Colonial Christmas and Hogmanay

Finding things to share about colonial Christmas celebrations can be an interesting experience. Others have written about the importance of Advent to colonial folk, and how Christmas was seen more as a season with a spiritual focus rather than a particular holiday or event. The Colonial Williamsburg history website has an excellent article discussing colonial Christmas traditions, which I found very useful when researching for my Pioneer Christmas novella, Defending Truth. Along with the spiritual focus, and various traditions that included decorating the churches with green boughs, Christmas included plenty of gaeity and frivolity, especially in the eastern, more populated parts of the colonies. Presbyterian missionary Philip Fithian shared in a 1774 diary entry:

When it grew to dark to dance. . . . we conversed til half after six; Nothing is now 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.

But Christmas was considered so strongly a Catholic or even Anglican tradition (Christmas does, after all, come from the term "Christ Mass") that many denominations either didn't think it worthy of notice (Peter Kalm notes that the Quakers ignored the holiday at first) or because of doctrinal differences, felt it ungodly to indulge in the frivolity of the holiday. David DeSimone mentions how after sharing eastern Virginia's lavish Christmas celebrations, Philip Fithian must have been disappointed while serving in the backcountry of Virginia the following year:

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.

Robbie Shade - Fireworks over Edinburgh (Wikipedia)

The Scots-Irish Presbyterians in particular frowned upon Christmas, but there's evidence that the New Year was well observed. The Scottish New Year, or Hogmanay, a word which means the last day of the year, roots from Norse, Gaelic, and French terms and traditions, some of which involve children going door-to-door to request small gifts and sweets (sound familiar?), and some which involve giving special gifts to the poor. There's also much made of the "first foot," or the first person to set foot inside your house on the new year, beginning at midnight, and the traditional giving of gifts to the household for good luck, and then the hospitality shared with guests

We really don't have any way of knowing how extensively Scottish settlers held to the old traditions, but in recent years Colonial Williamsburg has included Hogmanay in its New Year's celebrations. With such a rich history of Advent, Christmas, and New Year's combined, is it any wonder that the month of December often feels like one long party?

How Santa Claus Came to the New World

by Roseanna M. White

Stories of St. Nicholas go back for centuries. Growing up in a protestant family, I knew next to nothing about the saint so well beloved by Europeans. All I knew was Santa Claus--the jolly old elf who brought presents on Christmas Eve.

As I grew up I ran into more and more people who eschewed the tradition of Santa--and I understood why. Santa takes the focus off Jesus, right? And that's where it belongs. 

But this year, I wanted to dig a little deeper into the traditions that shaped American Christmases into what they've become...and where better to start than with St. Nicholas of Myra?

The saint was, from childhood, considered a wonder-worker. A miracle-doer. A boy of astounding faith. Not a magician, let it be noted--a Christian who believed fully in the awe-inspiring power of the Holy Spirit, and that he, as a believer, could call on that power to heal, to save those in danger, to work wonders. When his wealthy parents died when he was still young, his uncle, the bishop of Patara, raised him. He was soon, at a young age, named a reader in the church, and then a priest.

Nicholas had a large inheritance from his parents...but no desire to spend it. Instead, he gave it to those in need. The most famous story of his generosity was when a local family in Patara lost all they had. Destitute, the three daughters of the family, now without dowries, couldn't be given in marriage. The only choice open to them was prostitution. When Nicholas heard of this impending tragedy, he took a bag of gold and tossed it through the family's window one night--a dowry for the eldest daughter. He did it again for the second daughter. But when he tried to toss a third bag of gold through the window, he found the family was waiting for him.

Now, Nicholas took seriously Jesus's command to give our gifts in secret. He wanted no notice, no thanks, just to help. So he climbed up onto the roof and dropped the gold down the chimney, where it's said to have landed in a shoe or stocking left there to dry.

That, my friends, is where the stocking tradition comes from.

The father of the girls rushed out into the street to catch up with their mysterious benefactor, and he did indeed catch the young man...who begged him not to tell anyone of what he'd done, not while he lived. The father promised.

But after Nicholas's death, stories of his generosity came out. Story upon story of how this miracle-worker gave from his own wealth to help those in need around him. Always quietly. Always anonymously. Always out of Christian love.

When Nicholas was named a saint shortly after his death, his feast day was established on his day of death--December 6th. And to honor the memory of the man who gave so generously, people would also give anonymous gifts--and sign them St. Nicholas. It was around the same time that Christmas was established on December 25th. Pretty close to each other, and over the centuries the two celebrations merged into one.

The Dutch especially loved their stories of Saint Nicholas...or as they called him, Sinterklaas (Dutch for Saint Nicholas). But with the advent of protestantism, feast days were abolished. Still, the Dutch people refused to give up their gift-giving, even when Martin Luther insisted it is the Christ Child who gives us all the gifts we need, not some saint. So the people, in the way people do, said, "Okay...so our gifts are now from the Christ Child." Or as they would say in Dutch, the Christ-Kindl.

When the Dutch arrived in the New World, they brought their Christmas traditions with them. British colonists latched hold of them, though they mis-pronounced Christ-Kindl and called him Kris Kringle...which they took to be another name for the one the same Dutch settlers called Sinterklaas, which they also mispronounced, LOL, and called Santa Claus. The anonymous gift-giver...

Traditional interpretation of Dutch Sinterklaas

But of course, stories get changed over the years. As the centuries went by, people forgot that Nicholas performed God-given miracles, not magic. They forgot that he gave in secret so that no one would praise him. They forgot that he was a man who, above all, sought to bring honor to God. Instead, he became an elf in our new mythology. A magical being who watched our children and gave gifts only to the good, coal to the naughty. He became a symbol of Christmas-when-you-stop-focusing-on-Christ.

Sad, since focusing on Christ was all he ever did.

Examining this story made me examine more than the role Santa Claus plays in modern America. It made me examine our gift-giving in general. Because while so many of us today are quick to say, "No Santa in my house!" we're not so quick to actually focus on Christ. It's still largely about the gifts in this day and age...we just sign them with our own names. Something Nicholas never did, lest he take pride in the praises it brought him.

But when the country was founded, when Christmas traditions were first begun here, that's not what it was about. Gifts were simple, small--an orange, candy, perhaps a small toy for each child. Christmas, if it was celebrated (the Puritans, of course, didn't celebrate the day at all), was begun with church, followed with a family dinner, and only then introduced any gifts to be given.

Santa Claus was a way to give a gift anonymously. A way to capture a bit of the wonder of all God gives us. Not an excuse for children to make an "I want" list a mile long, not a way to take the focus away from where it should be...but an invitation for you to look around you and see where there is need. A way to meet that need quietly--not for praise, not even for the joy of seeing their faces, but just out of Christian love.

This year, whether you have any Santa figures in your house or not, I pray you play Santa for someone. Not just for the kids or grandkids that already have a house bursting with toys, but for someone around you in need. Meet it. Meet it quietly. Meet it anonymously.

And remember who the man the Dutch brought to these shores as Santa Claus or the Christ-Kindl really was--one of the most generous, faithful men I've ever read about. He may not be a jolly old elf, or have a broad face and a little round belly...but you can be sure that he would be the first to wish:

Moravian Christmas Traditions Dating Back to Colonial Times

 

Moravian Christmas Traditions

by Tamera Lynn Kraft

 

In my novella, A Christmas Promise, I write about Moravian missionaries in Schoenbrunn Village, circa 1773. The Moravians brought many Christmas traditions to America that we use to celebrate Christ’s birth today. Here are a few of them.

The Christmas Tree: Moravians brought the idea of decorating Christmas trees in their homes in the early 1700s, long before it became a popular tradition in the United States.

Christmas Eve Candlelight Services: Most churches have Christmas Eve services where they sing Christmas carols and light candles to show Jesus came to be the light of the world. The Moravian Church has been doing that for centuries. They call their services lovefeasts because they also have a part of the service where they serve sweetbuns and coffee – juice for the kids – and share Christ’s love with each other. For candles, Moravians use bleached beeswax with a red ribbon tied around them. The white symbolizes the purity of Christ and red symbolizes that His blood was shed for us.

The Moravian Star: In the 1840s at a Moravian school, students made 24 point stars out of triangles for their geometry lessons. Soon those Moravian stars started making their way on the tops of Christmas trees. The star as a Christmas tree topper is still popular today.

The Putz: The putz is a Christmas nativity scene surrounded by villages or other Biblical scenes. Moravian children in the 1700s would make a putz to put under their Christmas tree. Today, nativity scenes and Christmas villages are popular decorations.

Re-creating a Historical Christmas

One very cold Christmas during the Revolution...image by Wikipedia

Writing about Christmas in the backcountry of North Carolina (now east Tennessee) for my first novella, Defending Truth in A Pioneer Christmas Collection, held the challenge of creating that "Christmasy" feel for modern readers while absolutely respecting the probable opinions and practices of the time and region. What a contrast to the highly commercial affair the holiday has become in our own time!

Previous posts, especially this excellent one on colonial Christmases by Lori Benton, have covered how Christmas itself was a modest affair in the colonial era, with most of the focus on parties and church attendance. Often the celebrations continued through the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany, culminating in "Twelfth Night" on January.

Certain religious groups and denominations celebrated with far less fervor than others. How much, or even whether one celebrated. also differed across social strata and region. In the western reaches of the colonies, there tended to be no celebration at all, at least not in contrast with those in the east. The Colonial Williamsburg Official History site on their page, Another Look at Christmas in the Eighteenth Century, comments,

One notable exception to the Christmas Day in 1775 must have been a great disappointment for the Presbyterian missionary, Philip Fithian. A year earlier he had experienced the finest of Virginia Christmases the residence of Robert Carter, Nomini Hall. But in 1775, Fithian toiled as a missionary in the western counties of Virginia among the Scotch and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. The following is part of his diary entry for December 25:

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.

Could it be that settlers felt the need to keep things "calm & temperate" because of the almost constant threat of Indian attack?

The site goes on to say:

Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Moravians celebrated the traditional Christmas season with both religious and secular observances. These celebrations in eighteenth- century America were observed by the aforementioned communities in cities such as New York and Philadelphia, in the Middle Atlantic colonies of New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, and in the South. 

Some of the differences can be chalked up to denominational practice. Scotch-Irish Presbyterians tended to regard any sort of Christmas observance as papist and thus worse than heathen, a perversion of the purity of God’s word. The Presbyterian Heritage Center site states:

Presbyterians have not always celebrated Christmas. 

Separating themselves from the Roman Catholic Church practices, Protestant Reformation leaders were generally critical of the existing “feast and saint days” of the Catholic Church.

The celebration of Christmas became a point of contention among many Protestants. Reformation leader Martin Luther permitted the celebration of certain feast days, including Christmas. Other reformers, including John Calvin and John Knox, preferred to worship only where specifically commanded in the Bible.

The Quakers likewise ignored the holiday:

On Dec. 25, 1749, Finnish-Swedish naturalist Peter Kalm (believed to be pictured below) was in Philadelphia. He made the following observation in his diary: “Christmas Day.... The Quakers did not regard this day any more remarkable than other days. Stores were open, and anyone might sell or purchase what he wanted.... There was no more baking of bread for the Christmas festival than for other days; and no Christmas porridge on Christmas Eve!”

Kalm went on to note that: “One did not seem to know what it meant to wish anyone a merry Christmas.... first the Presbyterians did not care much for celebrating Christmas, but when they saw most of their members going to the English (Anglican) church on that day, they also started to have services.”

It's fascinating to me to see how customs differed, and how they changed over the years.

What is a Christmas custom you'd like to see brought back? Anything you think is best left in the past?

Creches and Cakes

This is the nativity scene my oldest child sets up on my fireplace mantel every Christmas.

Crèches 

Nativity scene by St. Francis at Greccio,
painting by Giotto

St. Francis of Assisi created the first nativity scene in 1223 in Greccio, Italy. A live nativity scene staged in a cave, it had humans and animals cast in the Biblical roles and was an effort on his part to emphasize the worship of Christ rather than upon gift giving. Some say he created the manger scene as an alternative for pilgrims wanting to go to Bethlehem, which was then occupied by the Turks

        Nativity scenes, or crèches (the French word for manger), became so popular that within a hundred years almost every church in Italy had one, though eventually statues replaced the human and animal participants.

        During early colonial times in New England, the Puritans didn’t approve of celebrating Christmas and outlawed it in Boston from 1659 to 1681. (Presbyterians weren't keen on celebrating Christmas either, as it was considered an Anglican tradition.)

        During that time, an English tradition of baking a mince pie in the shape of a manger to hold the Christ child was also banned by specific legislation. The outlaw pies were referred to as “Idolaterie in crust.” The ban was revoked by Governor Edmund Andros.

        Also in America, the tradition of decorative Christmas villages was rooted in the holiday traditions of the Pennsylvania Dutch. The construction of a nativity scene, also called a putz, were made at the base of a tree. These scenes, sometimes inspired by the story of Noah’s Ark, could include several hundred carved animals on their way to the ark.

Fruitcakes

        According to lore, the ancient Egyptians placed an early version of the fruitcake on the tombs of loved ones. But it was the Romans who made fruitcake popular by mixing pomegranate seeds, barley mash, and pine nuts and shaping it into a ring. Because of the cake’s shelf life, Roman soldiers would take them to the battlefields. During the Middle Ages, crusaders travelled with the same type of cakes, only they added preserved fruit, spices, and honey. 

Roman soldier's fruitcake.



      In the 16th century, Colonial Americans enhanced the fruitcake recipe with cupfuls of sugar that increased the density of the cake. Also included were fruits from the Mediterranean, which they candied and added to the mixture along with nuts.

Dried fruits and nuts.

        Every century saw additions to the fruitcake including alcohol in the Victorian era, until the cakes became weighty. By the early 18th century, fruitcakes became synonymous with decadence and were outlawed by the Puritans in Europe who proclaimed them “sinfully rich.” That law was eventually repealed, since fruitcake had become an important part of the tea hour.

Fruitcake Recipe 18th Century

Take four pounds of flour dried and sifted, seven pounds of currants washed and rubbed, six pounds of the best fresh butter, two pounds of Jordan almonds blanched, and beaten with orange flower water and sack till fine; then take four pounds of eggs, put half the whites away, three pounds of double-refined sugar beaten and sifted, a quarter of an ounce of mace, the same of cloves and cinnamon, three large nutmegs, all beaten fine, a little ginger, half a pint of sack, half a pint of right French brandy, sweet-meats to your liking, they must be orange, lemon, and citron; work your butter to a cream with your hands before any of your ingredients are in; then put in your sugar, and mix all well together; let your eggs be well beat and strained through a sieve, work in your almonds first, then put in your eggs, beat them together till they look white and thick; then put in your sack, brandy and spices, shake your flour in by degrees, and when your oven is ready, put in your currants and sweet-meats as you put it in your hoop: it will take four hours baking in a quick oven: you must keep it beating with your hand all the while you are mixing of it, and when your currants are well washed and cleaned, let them be kept before the fire, so that they may go warm into your cake. This quantity will bake best in two hoops.

This recipe was in “The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy” by Hannah Glasse.

In Manitou Springs, Colorado, there is an annual Great Fruitcake Toss.  It is held the first Saturday in January.  If you don't have a fruitcake, you can "rent" one for a dollar.  Admission is one non-perishable food item.  Fruitcakes can be hurled, tossed, or launched by a non-fuel device. Pictured is a Crusader preparing to catapult a fruitcake. 

 

Whatever your special traditions, I want to extend to you our family's prayers that you will enjoy a very Merry Christmas and that Christ will be in the center of your celebrations. 

 

Susan F. Craft is the author of the SIBA award winning Revolutionary War romantic suspense, The Chamomile.  She is represented by Linda S. Glaz, Hartline Literary Agency.

www.susanfcraft.com

http://historicalfictionalightintime.blogspot.com