Christmas Every Day

The day before Christmas, known variously as the Vigil of Our Lord, Noche Buena (“The Good Night” in Spanish), Wigilia in Poland, Heilig Abend in Germany, Stedry´vecer (“Generous Evening”) in Slovakia, etc. In eastern Europe it is marked by meatless meals (Advent being a fasting period) and in other countries the occasion of heavy feasting and drinking. In Catholic lands many faithful stay up for the midnight mass and in most places children find it hard to sleep because of their anticipation of the arrival of Santa Claus or another gift-bringer. In Provence Christmas Eve is the Day of Reconciliation when one goes to neighbours to beg or offer forgivenes for wrong-doings during the past year.

 It is the most supernaturally powerful  of the Twelve Days of Christmas. Animals speak or kneel in homage to the birth of Jesus, bees sing a psalm , etc.  In Russia and France it was believed that water turned to wine at midnight while on the isle of Sark this was the time water turned to blood. It was a time for treasure to be revealed, for the Star of Bethelehem to be seen in the Well of the Magi and to remember the dead, for on Christmas Eve spirits will revisit houses where a place is left for them at the table, or a bed, or a bath.

A favourite Christmas pastime in old Quebec was telling ghost stories and one of the favourite of such tales was that of the “Chasse-Galerie”. (It’s a curious term that, derived from the original version of the story in medieval France where an aristocrat named Galerie is condemned to take part forever in the Wild Hunt.)

In the Québecois version, a group of lumberjacks is stranded deep in the woods, far from their loved ones and unable to take part in holiday festivities. In order to make it back in time for the New Year’s Eve parties they strike a deal with the devil: he will provide them with a flying canoe to take them to town and back but should they blaspheme on the trip or touch the cross on a church steeple, they will forfeit their souls.

The story is a popular one with illustrators but my favourite version is that on a 1991 Canadian stamp.

Isolated in the cold North Atlantic, Icelanders have developed many unique Christmas customs. At one time they used to shut down television broadcasting in the evening of December 24 to encourage people to go to church and spend time with their families. Another Christmas Eve custom that has continued is the Jólabókaflód.

After the legalization of Christianity in the fourth century, fierce debates broke out among theologians about the nature of Jesus. Was he god or man? Was he of the same substance as the Father or was he only of a similar substance? In his mixture of divine and human natures, which predominated? How many wills did he have? How many energies? The correct answers often depended on the whims of the imperial family and getting the answers wrong could mean deposition from your church office or exile. 

One band of losers in these very abstruse arguments were the followers of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople. They migrated out of the Roman Empire into Persian territory and from there spread all across Asia, calling themselves the Church of the East, becoming for centuries the most wide-spread of Christian denominations with branches in Syria, central Asia, and India. In 625 their missionaries reached Xian, ancient capital of China and successfully evangelized there. Though the Church of the East was largely wiped out by Muslim and Mongol persecution, it still survives in small pockets and a North American diaspora.

In 1999 archaeologists uncovered a nativity scene on a wall in a crumbling temple in Xian. It seems to have been produced in the late 700s; made of wood and plaster it depicts a reclining Virgin Mary amid Chinese landscape scenery. As you can see below, it is in a ruinous state but continues to represent a once thriving Christian culture in Asia.

Prepare yourself for a trip into Crazytown. The invention of the Christmas card in 1843 and the introduction of cheap postal rates in nineteenth-century England led to a wild proliferation of designs and motifs in greeting cards. Many of these are downright wacky. They bear no relation to Christmas and certainly not Christmas joy but here are a few examples of what I mean. I can offer no explanation, only gratitude that these themes did not continue.

The spontaneous Christmas truces on the Western Front during the Christmas season of 1914 are famous but they were not universally observed. Fighting continued at many points along the line. A total of 149 Allied soldiers died on 25 December 1914, seventy-eight of them in France and Belgium. Some men died in base hospitals and casualty clearing stations from previously acquired wounds but a fair few of them were killed in action on Christmas Day. And the fighting was savage enough for the bodies of thirty-two men to be unrecoverable – eighteen of these men with no known grave are commemorated on the Le Touret Memorial, eight on the Ploegsteert Memorial, and six on the Menin Gate.

Snipers remained active too; in fact Sergeant Frank Collins of the Monmouthshire Regiment was killed by a sniper. He was returning from No Man’s Land after exchanging cigarettes with the Germans when he was shot in the back. An unofficial truce was meant to have been in operation at the time but the man who went out to help him was shot and killed too. He is buried in the Calvaire military cemetery in Belgium. His wife Frances chose the inscription “Peace Perfect Peace” for his headstone.

In the nineteenth century the idea of a secular Christmas Gift-Bringer spread from the United States to Europe. No more angels, Christchilds, or St Nicholases; even the frightening bestial Christmas figures like Finland’s Joulupukki got a makeover. So welcome, Father Christmas (Britain), Père Noël (France), Kerstman (Netherlands) and in Germany, der Weihnachtsmann.

The 1835 song by Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben, “Morgen kommt der Weihnachtsmann”,(Tomorrow the Christmas Man is Coming) is still popular. Der Weihnachtsmann’s image seems to have been influenced by Austrian artist Moritz von Schwind and his depiction of Herr Winter in the 1840s.

This is my favourite image of the trudging Weihnachtsmann accompanied by an angelic figure representing the Christ Child.

The English do love their Christmas pudding, a holiday dessert that is surrounded by a host of customs some of which are illustrated in this article from the 1920s, illustrated by E.H. Shepherd, famous for his drawings for Winnie the Pooh and The Wind in the Willows.

Aficionados of the pudding know that wishes can be made while stirring the ingredients three times, provided that the motions are clockwise. This action is best performed on stir-Up Sunday, the last Sunday before Advent (so-called because the scripture reading on that day is “Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people”. It was customary to bury a silver sixpence in the mixture with riches and good luck accruing to the dinner who finds it in his portion. (The Royal Mint still makes special ‘Christmas Silver Sixpence’ coins every year for use in puddings.) This evolved to include a variety of other objects which would prophesy the future for those who found it — a thimble or a bachelor’s button would predict an unmarried fate, a ring meant a marriage was in the offing.

Canada has many unique Christmas customs. One of the sweetest of these is this candy from the Maritime provinces, described here in an article from Gastro Obscura.

In the riverside town of St. Stephen, New Brunswick, sweet lovers still speak with reverence about an almost 140-year-old candy that references an animal skeleton. Chicken Bones, a vibrant pink candy made of pulled sugar, with a cinnamon-flavored outer layer and a bittersweet chocolate filling, hold high regard in Canadian Christmas traditions, where it appears as a common stocking stuffer, or as a staple in grandma’s candy dish.

Only the most experienced confectioners at Ganong Brothers Limited, the oldest candy manufacturers in Canada (in business since 1873), get to work on Chicken Bones. An American named Frank Sparhawk created the first Chicken Bone at the Ganong factory in 1885, and the candy is made by nearly the same process today. The cinnamon-flavored sugar syrup is first cooked in a large copper pot until it gets to a sticky, chewy consistency. Confectioners roll the sticky syrup out, dye it red, then pull, press, and knead it by hand. The mixture is then strung onto a pulling machine where the sugar is stretched until it takes on the distinctive bright pink color of the chicken bones. Expert hands then add the chocolate filling and pull, stretch, and roll to make one giant Chicken Bone, which is then fed to a machine that cuts out the individual pieces.

Chicken Bones are a polarizing candy, with haters and devotees in equal measure. The bigger point of contention, though, might be around how best to consume them. Should you bite into the crunchy bones and get the spicy-bittersweet flavor combination of cinnamon, sugar, and slightly grainy dark chocolate all at once? Or, should you suck on the outer bone so your tongue tingles with the heat of the cinnamon until you get to the mellow sweetness of the chocolate marrow? Either way, for Canadians on the East Coast, the pink-tongued enjoyment of too many chicken bones is a Christmas tradition that has stood the test of time.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries an often-heard complaint was that Christmas charity was becoming less frequent, that the rich aristocratic and gentry families who at one time had feasted their tenants at Christmas were now abandoning their estates for the bright lights of London. The result was that the poor were suffering. Here are the beginning verses of a 1624 ballad protesting that change. The balladeer had the English monarchy on his side as both Elizabeth I and James I commanded wealthy landowners to remain in their manor during Yuletide.

A Song Bewailing theTime of Christmas , So Much Decayed in England

Christmas is my name, for have I gone, have I gone, have I gone,
Have I gone without regard;
   Whereas great men by flocks they be flown to Londonward
   Where in pomp and pleasure do waste
That which Christmas had wont to feast,
   Welladay!
Houses where music was wonted to ring,
   Nothing but bats and owls now do sing.
Welladay, welladay, welladay, where should I stay?

Christmas bread and beef is turned into stones, into stones, into stones,
   Into stones and silken rags.
And Lady Money, it doth sleep, it doth sleep, it doth sleep,
   It doth sleep in misers’ bags.
Where many gallants once abound,
   Nought but a dog and shepherd is found,
      Welladay!
Places where Christmas revels did keep
   Are now become habitations for sheep.
Welladay, welladay, welladay, where should I stay?

Pan, the shepherds’ god, doth deface, doth deface, doth deface,
   Doth deface Lady Ceres’ crown;
And tillages doth decay, doth decay, doth decay,
   Doth decay in every town;
Landlords their rents so highly enhance
   That Piers the ploughman barefoot doth dance,
      Welladay!
Farmers that Christmas would entertain
   Hath scarcely withal themselves to maintain.
Welladay, welladay, welladay, where should I stay?