Reflections: A Christmas presence in the past
CHRISTMAS is steeped in tradition, much of which has volved over time. What are the origins of Christmas and how was it celebrated in the past?
Was Christmas a pagan festival?
Christmas is a Christian holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. This period in our calendar also coincides with the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, which usually occurs 21st/22nd December. Pre-Christian civilisations celebrated this day as it marked a time of hope with lengthening days, the strength of the sun was returning with spring just a few months away.
The Romans celebrated this time with the feast of Saturnalia which lasted for seven days and was associated with the ‘freeing of souls into immortality.’ Other interpretations of this festival suggest that Saturnalia celebrated the renewal of light. As well as feasting, there was a carnival atmosphere, gifts were exchanged, especially candles – the gift of light, and servants were waited on at the meal table by their masters.
People decorated trees outside of their homes. As Christianity spread and became accepted, the feast of the Nativity took place during the winter solstice celebrations and over time evolved into the Christmas we know today. Professor Ronald Hutton in his book on the history of the ritual year in Britain comments that “in seeking pagan feasts which underlie the British Christmas, the issues are complex and the evidence difficult to assess”.
When Christmas was banned
US writer HL Mencken wrote the definition of Puritanism as being “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy”. It will therefore come as no surprise to learn that the Parliamentarians under Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas.
In the years before the English Civil War or what is now known as the War of the Three Kingdoms, Christmas festivities and celebrations had been coming in for some criticism. Philip Stubbes in his 1583 publication Anatomie of Abuses wrote that Christmas consisted of “cards, dice, tables, masking, mumming, bowling, and such like fooleries”.
When countering the argument that Christmas was a time to be merry, he advocated that “we ought… to be merry in the Lord, but not otherwise, not to swill and gull in more than will suffice nature”. He went on to write that “the true celebration of the feast of Christmas is to meditate…upon the incarnation and birth of Jesus Christ, God and man”.
In 1642 the Civil War began with Parliamentarians fighting against Royalists. Parliament was concerned that they might be defeated by Charles I and entered into an agreement with the Scottish government. This was called the Solemn League and Covenant which was signed on 5th September 1643. In exchange for military support from Scotland, Parliament agreed to a number of undertakings including further church reform to bring it more in line with Scottish Presbyterianism.
Christmas and other holy days were under threat. With much debate Parliament tried to find scriptural evidence of Christ’s birth. It became clear that there was no evidence in the bible of when Christ was born. Ronald Hutton points out that ‘the feast of the Nativity was wholly a creation of later authorities and supported by tradition and not the Bible.’
On the 8th June 1847 Parliament passed ‘An ordinance for Abolishing of Festivals’. The legislation stated that holy days had been “superstitiously used and observed” and it was ordained that the “Feast of the Nativity of Christ, Easter and Whitsuntide, and all other Festival days, commonly called Holy-dayes, be no longer observed”.
People in England and Wales were unhappy with the loss of a cherished festival. There were rising tensions with parliament over increased taxes and the unpopular billeting of a large army on the civil population. Christmas became a cause to rally behind for those opposed to the Puritan regime. Outright Christmas celebrations were crushed in various parts of the country by the army and to some extent Christmas as a holy day came to an end. More discrete observance of the Christmas festival continued and required further acts of Parliament to ban Christmas services and enforce shops and businesses to remain open on 25th December.
The ban on Christmas was swept away with the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 and was joyously celebrated on 25th December that year.
Christmas re-branded
Many of the Christmas celebrations enjoyed today are the creation of the Victorians. There are several reasons for this.
The Oxford Movement in the Church of England began in the 1830s and promoted more ritual in church, harking back to earlier religious practice including a return to celebrating religious festivals. They also believed that the churches were now too plain and encouraged more decoration. This invoked a feeling a returning to traditional values.
Authors and poets in the early decades of the 19th century created a nostalgia for the ‘Merrie England’ of old. This was perceived to be happier and safer than industrialised Britain, which was thought of as a rapidly changing, divisive and uncaring society.
The growing Victorian middle class were becoming concerned about the divide between rich and poor, the lack of compassion and charity and a desire to protect children from the harsh, industrialised world. They also sought to enhance family ties, especially at times like Christmas.
Magazines like Punch in the 1840s printed stories on the lack of seasonal charity and of wealthy misers ignoring the need to help the less fortunate. In 1843 Charles Dickens published his novel A Christmas Carol in which the festive celebrations were seen as the antidote to selfishness and avarice. The story also promoted family values and making Christmas a special time for children. The book tapped into a growing mood in the country for kindness and charity.
In the 1840s Prince Albert published pictures of the royal family showing Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and their children gathered at Windsor Castle celebrating Christmas. This promoted an image of a special family time together rather than one of pageantry and ceremony. Often seen in the image was a decorated fir tree with gifts underneath.
The Christmas tree
It was an earlier German member of the royal family who was credited with popularising decorated Christmas trees. She was Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Sterlitz, married to King George IV. Bringing fir trees or yew branches into the house and decorating them at Christmas time had been a tradition in the German states since the early 1600s.
In 1800 Princess Charlotte arranged to have a party at Windsor Castle. The children of the well-to-do families would be invited. The Princess instructed that an entire yew tree would be dug up and potted. It was brought into the main drawing room and decorated with tinsel and glass. Packets of sweets, almonds and raisins were hung from the branches along with fruit and toys. The tree was illuminated by candle light. Each child was given sweets from the tree and a gift. This was widely reported in publications and the English upper class followed the royal example. This became a new Christmas tradition in England.
Christmas cards
Greetings cards were often sent to give best wishes to family and friends on New Year’s Day. In 1843 Henry Cole commissioned his friend and artist John Callcott Horsey to create a card showing a family having a Christmas meal. To either side of the domestic scene were smaller panels with illustrations depicting acts of charity and compassion. These first cards were printed and sold at a shilling each. This venture was not a commercial success. With improvements in printing technology, the cost of the Christmas cards reduced and by the 1870s they were part of the English Christmas tradition.
An indication of the number of Christmas cards being sent each year can be seen in a 1906 dated photograph of Novelle’s post office on the corner of Whitefield Road and Station Road in New Milton. The image depicts Mr and Mrs Novelle sorting out the vast quantity of mail on the street. In the post office window can be seen a string of Christmas cards and an advertisement for ‘The New Seasons Christmas Cards’. Mr Patience the delivery man is sitting on his bicycle about to set off on his rounds.
Father Christmas
A Father Christmas figure is first recorded in a carol written in the mid-1400s in which a ‘Sir Christemas’ announces the birth of Christ and encourages the audience to be of good cheer. A pamphlet published in 1658 depicts Father Christmas as an old man with white hair and a beard on trial for offences against the Puritans. Fortunately, he is acquitted. In the English Mummers plays of the late 18th century, Father Christmas appears as a character.
Up until Victorian times, Father Christmas was concerned with drinking and feasting by adults with no link to children. It was the creation of Santa Claus in the US that changed his persona. An Episcopalian minister in New York, Clement Clarke Moore wrote a poem ‘A Visit From St Nicholas’ more famously known by the opening line ‘the night before Christmas.’ Moore based his depiction of Santa on Dutch tradition.
Father Christmas was depicted on Victorian cards and other publications as wearing a belted jacket, fat and jolly with white hair and a beard. Sometimes he was seen giving presents and sometimes receiving them. His clothing was red, blue, or green in colour. It was not until the Coca Cola advertisements of the 1930s that red became the accepted colour for Santa’s jacket and trousers. Father Christmas and Santa Claus appear to have merged into one character in about the 1890s.
Christmas 1914
By the time the First World War One was declared in 1914, Christmas was an important festival for all classes. As the first Christmas of the war approached, 17-year-old Princess Mary, the daughter of King George V set up an appeal fund to ensure that every soldier in the front line and every sailor afloat would receive a Christmas gift. This caught the public imagination and funds poured in. This resulted in the more gifts being produced and the criteria changed to include everyone “wearing the King’s uniform on Christmas day”. This included Indian troops and wounded soldiers.
Those soldiers recovering from wounds or sickness in the hospitals at Brockenhurst and Bournemouth and the convalescent depots of Barton and Milford would have been eligible for a gift. For those readers who have researched their families and identified relatives serving in the First World War, if they were in the armed forces in December 1914 there is a strong possibility that they received a gift from the Princess Mary fund.
The gift came in a small brass box. The outside had an embossed lid showing a profile of Princess Mary. Around the edges were the names of the Allies and under the Princess Mary image is embossed ‘Christmas 1914’. The most common gift the tin held was cigarettes and tobacco. In 1914 some 90% of the male population smoked. In addition, the tin came with a flint and tinder rope lighter, a photograph of Princess Mary and a Christmas card and a message from the King and Queen. Non-smokers and Hindus received alternatives to tobacco such as sweets, sweetmeats, chocolate, a bullet pencil, writing paper and envelopes. By the time the fund was wound up in 1920 more than 2.5 million gift tins had been given to servicemen.
Christmas in one form or another has been with us for centuries and has survived being cancelled by the Puritans to become our largest festive celebration of the annual calendar.
Happy Christmas to all readers.
• Nick Saunders MA is a local historian and chair of the Milton Heritage Society. Contact him on nick@miltonheritagesociety.co.uk
