Christmas Every Day

The last Sunday before Advent, deriving its name from the first two words of the Church of England reading for that day: “Stir up we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people that they plenteously bring forth the fruit of good works.” This has been parodied by generations of choirboys as “Stir up we beseech thee the pudding in the pot. And when we get home, we’ll eat it up all hot.” An English tradition requires that the Christmas pudding be stirred up, with each family member taking a turn — some insist that the stirring must be performed clockwise and with eyes closed. The day also announces to school children the approach of the Christmas holidays.

The most widely-served Christmas entrée today is the turkey, Meleagris gallopavo, a bird first domesticated in Mexico by the Aztecs and exported to Europe in the sixteenth century by the Spanish. It derives its English name from confusion with the guinea fowl which was imported about the same time by merchants trading with Turkey. William Strickland, a Yorkshireman, introduced the bird into England and, in recognition, was granted a turkey cock on his family coat of arms in 1550. Before too long it was accepted as a seasonal dish: Thomas Tusser in 1573 speaks of it as “Christmas husbandlie fare” but for centuries the goose remained the primary Christmas bird. The bird was raised in great numbers on farms in Norfolk and East Anglia with huge flocks driven to market in London every Christmas — walking on the roads was difficult for the birds who were fitted with special shoes for the journey which could last as long as three months. It was not until the nineteenth century with the advent of rail travel and refrigeration that these drives ceased and were replaced by slaughtering on the farm. In 1851 the British royal family ate their first Christmas turkey which from that time on replaced swan as the seasonal dish.

 Americans are the world’s greatest consumers of turkeys since the two great end-of-year festivals, Thanksgiving and Christmas, both feature the fowl whom Benjamin Franklin wanted to make the national bird of the United States — he deplored the bald eagle’s “bad moral character” and claimed the turkey was a “much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America.” Since 1947, the National Turkey Federation has presented the President of the United States with a live turkey and two dressed birds at Thanksgiving. The annual presentation signals the unofficial beginning of the “holiday season”; after the ceremony, the National Thanksgiving Turkey retires to a historical farm to spend its declining years in comfort.

 The bird is eaten all around the world. In Portugal poultry farmers walk the streets of Lisbon with their their flocks. When a buyer has chosen the turkey he wants, the farmer catches the bird,  forces alcohol into it, and briefly releases it. The inebriated turkey soon collapses; its throat is then slit; it is plucked and eviscerated, before being soaked in salt water, perfumed with lemon and bay leaves, for twelve hours. The bird is then hung for twelve hours before being cooked. The Brazilians have a similar love of turkey tenderized from within: they feed the bird a kind of rum called cachaça on Christmas Eve. In the southern United States the custom of deep-frying the bird is growing while in Mexico they eat the bird with a sauce made of chocolate and chili peppers. In Spain they stuff the bird with truffles; in Burgundy they stuff it with chestnuts. In 1969 the Apollo astronauts’ first meal on the moon was roast turkey

A traditional English form of holiday entertainment, particularly associated with Boxing Day, December 26th. Pantomime or “panto”, developed in the 18th century and grew out of the commedia dell’arte harlequin plays popular at the time. Such plays were usually preceded by scenes of mimed and danced action. The first true panto is said to have been the 1717 “Harlequin Executed” presented by John Rich. Gradually, as words, comic turns and stage effects were added, the pantomime grew more popular than the plays that gave them birth, emerging as colourful, costumed spectacles based on fairy tales.

Popular throughout the 18th and 19th centuries panto remains a customary part of the English Christmas season despite, or perhaps because of, its predictability. In plays such as “Cinderella”, “Jack and the Beanstalk”, or Aladdin” the hero or “principal boy” is always played by an attractive actress in a form-fitting costume while the “Dame”, an ugly old woman, is played by a male comedian. Other features of the panto include atrocious puns, ritual shouted exchanges between the actors and the audience, appearances by celebrities and references to current events.

An early nineteenth-century account of a family in attendance: “But oh, the rapture when the pantomime commences! Ready to leap out of the box, they joy in the mischief of the clown, laugh at the thwacks he gets for his meddling, and feel no small portion of contempt for his ignorance in not knowing that hot water will scald and gunpowder explode; while with head aside to give fresh energy to the strokes, they ring their little palms against each other in testimony of exuberant delight.”

Two animals whose presence legend ascribes to the stable where the baby Jesus was laid. The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew claims that they knelt in adoration at the manger. They are frequently depicted in Nativity art and symbolically represent Jews and Christians or the sacrificial and the redemptive aspects of Jesus. Isaiah 1:3 is held to be a prophecy of the ox and ass. A mistranslation of the Greek version of Habakkuk 3:2 led some to read “between two beasts thou art made known” instead of “in the midst of the years make (it) known.”

 The notion that oxen (and other animals) go down on their knees at midnight on Christmas Eve in memory of the Nativity is a widespread legend but it has its regional variations. In some places folk insist that tears run down the cheeks of their cattle as they kneel while others claim that only the three-year old oxen (or seven-year old) bend low, as this was the age of the animals in the Bethlehem stable.

A Christmas novelty popular in Britain and countries of the Commonwealth. A Christmas cracker takes the form of a small cardboard tube covered in decorative wrap and containing a strip of chemically-impregnated paper which, when pulled, creates a miniature explosive snap. When opened the cracker reveals a paper hat, a motto or joke and a small prize.

The cracker was invented in 1847 by a London confectioner named Tom Smith. The idea began with the “bon bon”, a French candy in a twist of paper. To this Smith added a small motto and then conceived the idea of a noise when throwing a log on a crackling fire. After much experiment Smith came up with the right chemical formula and the cracker was born. He soon discarded the candy and began to call his invention “cosaques”, after the crack of the Cossack whip.

Since the 1840s the Christmas cracker has contained mottos humorous, romantic, artistic and puzzling with prizes ranging from inexpensive plastic toys to decorated boxes to real musical instruments to expensive jewelry with special lines prepared annually for the Royal Family. It is now an indispensable part of Christmas dinner in millions of houses around the world.

This is a very peculiar 1966 Italian-American musical fantasy directed by veteran actor Rosanno Brazzi who must have had a bad childhood experience with Christmas. It seems that Santa Claus (Alberto Rabagliatti) is depressed because an evil businessman Phineas T. Prune (Brazzi himself) has bought the North Pole and will soon evict St Nick and his elves. In order to pay his back rent Santa takes a job as a department store Santa Claus but discovers he doesn’t relate well to children.

Writer Paul Tripp must share some of the infamy as it is his book that was the basis of his script. The theme song is sung by Glenn Yarborough of the Limelighters folk group.

A Maxim Gorkystory about a writer who has blithely continued to write his annual Christmas tales about freezing beggars and orphan children and who is visited by the ghosts of these creations. He insists that his stories were meant to inspire readers to acts of charity but the phantoms deride his theory: if cruel reality will not move men to kindness, fiction will not work either.

Continuing on the theme of chilly poor folk at Christmas time is this 1876 story by Feodor Dostoevsky in which a poor orphan child freezes to death on Christmas Eve and goes to heaven where he encounters other children:

And he discovered that these boys and girls were all children like  himself; that some had frozen to death in the baskets in which they had  been deposited on doorsteps; others had died in wretched hovels, whither  they had been sent from the Foundlings’ Hospital; others again had  starved to death at their mothers’ dried-up breasts; had been suffocated  in the foul air of third-class railroad carriages. And now, here they  were all angels, Christ’s guests, and He Himself was in their midst, extending His hands to them, blessing them and their poor, sinful  mothers…. And the mothers stand there, a little apart, weeping; each one knows her little boy or girl; and the children fly up to them, and  kiss them, and wipe away their tears with their tiny hands, and beg them  not to weep, for they, the children, are so happy.

Written by Denmark’s Hans Christian Andersen, this is one of a number of famous nineteenth-century short stories on the theme of childen freezing to death over the Christmas season.

But in the corner, at the cold hour of dawn, sat the poor girl, with rosy cheeks and with a smiling mouth, leaning against the wall — frozen to death on the last evening of the old year. Stiff and stark sat the child there with her matches, of which one bundle had been burnt. “She wanted to warm herself,” people said. No one had the slightest suspicion of what beautiful things she had seen; no one even dreamed of the splendor in which, with her grandmother she had entered on the joys of a new year.

Preparing for Christmas in Lithuania means cleaning: the house is cleaned, bed sheets are changed and family members take a bath and wear new clothes. At one time even trees were wrapped in fresh straw. Though the days of a rigorous fast are over and people now longer have to be content on Christmas Eve with a handful of peas, many Lithuanians refrain from meat and will not sit down to dinner until the first star is visible in the evening sky.

A number of eastern Christmas customs can be observed at the Kucios or Christmas Eve dinner: the straw on the table (a sign of fertility and a symbol of Christ’s birth in a stable), the round wafers, a place set for the dead or absent family members and twelve meatless dishes. On the traditional menu would be fish, potato pancakes, sauerkraut, beet soup, mushrooms in sour cream with fruit compote, grain pudding, poppy-seed milk and cookies for dessert. It was customary in some Lithuanian familes to leave some food on the table after dinner in case the Holy Family passed by. Another lovely tradition is for each member of the family to place a straw for every gracious word or act which occurred at Christmas into a cradle which is laid under the Christmas tree for the baby Jesus.

A recent addition to Lithuanian Christmas is the Christmas tree which first became popular in the 1920s and 1930s. The custom was to decorate the tree away from the sight of the children, usually with home-made orrnaments fashioned from straw, fruit and candies and lit by real candles. After dinner the tree and the gifts are revealed to the children who then open the presents brought by Kaledu Senelis, Grandfather Christmas. Often the gift-bringer appears in person on Christmas Eve and before handing over the presents he will demand that the recipient earn the gift by reciting a poem, playing an instrument or singing a song. After the excited kds are put to bed adults go to the midnight church service called the Shepherds’ Mass.

Epiphany marks the end of the Christmas season in Lithuania. The tree is stripped of its remaining candies and treats by the children and the decoratiions are put away for another year.

Lithuanian customs include many different means of divination especially for determining one’s future spouse. Unmarried people draw a piece of straw from under the Christmas Eve tablecloth: a long, thin stalk betokens a tall, thin husband; a short, thick stalk indicates a short, fat husband. If a married person draws a thin piece it means a bad year economically, a fat piece means a fat wallet. If a married woman pulls a straw that is thicker in the middle, she will have a baby that year. In a kind of Christmas Rorschach test, interpreting first impressions from a crumpled piece of paper or a blob of wax in cold water can also yield glimpses of the future:  a form of transportation means travel in the new year; a house or building means a move; a flower points to a wedding; a cradle, a birth; and a coffin or burning candle, death. Those with flexible young bodies were urged to attempt this form of divination: after supper on Christmas Eve, go into a room, place a mirror against a door and, bending down, look at the mirror through their legs; in it will be revealed the future husband or wife.