By Sandra Schwab
In comes I, Old Father Christmas,
Am I welcome or am I not?
Sometimes I'm cold, sometimes I'm hot,
I hope that Old Father Christmas will never be forgot.
Room, ladies and gentlemen, room I pray,
While I lead St. George and all his noble men this way.
Walk in St. George and act thy part,
And shew the ladies and gentlemen thy valiant art.
Walk in, St. George.
This is the opening of the "Sussex Tipteerers' Play," a mummers' play which was recorded by Frederick E. Sawyer in 1884. Mummers' plays are seasonal folk plays which were performed by local men or young boys on specific times of the year, typically around Christmas and New Year, but in some places also on All Souls' Day or at Easter. They emerged in the early eighteenth century as a working class custom. In rural areas there was usually only one group of mummers and one play per village, while in urban areas there were often several different groups.
Traditionally, the members of a team of mummers wore costumes which made them appear all the same. The men sometimes heightened this effect by blackening their faces. Over time, the uniformity of the costumes diminished, with characters like Father Christmas or the Doctor being the first to appear in distinct costumes. Some of the Souling plays also feature a Wild Horse character (sometimes called Dick) with a rather elaborate costume consisting of a painted horse skull with snapping jaws on a pole.
Mumming was a visiting custom: the teams went from house to house and from pub to pub in their areas to perform their plays. In the early days of mumming, they (or only a presenter like Old Father Christmas) would simply burst into the house and start with the play. This explains why Old Father Christmas in the quotation above asks for room (to perform). There is strong evidence to suggest that by the nineteenth century, the mummers only visited houses where they were sure of their welcome (and reward!).
World War I marks a decisive cut in the history of mumming. Many of the performers didn't return from the war, and those who did often didn't have the heart to continue with the custom without their dead team members. Consequently, after 1918 the numbers of teams rapidly declined until in 2002 there were only six teams left whose history extended beyond the 1940s. Most of the groups active today were formed in the wake of the folk revival movement in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Here's a modern day example of a Souling play (don't you just love the Wild Horse character?):
By Elizabeth Lane
Why do we have decorated Christmas trees? Where did they come from? In the 7th century a monk from Devonshire went to Germany to spread the Word of God. Legend has it he used the triangular shape of the fir tree to describe the Holy Trinity. Converts began to revere the Fir tree as God's Tree. By the 12th century it was being hung upside down from ceilings at Christmastime, as a symbol of Christianity.
The first known decorated tree was in Latvia in 1510. Martin Luther, in the early 16th Century, is said to have decorated a small tree with candles to show his children how stars twinkled on Christmas eve. By the mid 16th Century, special Christmas markets in Germany were selling shaped gingerbread and wax ornaments for people to hang on their trees. Some early trees were made to symbolize the Paradise Tree in the Garden of Eden. Trees were often decorated with candy and paper flowers, symbols of plenty.
The Christmas tree was brought to England by the Georgian kings, who came from Germany. The British people, not being fond of their German rulers, rarely followed the custom at the time. However, when the popular Queen Victoria married Prince Albert, a German, and they put up a tree for their family, Christmas trees became the instant fashion, not only in Britain but on the East Coast of America. The Christmas Tree had arrived!
Although the Christmas tree had been introduced in America by Hessian soldiers during the American Revolution, the custom didn't catch on widely until the mid 1800s. Advances in communication--magazines, newspapers, etc., spread the custom.
Most decorations at the time were homemade. Young women crocheted snowflakes and stars and sewed little pouches for gifts. Small bead decorations and silver tinsel came from Germany, along with angels for the top of the tree. Candles were often placed in wooden hoops for safety. About 1880 the first glass ornaments came to America, quickly followed by American patents for electric lights (1882) and metal hooks for hanging decorations (1892).
Small artificial trees were fashioned from goose feathers for years. But the artificial tree as we know it came along in the early 1900s. In America, the Addis Brush Company created the first brush trees, using the same machinery that made their toilet brushes. They were more durable than feather trees and would hold heavier decorations.
Whatever kind of Christmas tree you have at your house, if any, I wish you a warm and happy holiday season.
By Lisa Marie Wilkinson
"Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa la la la la, la la la la..."
Caroling is a rich oral tradition going back countless generations and suspected to have its roots in feudal societies where the poorest citizens would travel from door to door, often pausing to sing for their supper.
The term "caroling" is thought to be a derivative of the old French carole, a kind of dance, or from the Latin, carula, meaning a circular dance. Carols were originally secular pieces of music associated with traditional folk dances. A celebration of song and dance designed to honor the Winter Solstice; the "Festival of Yule" is believed to have played a part in the evolution of caroling as a Christian tradition.
Early Christians substituted hymns for the pagan songs sung around stone circles. Songs to commemorate the birth of Christ date back to the 4th century, but it took several centuries for traditional somber Christmas music to gradually give way to a new version of carols that incorporated upbeat Latin rhythms and joyous lyrics. St. Francis of Assisi is credited with beginning the popular tradition of the Christmas song with the advent of his nativity plays in the 13th Century.
There are several theories speculating how the practice of caroling--alternately known by the old Norse term, "wassailing"--originated. One theory holds that carolers went door to door because carols were viewed as a pagan custom and they were refused permission to perform the songs in churches. Another hypothesis claims that the practice is actually a pagan custom adopted by Anglo-Saxon peasants, who stopped at the doors of their superiors and proceeded to sing in exchange for a meal or a hot beverage. A hot, spiced beverage known as "wassail" was often served to these impromptu guests.
In 17th century England, the joyous spirit in which carolers serenaded their hosts offended Puritan Oliver Cromwell, resulting in a ban on caroling that lasted for an entire decade. The carols survived because people still sang them in secret; however their popularity had dimmed by the 16th century. The practice of caroling was revived again during the 18th century and experienced a dramatic resurgence in popularity during the 19th century Victorian Era.
Interesting Carol Facts:
"I Saw Three Ships"
First written in the middle ages, this carol married a traditional English folk melody to lyrics written by wandering minstrels. Several versions of the lyrics have existed, with the original believed to describe the skulls of the three wise men being carried by vessel to Cologne cathedral in Germany. The version sung today features a tale of Mary and Joseph as they travel to Bethlehem.
"Silent Night"
An Austrian priest wrote the lyric in 1816, and the words were fitted to a melody by his friend Franz Gruber in 1818. The carol made its debut when performed by its writers in a midnight mass Christmas service that same year. The original German lyric was translated into English in 1863 and in 1914 "Silent Night" became the first carol sung to mark the Christmas Truce during World War I because it was the only carol known by soldiers on both sides.
"Jingle Bells"
This perennial Christmas favorite was actually composed by James Pierpont in 1857 as a song to commemorate Thanksgiving, and was originally titled, "The One Horse Open Sleigh."
"The First Noel"
Although words and melody were not published together until they appeared in a collection of hymns in the early nineteenth century, this carol dates back to the dramatizations of Biblical stories known as Mystery Plays in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
"Ave Maria"
With a melody rooted in liturgical chants dating back to the tenth century and words derived from an old Roman Catholic prayer based upon biblical scripture Luke 1:28, "Ave Maria" is felt by many to be the most sacred of hymns. The version of the hymn we celebrate today was orchestrated by composer Franz Schubert in 1825.
"Joy to the World"
Although the lyric was eventually traced and validated as having originated from the Old Testament, the American composer, Lowell Mason, credited the lyric to George Handel when setting the words to music in 1839, in an effort to ensure the popularity of the song. For over a century Handel was erroneously credited with having written the lyric until music historians were able to prove the true author of the lyric: King David.
With the invention of radio and recorded media, we can now enjoy our favorite carols sung by our favorite artists at any time of the year. These days, carols invoke the season as much as the scents of holiday baking, decorated Christmas trees, special church celebrations, and the sighting of Santas in every mall.
By Isabel Roman
It's been immortalized in books (Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce by Stanley Weintraub and Truce by Jim Murphy), movies (The Christmas Truce and Joyeux Noël), songs ("Belleau Wood" by Garth Brooks) and even by cartoon characters (Snoopy vs the Red Barron or Merry Snoopy's Christmas by the Royal Guardsmen).
But what really happened? And was it as prevalent as the myth that surrounds it leads us to believe?
December 1914 alternated between freezing cold and miserable wetness. Seems logical soldiers who thought the war would be won and they'd be home in their own beds by Christmas 1914 would want a little comfort for the season.
It's important to note that this truce happened between the German and British troops, not so much with the Belgium (Flanders) and French troops, whose countries were occupied and who probably weren't in a holiday mood. Plus Germany and Britain were closer culture-wise, language-wise, and monarchy-wise. While I don't know if that had anything to do with the truce, it's worth mentioning.
Along the front the enemy was sometimes no more than 70, 50 or even 30 yards away. Both Tommy and Fritz could quite easily hurl greetings and insults to one another, and, importantly, come to tacit agreements not to fire. Incidents of temporary truces and outright fraternisation were more common at this stage in the war than many people today realise--even units that had just taken part in a series of futile and costly assaults, were still willing to talk and come to arrangements with their opponents.
FirstWorldWar.com
And then came presents from home. Gifts, baked goods (though I don't know how those survived to be at all edible!). A British Daily Telegraph correspondent wrote that Germans slipped a chocolate cake into British trenches. Yum...German chocolate...
I was going to summarize what happened, but frankly the site says it perfectly:
[A] message asking for a ceasefire later that evening so they could celebrate the festive season and their Captain's birthday. They proposed a concert at 7.30pm when candles, the British were told, would be placed on the parapets of their trenches. The British accepted the invitation and offered some tobacco as a return present. That evening, at the stated time, German heads suddenly popped up and started to sing. Each number ended with a round of applause from both sides.
The Germans then asked the British to join in. At this point, one very mean-spirited Tommy shouted: 'We'd rather die than sing German.' To which a German joked aloud: 'It would kill us if you did'.
Along many parts of the line the Truce was spurred on with the arrival in the German trenches of miniature Christmas trees--Tannenbaum. The sight these small pines, decorated with candles and strung along the German parapets, captured the Tommies' imagination, as well as the men of the Indian corps who were reminded of the sacred Hindu festival of light.
It was the perfect excuse for the opponents to start shouting to one another, to start singing and, in some areas, to pluck up the courage to meet one another in no-man's land.
Of course, the British high command didn't like it, but they were in a luxurious chateaux, some 27 miles behind the front. Typical. German high command didn't like it, either, but the trench officers had the same attitude as British trench officers, with the result that those who protested are now considered idiots and those who didn't 'one of the soldiers'.
Was it tradition? Yes. It was tradition to celebrate Christmas no matter where they were. They celebrated with the enemy and it evolved into a beautiful story about a horrific war that stands today.
Traditionally, the members of a team of mummers wore costumes which made them appear all the same. The men sometimes heightened this effect by blackening their faces. Over time, the uniformity of the costumes diminished, with characters like Father Christmas or the Doctor being the first to appear in distinct costumes. Some of the Souling plays also feature a Wild Horse character (sometimes called Dick) with a rather elaborate costume consisting of a painted horse skull with snapping jaws on a pole.
