Christmas Every Day

A parasitic shrub, Viscum album, mistletoe has a long history in folklore and legend. The Druids supposedly solemnly collected it around midwinter and it was deemed to have magical healing powers and be a token of peace. It is perhaps from this origin that the Christian use of it at Christmas proceeded. Like many evergreens it was used a church decoration (despite prejudice against it in some parts). At York Minster during the Middle Ages a branch of mistletoe was laid on the altar during the Twelve Days of Christmas and a public peace proclaimed in the city for as long as it remained there.

The custom of kissing under the mistletoe was long in developing. Some medieval English homes hung an effigy of the Holy Family inside a wooden hoop decorated with winter greenery under which it was customary to exchange an embrace or kiss. After the Reformation when the image of the Holy Family disappeared,  the kissing bunch or bough, a collection of greenery which often included mistletoe, remained as a Christmas custom. Kissing beneath it, or just a sprig of mistletoe, seems to have been a custom confined to the servant class until the nineteenth century when it was more generally adopted. In the Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens describes its use in the early nineteenth century:

From the centre of the ceiling of this kitchen, old Wardle had just suspended with his own hands a huge branch of mistletoe, and this same branch of mistletoe instantaneously gave rise to a scene of general and most delightful struggling and confusion; in the midst of which, Mr. Pickwick, with a gallantry that would have done honour to a descendant of Lady Tollimglower herself, took the old lady by the hand, led her beneath the mystic branch, and saluted her in all courtesy and decorum.

Each kiss necessitated the removal of a berry from the sprig and when all berries were gone the merriment ceased. The custom was for a long time confined to the English-speaking world though it has spread abroad in recent years. The only European tradition that appears similar is the Austrian New Year’s custom when the Sylvester figure is permitted a kiss under any sort of greenery.

A large fortress-like church complex on Manger Square in Bethlehem centred on the site where Jesus was said to have been born.

As early as the second century local tradition claimed that the Nativity of Christ had taken place in a stable-cave, the location of which was sufficiently well-known that the Roman emperor Hadrian established a pagan grove there dedicated to Adonis in order to discourage Christian worship on the site. In the third century Origen and other visitors were still being directed to the spot. The theologian reported: “In Bethlehem the cave is pointed out where He was born, and the manger in the cave where He was wrapped in swaddling clothes, and the rumor is in those places and among foreigners of the Faith that indeed Jesus was born in this cave.”

The first Church of the Nativity was built over the cave by Saint Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine. This church was later damaged in an uprising and was rebuilt in the sixth century at the command of the Byzantine emperor Justinian. When the area was overrun by Persian invaders in 614 legend claims that the Church of the Nativity was spared because of depictions in a mosaic of Magi in Persian dress.

The cross-shaped Church of St Mary of the Nativity, 170 feet long and 80 feet wide, stands above the small grotto where a silver star marks the spot where Jesus was born; the inscription reads Hic De Virgine Maria Jesus Christus Natus Est — “Here Jesus Christ was Born of the Virgin Mary.”  Nearby is a chapel where the manger stood in which the infant was placed. Surrounding the Church of the Nativity are other chapels and convents of the Catholic, Orthodox and Armenian churches; these three denominations share the administration of various parts of the complex. Quarrels between them in the nineteenth century took on dangerous overtones. The Russian goverment supported the Orthodox claims while the Catholics were backed by the French government; these hard feelings were one of the reasons for the outbreak of the Crimean War in the 1850s

For over a century the town of Oaxaca, Mexico has held the Noché del Rábano, Night of the Radishes, a festival dedicated to the carving of the large twisted local radishes which are shaped by artists into Nativity scenes, images of the Virgin of Guadelupe, Aztec gods or local geography. Thousands of townspeople and tourists crowd the town square during the Christmas season to tour the stalls, visit the hundreds of vendors and enjoy the music and fireworks that accompany this fiesta. Recently prizes have been offered for works made from corn husks and dried flowers.

Ginger was one of the spices brought back to Europe from the Middle East by returning Crusaders in the twelfth century. Though it had other uses in medicine and the kitchen it was the baking of gingerbread that made it a popular treat and one eventually associated with Christmas. During the Middle Ages it became so popular that special guilds of bakers were granted exclusive rights to produce the food. When it began to appear at Christmas markets in Germany in the sixteenth century, especially in Nuremberg which was a centre of the ginger trade, it began to be linked in the public mind with holiday eating.

Gingerbread appears in many varieties, light and dark, moist and dry and can be shaped into figures such as the pigs sold in the Nuremberg market or human forms or the famous gingerbread houses that grew in popularity during the nineteenth century. It has long been a custom for gingerbread ornaments to be hung on the Christmas tree and eaten when it is taken down.