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- Herausgeber: Pitkin
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
At the darkest moment of the year, when the nights seem endless and the days very short, comes that most joyful of festivals. Christmas is a truly magical season, bringing families and friends together to share the much-loved customs and traditions that over the centuries have come to surround this heart-warming and deeply symbolic occasion. Each family has their own personal traditions, and ways they celebrate the special day. Yet underneath the tinsel, fairy lights and wrapping paper are many long-standing traditions that we all know and love. Why do we drag a fir tree inside our house and decorate it? How long Santa has been delivering gifts to good children? What would Christmas be like without mince pies? We owe a lot to the Victorians. They transformed the way Britain celebrated Christmas in the 19th century and we continue with their traditions today. In 1848 a British confectioner by the name of Tom Smith came up with the idea of wrapping sweets inside a package that snapped when pulled apart. It was the Victorians that really centred Christmas round the family, with the eating of a Christmas dinner together, giving gifts and playing games. All these things have become central to a British Christmas Day.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
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Victorian Christmas Cheer
At the darkest time of the northern year comes the most joyous of festivals – Christmas. For Christians celebrating the birth of Christ, and for those of other faiths and none, Christmas is a season of magical expectation and delights.
Yet before the 19th century, Christmas in Britain was a shadow of the brash, extravagant festival we know today. The Twelve Days of Christmas, from St Stephen’s Day (26 December) to Epiphany (6 January), passed without much public show. Gifts were not given until New Year, and for most people Christmas Day was one day’s holiday at best. For many it was a working day like any other.
The Victorians reinvented the festive season. An ancient winter festival absorbed by the Church evolved yet again – to blend sentiment, commerce and fun into the Victorian Christmas aglow with candle-lit trees, cards and crackers, Santa Claus and toys, carols and Christmas pudding. The Victorians helped make the modern Christmas a celebration of family and love, its sparkling trappings transforming mid-winter gloom into the most heart-warming time of the year.
A Winter Festival
The fact that Christmas falls at the time of the northern winter solstice is no coincidence.
The exact date of Christ’s birth is not known. The calendar date of 25 December was set by the Church in Rome in the mid-4th century, possibly aligned with the Roman midwinter festival of Saturnalia. Earlier, Christians may have marked the nativity of Christ on 6 January, now known as Epiphany, the twelfth and last day of Christmas.
Cheering Dark Days
Saturnalia was celebrated by the Romans in December, with feasting and boisterousness. People partied, dressed up, decorated their homes with greenery and exchanged presents. Later northern European festivals marked the changing seasons. Yule celebrated the winter solstice, when most trees were bare, skies grey, the days short, and the sun rarely warmed the chilled earth. Plants were dead or dormant. At this time, people lit bonfires and drank ale, to cheer themselves. Pagan priests cut mistletoe from sacred oaks. Yule logs burned on hearths to drive away the spirits of darkness and ensure the return of the sun.
The Church Calendar
The Christian Church deftly inserted Christmas into this traditional feast. In England, Christmas Day (25 December on the Gregorian calendar) became the focus for religious celebration. Elsewhere in Europe, Christmas Eve was more central to religious observance, and in the Orthodox churches, which stuck to the Julian calendar, the date of Christmas remains 7 January. Advent, heralding the start of the Christmas season, begins in the western liturgical calendar on the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day, but Advent calendars and candles start from 1 December.
The Victorian Christmas became a warm, gift-giving family celebration, its customs followed by later generations.
The Holly King
Holly was central to old midwinter customs. The Holly King was a figure from pre-Christian midwinter mythology, full of life and cheer, but he had a darker side, in constant yearly battle with his summer rival, the Oak. The Holly King had a Queen, represented by ivy.
Advent calendars were first printed in Germany in the late 1800s.
Deck the Halls…
Children hanging up holly. Using evergreen leaves in Christmas decorations had its origins in midwinter pre-Christian feasts.
Gathering evergreens to ‘deck the halls’ has a long association with Christmas.
Other plants were, and still are, brought into the home at Christmas to add colour and aroma. However, the plants most people associated with Christmas (apart from the Christmas tree) were holly, ivy and mistletoe.
