Tales of Christmas past
Long ago, men cooked the holiday dinner, all trees were fake and gifts were only given to one’s superiors
AS you prepare to make the rounds at holiday cocktail parties and family gatherings this season, now seems like a good time to stock up on conversational Christmas tidbits. Recite these festive facts from “Christmas: A Biography” by Judith Flanders (Thomas Dunne Books), out now, and you’ll make it through even the most tedious seasonal function.
A bad wrap: Originally, the Christmas custom of gift giving was for people of lower rank to pay holiday tribute to their superiors, what Flanders calls “giving upwards.” No one was exempt, from a humble tenant bringing fowl or game to a landlord to nobles offering gold to a monarch. This perverse practice was put to bed by a cavalier King Charles II, who, Flanders writes, “had turned all of his gifts over to one of his mistresses, making an already unpopular requirement less popular still.” While the king’s rudeness itself didn’t kill the custom of gifting one’s betters, shows of fealty to a feudal lord were withering along with feudalism itself. At the same time, the legend of St. Nicholas and his generosity towards children emerged, as did a new tendency to give token gifts among equals.
Fake yews: Snobs might scoff at them, but it turns out fake trees actually predate fresh pines by hundreds of years. Christmas trees derive from medieval maypoles, and in winter, they would be decorated with ornaments and greenery — literally the holly and the ivy. And as actual trees started to become popular, governments resisted. By the 1500s, in an effort to preserve forests, Strasbourg prohibited cutting pines, Alsace had capped household tree consumption at one and the German city of Freiburg had banned chopping Christmas trees entirely.
Christians against Christmas: From the get-go, Christmas was more about entertainment than liturgy. Early celebrations included bawdy plays and pageants, as well as copious feasting. Later, it was Christian zealots who were the fiercest fighters in the War on Christmas. During the Reformation in England, celebrating was actually banned by “reformers, who saw Christmas, unmentioned in the Bible, as a mark of the antichrist.”
Top it off: The star vs angel tree-topper debate can be a fierce one. According to Flanders, though, angels were the first and most popular tree-top decoration. Although, she notes, by the mid 1800s even these religious icons were being secularized into fairies with wands.
O’Dreidel: In a section on Hanukkah, Flanders notes that the dreidel actually started out life as a teetotum, an Anglo-Irish toy top. Where the teetotum, a gambling game, had letters indicating the winner’s take, in America, they slapped some Hebrew script on the sides abbreviating the Hanukkah story (Nes Gadol Hayah Sham, or “A great miracle took place there”) — and voila, a new tradition was born.
XO-mas: While the quintessential Anglo-American Christmas involves a child-focused hearth and home, for some cultures it’s all about love. In Japan, they celebrate Christmas they way we do Valentine’s Day — with champagne, chocolate and soul-crushing advertising with messages like “You can definitely become beautiful by Christmas.” Meanwhile, the phrase “Holy night” in Japan, Flanders writes, means dinner à deux for couples, followed by a hotel stay.
Santa’s helper: Yes, Virginia, Christmas and its trappings were once considered a man’s work. Citing illustrations and stories as late as the 1880s, Flanders notes that men were responsible for providing gifts, food and festivity. By the 1900s, “It had become women’s work to manage the day.”
Gratuity, shmatuity: Apparently feeling the holiday-tip pinch is nothing new. Today we have to shell out to the doorman, the super, the garage guy, your hairdresser, the mail carrier, teachers and more. In the 15th and 16th centuries, there were churchmen, tradespeople, servants, apprentices and even hogglers, who were professional supplicants. People were so fed up with the holiday shakedown that in 1419, London resorted to banning Christmas solicitations.