newspaper article at the time showed the Eisenhower grandchildren with The Little Town Advent calendar. 

Some European countries such as Germany, where the 1st Advent poster originated, also use a wreath of fir with 24 bags or boxes hanging from it. In each box or bag there is a little present for each day.

Advent Traditions - Children in Normandy set Fields on Fire

At Advent in Normandy, when the final harvest was complete, farmers used to pick a night to send their children to run through the fields & orchards carrying flaming torches, setting fire to bundles of straw, to drive out pests likely to damage the crops.  If a farmer had no children of his own, his neighbors lend him theirs, for none but young & innocent children could command destructive animals to withdraw from his lands. After 12 years of age children were believed unfit to perform the office of mammal exorcists.

The children would sing

Taupes,cherrilles, et mulots,
Sortez, sortez, de mon clas,
Ouje vous brule la barbe et los os. 
Arbres, arbrisseaux,
Donnez-moi des pomes a miriot.

Mice, caterpillars, & moles get out of my field!
I will burn your beard and bones!
Trees and shrubs, give me bushels of apples!

The children were like the coming Christ child who would drive all evil from the earth.  "As the Christ Child drove away sin, so do these children drive away vermin."

Many worried about the possibility of accidents which could arise from this assembly of juvenile torch-beares, scattering "their flames around them on every side; but there is a remedy for all dangers; this fire never burns or injures anything but the vermin against which it is directed: — such, at least, is the belief of the simple folks who inhabit the department of the Eure-et-Loire." (Time's Telescope, 1828)

See William Hone, The Year Book of Daily Recreation and Information. London: Thomas Tegg, 1832. December 5.

Puritan Assault at St Andrews on Christmas during the 1600s

A 1660 English illustration from A Book of Roxburghe Ballads.  This particular ballad is The Merry Boys of Christmas or The Milk-Maids New-Years-Gift.

""Mark Stoyle investigates popular resistance to the Puritan assault on Christmas during the 1640s and 1650s...As the year 1645 limped towards its weary close, a war-torn England shivered beneath a thick blanket of snow. A few months earlier, parliament’s New Model Army, led by Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell, had routed the forces of Charles I at the battle of Naseby. Although that defeat had struck the king’s cause a mortal blow, the royalists still refused to surrender, and the bloody Civil War which had divided the country ever since 1642 continued to rage.

"Under constant pressure from the armies of both sides to supply them with money, clothing and food, few Englishmen and women can have been anticipating a particularly merry Christmas. Yet, for those who lived in the extensive territories which were controlled by the king’s enemies, there was to be no Christmas this year at all – because the traditional festivities had been abolished by order of the two Houses of Parliament sitting at Westminster.

"From Charles’s beleaguered wartime capital in Oxford, the royalist satirist John Taylor – by now in his mid-60s, but nevertheless one of the king’s most indefatigable literary champions – issued a cry of anguish at this assault on England’s time-honoured customs. All of the “harmless sports” with which people had long celebrated Christ’s nativity “are now extinct and put out of use… as if they had never been,” Taylor lamented in his pamphlet The Complaint of Christmas, and “thus are the merry lords of misrule suppressed by the mad lords of bad rule at Westminster”.

"So why had the parliamentarians decided to wage war on Christmas – and how did those, like Taylor, who were determined to defend the traditional celebrations, fight back?

"The attack on the feast of Christmas had deep roots. Long before the Civil War began, many zealous Protestants, or ‘Puritans’, had been troubled both by the boisterous nature of the festivities which took place at Christmas and by the perceived association of those festivities with the old Catholic faith. During the early 1600s, most English Puritans had been prepared to tolerate Christmas. Following the rebellion of the Presbyterian Scots against Charles I in 1637, however, all this was to change.

"The Scottish Kirk, which was itself fiercely Protestant, had abolished Christmas as long ago as the 1560s and, although James I had managed tentatively to restore the feast in his northern kingdom in 1617, it was banned there once again after his son’s defeat by the Scots in 1640.

"From this time onwards, attitudes towards Christmas among English Puritans began to harden. And as political tensions between Charles I and his opponents in parliament rose during 1641 so a handful of Puritan extremists took it upon themselves to abandon the celebration of Christmas.

"Following the outbreak of full-scale Civil War between king and parliament in 1642, John Taylor became one of the first to allude in print to the radicals’ decision to dump Christmas. In a satirical pamphlet published in January 1643 – a pamphlet which was clearly intended to appeal to a wide popular audience – Taylor provided his readers with the text of A Tub Lecture, which, he claimed, had been preached by a godly joiner to a group of Puritans at Watford “on the 25 of December last, being Christmas day”.

"In this fictitious address, the ‘lecturer’ is shown assuring his audience that they should not “conceive of me to be so superstitious, as to make any conscience of… this day, because the Church hath ordained [it]” to be a holy feast. “No, God forbid I should be so profane,” the ‘lecturer’ goes on, “rather it is a detestation of their blindness that have brought me hither this day, to enlighten you… [and] I give you to understand that the very name of Christmas is idolatrous and profane, and so, verily, are the whole 12 days [of Christmas] wherein the wicked make daily… sacrifices to riot and sensuality”.

"Here, Taylor was hinting to his readers that the godly parliamentarians posed a potential threat to Christmas itself. Eight months later, that threat was to become all too real.

1600s woodcut of Christmas celebration

"Seizing the initiative

"One of the clauses of the ‘Solemn League and Covenant’ which parliament signed with the Scots in September 1643 stated that, in exchange for Scottish military assistance against the king, MPs would ensure that further “reformation” of the Church of England took place. As Ronald Hutton has observed, this clause encouraged religious radicals on the ground to seize the initiative and to attack those aspects of the traditional ecclesiastical calendar which they disliked.

"Three months later, a number of Puritan tradesmen in London opened up their shops for business on 25 December in order to show that they regarded this day as no different from any other, while several London ministers kept their church doors firmly shut. Meanwhile, many MPs turned up to sit in the parliament house, thus making their own disdain for the customary Christmas holiday very clear.

"During the following year, moreover – when Christmas Day happened to coincide with one of the monthly fast days upon which parliament’s supporters were enjoined to pray for the success of their cause – MPs ordered, not only that the fast day should be “observed” instead of the traditional feast, but also that the fast should be kept “with the more solemn humiliation, because it may call to remembrance our sins, and the sins of our forefathers, who have turned this feast, pretending [to] the memory of Christ, into an extreme forgetfulness of him, by giving liberty to carnal and sensual delights”.

"In January 1645 the final nail was hammered into Christmas’s coffin, when parliament issued its new Directory for the Public Worship of God, a radical alternative to the established Book of Common Prayer, which made no reference to Christmas at all. Thus the way was paved for the ‘anti-Christmas’ of 1645 – a day upon which, in Taylor’s words, a man might pass right through the parliamentary quarters, and “perceive no sign or token of any holy day”.

"The parliamentarians had abolished the high point of the English ritual year, and the cancellation of Christmas aroused huge popular resentment – not just in the royalist camp, but in the districts controlled by parliament, too. As early as December 1643, the apprentice boys of London rose up in violent protest against the shop-keepers who had opened on Christmas Day, and, in the words of a delighted royalist, “forced these money-changers to shut up their shops again”.

"There were further dark mutterings the next year. On 24 December 1644, the editor of a pro-parliamentarian news-pamphlet expressed his support for the MPs’ decision to favour the monthly fast over the traditional feast, but admitted that “the parliament is cried out on” by the common people as a result, with incredulous shouts of “What, not keep Christmas? Here’s a Reformation indeed!”

"Many ordinary Londoners continued to show a dogged determination to keep Christmas special during the following year, and John Taylor’s decision to rush into print at this time with his Complaint of Christmas – a work which bore the same title as a pamphlet urging the enthusiastic observance of the mid-winter feast, which he had published as long ago as 1631 – was clearly motivated by a desire to stir up popular resentment against the parliamentarian leadership, as well as to turn a quick profit for its poverty-stricken author.

"How far Taylor succeeded in these aims it is impossible to say, but his satire quickly provoked a parliamentarian counter-satire entitled The Arraignment, Conviction and Imprisoning of Christmas. Published in January 1646, this publication took great pleasure in conflating Taylor himself with the symbolic character of ‘old Christmas Day’ whose persona the royalist writer had assumed in his own previous pamphlets. In one passage, Taylor/‘old Christmas Day’ – here described as “an old, old, very old grey-bearded gentleman” – is portrayed sitting dejectedly in the midst of the king’s shrinking territories, while desperately urging “all you that ever think to see Christmas again, stick to me now close!”

"Any lingering hopes on the part of the royalists that popular anger at the abolition of Christmas might somehow transform their military fortunes were soon to be dispelled. During early 1646, Charles I’s remaining field forces melted away almost as fast as the winter snow and by April the game was clearly up for the king. In the closing verse of a contemporary ballad, a gloomy royalist writer suggested that the collapse of the king’s cause had sealed the fate of Christmas itself, remarking: “To conclude, I’ll tell you news that’s right, Christmas was killed at Naseby fight.”

"Yet matters were not so simple, for, even though the king’s armies had been beaten out of the field and he himself had fallen into the hands of his enemies, most Englishmen and women continued to cling to their traditional Christmas customs. So strong was the popular attachment to the old festivities, indeed, that during the postwar period a number of pro-Christmas riots occurred. In December 1646, for example, a group of young men at Bury St Edmunds threatened local tradesmen who had dared to open their shops on Christmas Day, and were only dispersed by the town magistrates after a bloody scuffle. 

"Pro-Christmas riots

"Worse was to follow in 1647 – despite the fact that, on 10 June that year, parliament has passed an ordinance which declared the celebration of Christmas to be a punishable offence. On 25 December 1647, there was further trouble at Bury, while pro-Christmas riots also took place at Norwich and Ipswich. During the course of the Ipswich riot, a protestor named ‘Christmas’ was reported to have been slain – a fatality which could be regarded as richly symbolic, of course, of the way that parliament had ‘killed’ Christmas itself.

"In London, a crowd of apprentices assembled at Cornhill on Christmas Day, and there “in despite of authority, they set up Holly and Ivy” on the pinnacles of the public water conduit. When the lord mayor despatched some officers “to pull down these gawds,” the apprentices resisted them, forcing the mayor to rush to the scene with a party of soldiers and to break up the demonstration by force.

"The worst disturbances of all took place at Canterbury, where a crowd of protestors first smashed up the shops which had been opened on Christmas Day and then went on to seize control of the entire city. This riot helped to pave the way for a major insurrection in Kent in 1648 that itself formed part of the ‘Second Civil War’ – a scattered series of risings against the parliament and in favour of the king, which Fairfax and Cromwell only managed to suppress with great difficulty.

"Following parliament’s victory in the Second Civil War and the execution of Charles I in 1649, demonstrations in favour of Christmas became less common. There can be no doubt that many people continued to celebrate Christmas in private, and in his pamphlet The Vindication of Christmas (1652), the tireless John Taylor provided a lively portrait of how, he claimed, the old Christmas festivities were still being kept up by the farmers of Devon.

The Vindication of Christmas 1652

"Nevertheless, recent scholarship has shown that, as time went by, Christmas effectively ceased to be celebrated in the great majority of churches. It was ironic, to say the least, that while the godly had failed to suppress the secular Yuletide festivities which had vexed them for so long, they had succeeded in ending the religious observance of Christmas!

Following Cromwell’s installation as lord protector in 1653, the celebration of Christmas continued to be proscribed. While he had not been personally responsible for ‘cancelling Christmas’ in the first place, it is evident that both Cromwell and the other senior members of his regime were behind the ban, frequently transacting government business on 25 December as if it were a day just like any other.

"Only with the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 was ‘old Christmas Day’ finally brought back in from the cold, to widespread popular joy. John Taylor had died some years before, but if he could have foreseen that, two centuries later, Charles Dickens would be reprising the role which Taylor had made his own – that of the mouthpiece of the ‘true Christmas spirit’ – and that a century and a half later still, the celebration of Christmas would remain as ubiquitous in England and Wales as ever, he would doubtless have felt that his labours had been worthwhile.

"The defenders of Christmas had weathered the storm."

Text From the BBC History Magazine  Sunday 22nd December 2013

Submitted by Emma McFaron

Christmas Advent - A Brief History

Advent is observed in many Western Christian churches as a time of expectant waiting, self-examination, & preparation for the celebration of the birth of Jesus at Christmas. The name Advent comes from the Latin word Adventus, which signifies a coming.

The middle of winter has long been a time of celebration around the world. Centuries before the arrival of the man called Jesus, early Europeans celebrated light & birth in the darkest days of winter. Many peoples rejoiced during the winter solstice, when the worst of the winter was behind them & they could look forward to longer days & extended hours of sunlight.

Advent has probably been observed since the 4C.  It would seem that Advent could not have occurred, until the Roman Catholic Church & state decided to declare December 25 as the day of the birth of Christ, in 345.  Advent was 1st recorded about 380 AD in Spain.

As far back as the 5C, there existed the custom of giving exhortations to the people in order to prepare them for Christmas. The oldest document, the 2nd book of the History of the Franks by St. Gregory Bishop of Tours (536-594), states that St. Perpetuus, one of his predecessors, had decreed a fast 3 times a week, from the feast of St. Martin until Christmas.  St Perpetuus, who died December 30, 490, was the 6th Bishop of Tours, from 460 to 490. It is unclear whether St. Perpetuus established a new custom, or merely enforced an already existing law.

St Gregory, Bishop of Tours (536-594) & King Chilperic I, from the Grandes Chroniques de France de Charles V, 14C illumination.

In the 4C & 5C, Advent was the preparation for the January "Epiphany" rather than Christmas.  It was also a time for new Christians to be baptized & welcomed into the church, while existing members of the church examined their hearts & focused on penance. Religious leaders exhorted the people to prepare for the feast of Christmas by fasting. Early documents show that many church leaders treated Advent as a 2nd Lent.

The 9th canon of the first Council of Macon, held in 582, ordained that between St. Martin's day & Christmas, the Mondays, Wednesdays, & Fridays, should be fasting days.  In 567, the 2nd Council of Tours enjoined the monks to fast from the beginning of December till Christmas.

The obligation of observing Advent, which, though introduced so imperceptibly, had by degrees acquired the force of a sacred law, began to be relaxed, & the 40 days from St. Martin's day to Christmas were reduced to 4 weeks.

Sometime in 6C Rome, the focus of Advent shifted to the second coming of Christ. In the 9C, Pope St. Nicholas reduced the duration of Advent from 6 weeks to 4 weeks. The 1st mention of Advent's being reduced to 4 weeks is to be found in a 9C letter of Pope St. Nicholas I to the Bulgarians.

After having reduced the time of the Advent fast, the church seemed to change the mandatory fast into a simple abstinence & required only the clergy to observe this abstinence. The Council of Salisbury, held in 1281, seemed to expect none but monks to keep it. On the other hand Pope Innocent III, mentions that, in France, fasting was uninterruptedly observed during the whole 40 days.

By degrees, the custom of fasting fell into disuse; and in 1362, Pope Urban V asked only that the clerics of his court should keep abstinence during Advent.  In his 4th Council, he enjoins the parish priests to exhort the faithful to go to Communion on the Sundays, at least, of Lent & Advent; & he strongly urges them to fast on the Mondays, Wednesdays, & Fridays, at least, of each week in Advent.

And finally, sometime in the middle ages--approximately the 1500's--an additional focus on the anticipation before Christ's birth was added to that of His 2nd coming.

Today Advent in most Christian churches begins on the Sunday nearest November 30, & covers 4 Sundays. Because the day it begins changes from year to year, so does the length of each Advent season. 

1621 Christmas New England - Beers ONLY on-board Ship

 

A Relation or Journal of the Proceedings of the Plantation settled at Plymouth in New England, also called Mourt's Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. (London, 1622)

Reports that a little Christmas cheer was drunk in December of 1620, "Monday, the 25th day, we went on shore, some to fell timber, some to saw, some to rive, and some to carry, so no man rested all that day. But towards night some, as they were at work, heard a noise of some Indians, which caused us all to go to our muskets, but we heard no further. So we came aboard again, and left some twenty to keep the court of guard. That night we had a sore storm of wind and rain." and "Monday, the 25th day, we went on shore...but at night the master caused us to have some beer, and so on board we had divers times now and then some beer, but on shore none at all."