A number of cultures have traditionally practised the custom of going door-to-door during the Christmas season in crude disguises, performing skits or dances in return for hospitality. It is called mummering in Newfoundland, belsnickling in Nova Scotia, julebukking in Norway, and the Knocking Nights in Germany. In Lincoln Country, North Carolina it was called Christmas Boogering.
Though the custom seems to have died out during the Second World War, an elder recalls: “I must tell you about the ‘Christmas boogers.’ The most fun we had was seeing the ‘Christmas boogers.’ Between Christmas and New Year’s Day, most any time you could expect them to come to your house with false faces similar to the masks children wear for Halloween. The ‘boogers’ were the older young people and adults. A man might put his overalls on backwards, some men would dress up like women and maybe put on a dress. They would knock on the door, come in, dance around on the floor a little bit, and try to change their voices. We tried to guess who they were but sometimes we never knew. They didn’t come to get anything, but just to have fun.”
Another oldster remembered: “Well, people didn’t have store bought costumes. They made them, and lots would paint their faces. People in the crowd would do a dance, like the Charleston, and they hit a few steps. These people were next-door neighbors, they went in the community, and when they knocked on the door, you let them in. This was our entertainment, and we’d look forward to the Christmas boogers, as much as we did Christmas. It was during the time from Christmas to New Year’s.”
The most complete reminiscence comes from a man born in 1927: “We never did Halloween boogerin’, cause we didn’t have a way to get to town. We went Christmas boogerin. Course, we weren’t the only ones. We called ourselves the Howard’s Creek Christmas boogers, and there was a group over at Bethphage. We’d either get together at our house or at Lum Heavner’s house. The Heavners had nine children, and my Daddy had six. We had plenty of kids to go round. I remember one year I dressed up like a woman. I got my sister’s dress and put it over my clothes. And for our masks we took a paper sack and cut the eyes out and painted faces on them. We didn’t buy masks or nothing. There were about 12 houses right around the school house there, and when we went out, there was always an adult went with us to see that we didn’t throw no rocks or get into trouble. And we’d go down the road singing “Jingle Bells” or something and we’d get to a house and from the yard we’d start hollering, “You want to see some Christmas boogers?!” And we would holler until they opened the door and let us in. They knew we were coming because they’d helped us get dressed!
“Then we would play this game of trying to guess who we were, because we had pokes on our heads. But they knew exactly who we were. If they guessed who we was, then we had to take our mask off. And they made us sing a little bit for our candy. They’d give us a stick of peppermint candy, or an apple, or a cookie, or a handful of parched peanuts. And we didn’t do all of the houses on one night. We’d do maybe five or six, and then it was starting to get dark, and we had to get home because we had stuff to do. If you were about 10 or 11 years old, you had to milk the cow, slop hogs, stuff like that. Then the next night we’d dress up in the same thing again and go to the other houses.”