Or, as a modern observer might note, the tree had become a commercial opportunity.
Dickens had mentioned few presents seventeen years before. Now his tree was just a background and foil to the sweets, toys, flowers, fruit, jewellery and elaborate knick-knacks which hung on its branches or were placed underneath. Trees, which had to be bought, replaced in importance earlier festive decorations such as holly and ivy and other greenery, which could be gathered without payment in the rural communities of pre-industrial times. Then the central decoration was the ‘kissing bough’, a number of branches bundled together, adorned with mistletoe, tinsel, and maybe nuts and fruit, and perhaps lighted candles.13 This was a country custom, and often considered suitable only for rustics and servants in the early part of the nineteenth century, but by the 1850s Punch signalled its entry into the middle-class consciousness with regular cartoons about mistletoe capers. The primacy of the tree, and its naturalization, was so complete that by 1860 one writer on Christmas customs simply thought that mistletoe, because of its pagan origin, was a strange thing to find ‘as a Christmas tree’.14 Yet, while the tree was new, mistletoe, and carols about holly and ivy, could be traced back to the thirteenth century.
These carols were yet another tradition that had not featured in Dickens’s 1837 Christmas party: Grandpapa sang his annual song, and a cousin sang a comic number, but these were not mentioned as having any seasonal content. Six years later, not only was Dickens’s (perhaps) most famous story entitled ‘A Christmas Carol’, but carol singers were mentioned in it in passing, as though they had always existed.* Most carols had been written between 1400 and the 1640s, dying out as the Puritan attitude to Christmas saw them fade from common knowledge. There was a partial revival at the Restoration, although most of the carols that were printed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were about feasting, rather than Christmas. Two of the very few ‘real’ carols that were written in that period were ‘While Shepherds Watched their Flocks’, written in 1698 by Nahum Tate, the poet laureate (whose claim to fame will probably always be his rewriting of King Lear to give it a happy ending) and ‘Hark! the herald-angels sing’, based on a poem by Charles Wesley which appeared in 1782, although our current melody is nineteenth century, by Mendelssohn.
In the early nineteenth century the antiquarians began to search out the old carols, and in 1822 the first modern collection of traditional carols, Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern, was put together by Davies Gilbert, anMP of antiquarian bent.* It was popular enough that a second edition was published the following year, but Gilbert’s presentation of the carols did not alter: he thought that, apart from antiquarian research, carols were entirely dead, and all that could be done now was to collect and preserve the remnants. Singing was not part of his programme. William Sandys, a solicitor, had collaborated with him on this book, and in 1833 he produced his own collection; he too thought carols survived in just a few remote locations, and were ‘moreneglected every year’.17 However, had they looked to the urban working classes, instead of to the shrinking agricultural communities, they would have found that one redoubt against complete extinction was holding firm. Carols appeared without intermission in the broadsides printed by men like James Catnach (p. 177). The Christmas broadsides were routinely printed on doublesized sheets, with three or four carols, a scriptural episode, a few highly coloured woodcuts, possibly with some Twelfth Night characters, and a title like ‘Faith, Hope and Charity’.18 The patterers sang the carols through for their customers, handing on the traditional tunes in this way.
Outside this working-class oral tradition, by the time A Christmas Carol appeared, the word ‘carol’ had come to mean hymns more generally. Others used ‘carols’ to mean any writings with a Christmas theme: Christmas Carols: A Sacred Gift (1848) was a collection of poems about the Nativity, with no music at all. It was only in the 1850s that musicians joined together with the antiquarians and the revival of carol singing really took off. William Chappell published two volumes of carols with their traditional tunes in 1855-9, and in the 1860s Chappell’s cofounder of the Musical Antiquity Society, E. F. Rimbault, also produced further collections.19 These publications meshed very neatly with the arrival of the piano in more middle-class houses: families could now gather around the piano and carol away together.
The togetherness was important. As public-school education spread to more of the middle classes during the century, as industrialization and the railways made working hundreds of miles away from home more likely for the working classes, family reunions became increasingly valued. In 1843 in A Christmas Carol, Dickens superimposed contemporary feelings on the childhood of Scrooge, who was taken by the Ghost of Christmas Past to see himself, small, unloved and friendless, left all alone at school during the Christmas holidays. This was much more of a reality from the middle of the nineteenth century, but by then the railways had also brought the possibility of travelling home for the holidays, whether from school or from work. Servants were the least likely to travel home: increased home-based festivities for their employers made their presence on Christmas Day a necessity. Hannah Cullwick, a maid-of-all-work, wrote in 1872, after more than a quarter of a century in service, ‘I often think what a most delightful pleasure that must be, going home for Christmas, but I’ve never once had it.’20 For other workers, the speed of the trains made a short visit feasible, and the cost of an excursion ticket ensured it was economically within reach. By 1900 almost all shops and offices were shut on Boxing Day as well as Christmas Day, to allow workers to spend time with their families.21 (Unlike today, they could travel on Christmas Day: throughout the nineteenth century the trains ran on 25 December.) In 1912 Railway Magazine calculated that between 1861 and 1912 during Christmas week some companies saw five times the level of regular traffic.22
While many travelled home for the holidays, one Christmas visitor was still absent. Father Christmas had yet to arrive on the scene. After the Reformation, St Nicholas, who had been a popular saint - over four hundred churches were dedicated to his name in England - vanished from the calendar, and instead Old Christmas, or Sir Christmas, was invoked as a spirit of the season. Pictures in the Illustrated London News in the late 1840s showed a thin old man, bearded and a bit droopy, more like our notions of Father Time. In 1868 Planché published three Christmas plays for ‘Amateurs who were desirous of varying the usual character of Christmas Entertainments’.* The three plays were entitled ‘Stirring the Pudding (a Mirthful Morality for Christmas Eve)’, ‘The Compliments of the Season (a Fancy-ful Interlude for New Year’s Eve)’ and ‘The King of the Bean (A Mediaeval Masque for Twelfth Night)’. In ‘The Compliments of the Season’ the character of Christmas is given a ‘Long white robe, trimmed with white fur, and bordered with holly, ivy, and mistletoe; a broad belt over right shoulder, studded with mince pies; shoulder knots made of sausages; cap in the shape and painted like a plum pudding with a twig of holly stuck in the top, and a garland of holly round the base of it; a bough of holly in his hand; face highly coloured, with ample white beard’: he is a mixture of symbols of feasting, of plenty and of seasonal greenery.23
It was not until the late 1880s that the American Santa Claus was imported, to be melded with Old Christmas and transformed into Father Christmas, the jolly, red-robed figure of much of the twentieth century. In the USA the 1800s had seen the Dutch Sinterklaas become the American Santa Claus, who travelled the world on Christmas Eve instead of 6 December (the original saint’s day of St Nicholas); by the 1820s he had picked up a sleigh and reindeer, and by 1870 he was wearing the red hooded robes of a bishop. These were soon turned into a red jumpsuit in America, but Father Christmas remained more traditionally dressed in Britain for some time. Part of his appeal, part of the reason this symbol was so quickly adopted, was that he fed into two streams that were running increasingly strongly in the nineteenth century: Father Christmas was part of the home-based, domestic holiday (Father Christmas came to each house, he was not visited elsewhe
re), and he was a symbol of giving, of rewards for doing (and being) good. The Victorian world of public philanthropy was wonderfully quick at assimilating this representation into its own work. By the 1890s charity ladies were dressing up as Father Christmas to hand out Christmas gifts to ‘deserving’ children, and the Santa Claus Gazette appeared, ‘The Official Organ of the “Santa Claus” Christmas Distribution Fund’, while every New Year’s Eve the Fund’s charitable workers dressed up as Santas to give gifts to the poor. This was no small group of eccentrics: In 1910 they handed out 10,000 parcels.24
For charity had become a major component of the middle-class Christmas. It almost seemed as if, as middle-class homes became more filled with Christmas goods, there was an equivalent need to look outward to those who had less. In 1837 The Times noted that the ‘Houses
of Correction’ were making ‘not the slightest relaxation in discipline or addition of diet’ for Christmas Day, although as a concession the treadmill had been stopped.25 Only a few years later, in 1842, an overall instruction was given by the Poor Law Board that on Christmas Day (and Good Friday) workhouses must expect no work except housework to be performed by the paupers. In 1847 the Board also added a rider that the local guardians were now at liberty to dole out extra food to the workhouse inmates if they so desired, to be paid for by the ratepayers; in 1864 in Chepstow this seasonal cheer consisted of ‘a modicum of tea and sugar wherewith to regale themselves’.26 But by this time the expectation of providing Christmas cheer to the inmates was regarded as natural, and sometimes took elaborate forms. In January 1862 the Illustrated London News ran an article on the treats the Greenwich workhouse had provided. Some of the traditions continued to hark back to previous times - the celebration, despite being called ‘Christmas’, was
actually held on Twelfth Night, and the presents the paupers received were called ‘New Year’s gifts’. Some traditions, however, were new - the room was decorated with Christmas trees.27
If the inmates of the workhouses were given parties, it is unsurprising that working men earning decent livings also wanted to celebrate. In Manchester, at the Mechanics’ Institute, from the 1830s Christmas parties were staged by and for the members, and over the next quarter of a century they became more and more elaborate. They had begun humbly enough. In 1832 it was suggested that ‘a mutual improvement society’ might be set up to encourage members to attend more classes, and in 1833 ‘Christmas and its Customs’ was one of the talks given by the society, followed by a party with a ‘substantial repast’.* In 1838 a miracle play was staged, then a lecture ‘On Christmas in the Olden Time’ was given, and supper followed. This was only the beginning: in 1840, 600 guests attended the lecture, given by Benjamin Heywood, a philanthropist and chairman of the Institute, then everyone moved across to the town hall for ‘festivities’. In 1844 Old Christmas made his first appearance, and a procession of ‘ambassadors of various ages and nations’ was staged. At the 1847 party there were 3,100 guests, including the mayor. A medieval banquet was served, complete with boar’s head, and costumes courtesy of a local theatre company (except the ‘helmets, partizans and halberds’, which curiously enough were loaned by the police force). Both Old Christmas and a Christmas Prince were represented, together with a number of now-traditional symbols: mistletoe, a burning Christmas pudding, and a tree (this might even have been its first appearance at the Institute). In 1851 the plays added yet more nostalgia to the running medieval theme, with ‘a scene of village life’ showing ‘old-time’ sports. But suddenly the party began to decline in popularity. It may not be coincidental that it was in this decade that more emphasis was being laid on celebrating within the family circle. The masques were discontinued, and the event became a small social event in a calendar that was more concerned with other forms of charitable giving.28
Throughout these mid-century decades, newspapers printed Christmas appeals for donations, for the deserving poor, for the sick, for the elderly. In 1868 the Baptist Magazine approached Christmas as an entirely charitable time, and advertised that it had 10,000 gifts available to give to the needy - many Nonconformists rejected all Christmas celebrations, and the magazine found that stressing charitable giving as the centrepiece of Christmas was a good way of helping its readers to avoid the ‘Popish’ superstitions the holiday represented.29 Other magazines similarly became conduits for charitable Christmas campaigns. The Children’s League of Pity Paper and the Band of Mercy Advocate had a number of year-round fund-raising projects - for a cot in a hospital, a lifeboat, or other worthwhile causes - but they always mounted special Christmas campaigns. Young Man had a fund for Christmas dinners for hungry children, while girls’ magazines ran competitions for home-sewn donations of warm clothing.30 These were matched by articles in the mainstream press that depicted the poor dining sumptuously, courtesy of this or that benevolent society. The Times, in 1877, told how
Cow Cross Mission collected one hundred and fifty little mudlarks to act as beefeaters on Christmas day. They were arranged according to sex at two long tables on which were knives and forks, water cups, and hunks of bread. In less than a couple of minutes the whole of the bread was eaten. Immediately afterwards large joints of beef and pork were brought in and great sieves of potatoes. These were soon cut up by half a dozen carvers, with numbers of ladies and gentlemen acting as waiters. There was no stint of either meat or plum pudding, everyone being allowed to come as often as he or she liked, and many sly bits of meat and pudding were slipped into pinafores and caps to take home.31
Such meals were an attempt to create for the paupers a semblance of the domestic felicity now found at a family Christmas dinner, which for many was the centrepiece of the festivities. In 1853 Charles Manby Smith wrote about Christmas presents, and then immediately dismissed them: ‘But…these are very minor and subordinate preparations. Eating and drinking, after all, are the chief and paramount obligations of the Christmas season.’32 Obligations, mind. He was using the word with a journalistic flourish, but he didn’t think it was too overstated. As with every other tradition, the Christmas dinner had also mutated over the century. Plum pudding had at some stage replaced the earlier plum porridge, a beef broth thickened with bread and enriched with dried fruit, wine and spices. This had been a staple in the eighteenth century - ‘Everyone’, wrote a French visitor at the time, ‘from the King to the artisan eats soup
and Christmas pies. The soup is called Christmas-porridge, and is a dish few foreigners find to their taste.’33 Twelfth Night cakes with their bean and pea tokens had long been traditional, and continued to appear well into the nineteenth century, when the bean, the pea and the iced fruitcake were seamlessly transferred into the new Christmas cake. By 1840 the Twelfth Night cake was no more.
Both the cakes and the mince pies depended on the richness of dried fruits, which until the steamships and railways of the nineteenth century had been both rare and expensive - prime luxury goods. Railways also brought down the price of the main course, which traditionally had been goose. Many of the working classes belonged to paying-in clubs, usually run out of their local pubs. At the end of the year a lottery was held, and all received the goose they had paid for, with the holder of the winning ticket given the fattest bird. Turkeys were only slowly becoming more common: for many purchasers they were still far too expensive, as the birds did not travel well. In the early nineteenth century turkeys were reared for the most part in East Anglia, and were driven down to London in August, wearing little leather boots to protect their feet. They started their trek in August because they lost so much weight on their forced march that much of the fattening-up process had to be recommenced once they arrived at their destination. Some were transported by stagecoach, but this meant Norfolk was three days’ journey from London. Only with the arrival of the railways did it become feasible to slaughter the birds where they were reared.34 Goose may have had a better flavour, but the size of the turkeys made them more desirable for the large mid-Victorian family. In A Christm
as Carol the goose that the Cratchits eat on Christmas Day has to be eked out among the seven of them; when Scrooge becomes a reformed character, he sends a boy to buy them a turkey, an animal that more than goes around.
With the great stress laid on the Christmas feast came additional items for the table. In 1847 a London confectioner, Tom Smith, attempting to create a novelty to distinguish his imported sweets, produced a wrapping that made a small explosion when it was opened. The result, first sold as ‘fire-cracker sweets’, then as ‘Bangs of Expectation’, harked back to the Lord of Misrule elements of the old holiday, but soon the sweet vanished and the (fire)cracker took on the form we know, complete with paper hats and trinkets.35 These tamer, more domesticated objects chimed better with the tone of the sedate, multi-generational gathering that was now looked on with approval, and they became enormously successful: in the 1880s Tom Smith’s, now a dedicated cracker manufacturer, had 170 types of cracker for sale, and in the 1890s it was producing 13 million crackers a year.
The type of decorations recommended by women’s magazines in the second half of the century completed the bourgeois, domesticated picture: hanging banners that said things like ‘A Hundred Thousand Welcomes’ or, more straightforwardly, ‘Happy Christmas’, with the mottoes picked out in cotton wool or tinfoil, or embroidery, or shells or evergreens shaped in the form of letters. By the middle of the century ‘fairy lights’ were in use: small candles in jars, placed decoratively on the mantelpiece or the dinner table. (By the 1890s electric fairy lights were on show in some of the more advanced houses.) Many of the magazine suggestions at the end of the century were unfeasible for all but the very wealthy, and were probably more the product of a journalist’s fevered imagination than a reality. Nevertheless, they do show how the holiday had become a festival of display, of artifice, with the expectation that this would be supplied by bought-in goods. The Lady in 1896 suggested that the dinner table might have pieces of mirror laid down the centre, surrounded by scraps of moss, branches of holly and mistletoe, ‘and sprays of red-veined tree ivy, in which some electric lamps, or, failing these, fairy lights are half hid’, to resemble a ‘mimic lake’ with illuminated bushes. Out of the greenery ‘rise other little trees, and here and there are placed birch-bark canoes, painted with silver paint, and each apparently guided by a “Father Christmas”, bright with silver drapery, the boats being freighted with glittering white bon-bons’, while the four corners of the table hold four miniature trees - ‘in reality the top of a seedling fir gleaming with frostine powder’.36 Should one choose to take this as having the slightest connection to any arrangement that might in reality appear, the question must arise, where to put the food?
Consuming Passions: Leisure and Pleasure in Victorian Britain Page 59