It is now widely accepted that Christmas is the time of home-coming. Songs such as “Home for the Holidays” or “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” testify to the place that the season holds in the life of modern, scattered families. This theme, however, was not always present among the many meanings that Christmas conveys. It was only in the nineteenth century, when industrialization and – in England – the rise of the popularity of boarding schools took millions away from their homes, that the impulse arose. The sentiment was enhanced by the revival of an emphasis on the humanity of Jesus in the Nativity and the notion of the original Christmas as a family event.
The expansion of railway travel and cheap fares made it possible for those away from home to consider returning for the holidays and more and more countries legislated Christmas as a holiday time. By the twentieth century Christmas was the principal time for family reunion – except in the United States where it is edged out by Thanksgiving (see, for example, the desperate struggle to make it home in time for that holiday portrayed by the John Candy / Steve Martin movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.)
The plays and poems of William Shakespeare seldom mention Christmas but there is an important seasonal tradition contained (or perhaps invented?) early on in Hamlet where Marcellus refers to the ghostly apparition of the dead king, remarks
Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes Wherein our Savior’s birth is celebrated. The bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow’d and so gracious is the time (1.1.178).
An article in an 1881 edition of Notes & Queries makes the counter-argument that in England the Christmas season is full of spooky comings and goings:
That Christmas ghostly season is shown by certain supernatural noises, such as the subterranean ringing of bells which are said to be distinctly beard in certain localities. Thus, for instance, near Raleigh in Nottinghamshire, there is a valley said to have been caused by an earthquake, several hundred years ago, which swallowed up a whole village, together with the church. It was formerly customary for the people to assemble in this valley every Christmas morning to listen to the ringing of the bells of the church beneath them. Where, too, churches are said to have been swallowed up by the ravages of the sea, their peals are supposed to be heard ringing their Christmas notes from beneath the ocean deep. Again, amongst the numerous other reasons which may be assigned for considering Christmas a ghostly season may be quoted the following: In Northamptonshire the ghosts of unfortunate persons buried at cross-roads are believed to have a particular licence to wander about on Christmas Eve, and to wreak their evil designs upon defenceless humanity. Hence the peasantry take particular care to avoid running the risk of exposing themselves to such an unpleasant sight, and more often than otherwise remain at home. In years gone by, too, we are told how at Walton-le-Dale the inmates in most houses sat up on Christmas Eve with their doors open, whilst one of the party read the narrative of St. Luke, the saint himself being supposed to pass through the house.
Many of the divinations practised, also, at the present season have a distinct reference to its ghostly character. Thus, in Northamptonshire, at the witching hour of midnight on Christmas Eve, the young lady who is anxious to ascertain her lot in the married state goes into the garden and plucks twelve sage leaves, under a firm conviction that she will be favoured with a glimpse of the shadowy form of her future husband as he approaches her from the opposite end of the ground, Great care, however, must be taken not to damage or break the sage stalk, as should this happen serious consequences would ensue.
But these are not the only supernatural elements associated with Christmastide; our forefathers having regarded the budding and flowering of the celebrated Glastonbury thorn as a miraculous occurrence. A magic charm, too, is commonly supposed to fall upon bees, which under its influence celebrate the Nativity by a making a humming poise, while oxen fall down in their stalls as if in adoration. These and such-like occurrences justly stamp the present season as a ghostly one.
As befits a wintry nation, Canada has given the world a number of Christmas innovations, such as the world’s first Santa Claus parade, put on by the Eaton’s department store. That retail chain is also responsible for a mid-20th century toy craze.
Inspired by the success of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer as an advertising tool for the Montgomery Ward department stores, the Canadian retailer Eaton’s was moved to develop its own Christmas creature, Punkinhead the Sad Little Bear, who became one of Santa’s helpers. Punkinhead, with his distinctive orange hair, appeared first in Eaton’s 1948 Christmas parade and for the next decade could be found in a series of 13 promotional books and on many items such as pyjamas, records, children’s furniture and toys. He was also popular with Canadian children in the form of a teddy-bear.
Punkinhead was the creation of animation legend Charlie Thorson (1890-1966) of Winnipeg, who had helped develop Snow White for Walt Disney, Bugs Bunny for Warner Brothers, and Elmer the Safety Elephant for the Toronto police department.
The second-last in our series of department store Christmas icons is Mr. Bingle. The snowman-like figure appeared in 1947, the creation of Emile Aline for New Orleans’ Maison Blanche store. (Note that the store and Bingle share the same initials.) He appeared most frequently as a marionette puppet on children’s shows as Christmas approached but also appeared in a lively form for charitable events such as hospital visits.
His catchy theme song went:
Jingle, jangle, jingle Here comes Mr. Bingle With another message from Kris Kringle Time to launch your Christmas season Maison Blanche makes Christmas pleasin’ Gifts galore for you to see Each a gem from MB!
Uncle Mistletoe was only one of a number of additions to the mythology of Christmas made by North American department stores. He was commercially-inspired analogue of Santa Claus invented in the late 1940s by Marshall Fields department store in Chicago. Described as a “black-browed, winged sprite, wearing a cape and top hat” he lived with his wife Aunt Holly in Cozy Cloud Cottage (the creation of store designer Homer Sharp) on the eighth floor. Uncle Mistletoe attracted a loyal following of children who joined his “Happiness Clubs” and he even made television appearances in cartoon form during the holiday season. In 1951 the Three Suns issued a 45 rpm recording entitled “Uncle Mistletoe” and he was the subject of a children’s book. Collectibles of Uncle Mistletoe and Aunt Holly are still a hot item.
The first, and most enduring, addition to the Santa Claus canon in the 20th century was the product of a Chicago department store. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” first appeared in 1939 in an promotional give-away for Chicago’s Montgomery Ward department store. His creator was advertising editor Robert Lewis May (1905-1976) who conceived of an illustrated booklet with a Christmas poem that families could read every year. The story was to be about a rejected reindeer with few friends (like May in his own childhood) to whom Santa Claus would turn for assistance. Denver Gillen did the artwork for the booklet based on sketches made visiting the city zoo and May wrote the poem about the reindeer named Rollo. Or perhaps Reginald. Both these names and others were rejected in favour of Rudolph, the choice of May’s four-year-old daughter. The company loved the project and gave away millions of the books throughout the 1940s.
In 1947 song writer Johnny Marks (the brother-in-law of May) penned the lyrics which summarized the Rudolph story:
You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen But do you recall… The most famous reindeer of all?
Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer Had a very shiny nose And, if you ever saw it You would even say it glows
All of the other reindeer Used to laugh and call him names They never let poor Rudolph Join in any reindeer games
Then one foggy Christmas Eve Santa came to say, “Rudolph, with your nose so bright, Won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?”
Then how the reindeer loved him As they shouted out with glee, “Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer You’ll go down in history!”
Marks couldn’t interest any music publishers in his work so he had to found his own St. Nicholas music company; nor could he find a singer willing to take a chance with a song about an advertising character. He was turned down by Bing Crosby, Dinah Shore and Perry Como before Gene Autry “the Singing Cowboy” recorded it in 1949, selling 2,000,000 copies in the first year alone and launching Rudolph to further success. The reindeer went on to appear in movie form, books with translations in dozens of languages and a host of marketing devices and toys.
Herod (73-04 B.C.) was king of Judaea at the time of the birth of Christ and rebuilder of the Temple in Jerusalem. His murderousness was legendary: he killed many of his children and wives — the Romans joked that it was safer to be Herod’s pig than a family member. The Massacre of the Innocents which the Bible ascribes to him is very much in keeping with what we know of personality. He is the subject of a number of Christmas carols and ballads, such as the Coventry Carol, The Carnel and the Crane, and St. Stephen and Herod, and appears in seasonal drama as a raging tyrant. In Christmas art, he was portrayed as a rather big, old man, crowned and sitting on a throne. He is always bearded with long dark hair and wearing royal garments.
The twelfth-century abbey of Fleury in France staged a dramatic presentation that has come to be known as The Play of Herod. It describes the Nativity with its attendant angels, midwives and shepherds, the encounter between King Herod and the Magi and the Massacre of the Innocents which the king orders. Of the surviving medieval plays with these themes the Fleury Herod is considered to be the most artistically satisfying.
The tradition of Christmas stamps was started in Canada in 1898 when Canadian postal officials decided to mark a reduction in the price of Imperial postage by issuing a commemorative stamp — a map of the world with the British empire in red and the inscription “XMAS 1898”.
Canada did not follow this up and there were no more stamps with Christmas themes until Austria in 1937 produced a stamp depicting Christmas roses and Brazil issued one in 1939 featuring the Three Wise Men and the Star. Neither of these stamps was issued specifically for Christmas and so, to philatelic purists, the honour of the first stamps issued for the holiday season with a Christmas theme is Hungary’s 1943 set of three depicting the Shepherds and Angels, the Nativity and the Adoration of the Magi. It was not until the late 1950s however that the use of special Christmas sets became widespread with Spain, Australia and the Vatican leading the way.
The first American Christmas stamp was issued in 1962, a 4-cent stamp showing a Christmas wreath. Given the touchy question of the separation of church and state in American political life it is not surprising that some criticized the post office for marking a religious observance but postal authorities were undeterred and have continued to issue Christmas stamps with both secular and religious themes. (Since 1993 political correctness has mandated that this distinction is one of “Holiday Contemporary” versus “Holiday Traditional” themes and the stamps’ only text is the inoffensive greeting: “Greetings”.)
It was customary in many countries to issue stamps at Christmas time with a surcharge that would direct money toward various charities and, in fact, in some places it was compulsory to use these stamps when sending seasonal mail. Cuba financed an anti-tuberculosis campaign in this way and Costa Rico funded a childrens’ home.
When the Soviet Union occupied eastern Europe from 1945 to 1989, its Marxist ideology mitigated against religious celebrations. Great effort was expended in trying to secularize Christmas and its magical gift-bringers. Out went the Christ Child, Saint Nicholas and angels and in came Grandfather Frost, known in Russian as Ded Moroz. In the image above from 1963, he is hailing the Soviet space program.
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and Communism receded, Ded Moroz vanished and was joyfully replaced by the traditional Christmas figures. He lingers in Russia where he serves as the local Santa.
Snegurochka, or the Snow Maiden, is a figure from Russian fairy tale lore who was pressed into service as a companion to Ded Moroz, or Grandfather Frost, during the Soviet years. She survived the fall of Communism and still remains at the side of the Russian version of Santa Claus.
Debate about the authorship of this carol continues even today but the name most frequently attached to it is that of John Francis Wade, an Englishman at the Catholic college at Douai. Written as “Adeste Fideles” about 1742, the carol was brought back to England by returning Catholics and was often sung at the Portuguese embassy in London — thus it came to be known for a time as “The Portuguese Hymn”. It was translated in 1841 by a Church of England clergyman Frederick Oakeley (1802-80) as “Ye Faithful, Approach Ye”. After his conversion to Catholicism he made another translation in 1852, the now familiar “O Come All Ye Faithful”. Additional verses have been added by W.T. Brooke (1848-1917) but these are seldom sung.
O come, all ye faithful, Joyful and triumphant, O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem. Come and behold Him, Born the King of Angels!
O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.
God of God, Light of Light, Lo! He abhors not the Virgin’s womb; Very God, Begotten, not created.
O come, let us adore Him, etc.
Sing choirs of angels; Sing in exultation Sing, all ye citizens of heaven above: Glory to God – In the highest.
O come, let us adore Him, etc.
Yea, Lord, we greet Thee, Born this happy morning; Jesus, to Thee be the glory giv’n; Word of the Father, Now in the flesh appearing.
Recently it has been suggested (without much proof) that the carol was really a coded Jacobite song of praise for the claim of the deposed Stuart dynasty to the throne of England. Oakley was a supporter of Bonnie Prince Charlie and had fled England when the uprising of 1745 was crushed.
