The Revels of Christmas -- and the place of Mistletoe in the celebrations

Christmas has always been a time of revelry and merriment. The degree of gaiety and carousing seems to have varied by social class and, of course, economic circumstance.

Entertainments for the upper classes seemed to include grand dinners, great balls, and charitable giving. Little illustration is extant from these activities.

Among the lower classes, uninhibited romps have been illustrated of the activities of servants and retainers, generally around the fireplace, in a comfortable hall or kitchen.

Mistletoe is rarely mentioned in the activities of the upper classes, but it features prominently in the illustrations of lower class gatherings.

from the book "Popular Pastimes" of 1816

 The following item from the Oxford University and City Herald - Saturday 06 December 1817 indicates that mistletoe was typically hung in kitchens.

The above picture, published in 1800, shows yet another kitchen with a mistletoe bough.

There was a fear that there might be a mistletoe shortage in Bath in 1818.

Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette - Thursday 24 December 1818

The final statement on mistletoe's place in Christmas celebrations must go to Washington Irving. His "Old Christmas" with its illustrations by Randolph Caldecott is the quintessential commentary on the Regency Christmas, although it was written in about 1875.

 The note to the illustration is particularly telling...

 Real mistletoe is hard to obtain where I live. I have a sad, artificial version which is almost an insult to this fascinating piece of Christmas history!

I wish you all the blessings of the festive season no matter what you celebrate, or how...

'Til next time,

Lesley-Anne

Christmas Greetings

 

Christmas Celebrations 1820

We commonly say that the Victorians, and particularly Charles Dickens, created our Christmas celebrations. However, the more Christmases I research, and recount to you, through the newspapers of the pre-Victorian days the more I find them greatly similar to our own. And in 1820, as in 1805, 1806 and 1817, common threads appear. 

Morning Post - Wednesday 05 January 1820

Sun (London) - Thursday 13 January 1820

Celebrations of families and friends abounded, and if holidays were not as common then as now, the enjoyment of the festivities was certainly whole-hearted. There are not many period illustrations of the jollifications but this picture has wonderful details and evokes the spirit of the season and the era:

Christmas Eve by William Allan 1782-1850 Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums

 The nobility, the aristocrats, and the gentry, certainly entertained themselves well.

Star (London) - Wednesday 27 December 1820

 

Bagpipers Playing During Christmas Time, c.1820 - Michela De Vito, an Italian scene

Morning Post - Wednesday 05 January 1820

And of course, there were gifts, as many then as now. This advertisement details wonderful things I would like to see.

Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser - Saturday 30 December 1820

It appeared that Christmas in 1820 held to the truths written by Walter Scott in his1808 poem Marmion.   

"England was merry England, when / Old Christmas brought his sports again.
 'Twas Christmas broach'd the mightiest ale; / 'Twas Christmas told the merriest tale;
 A Christmas gambol oft could cheer / The poor man's heart through half the year."

In his illustration Mummers, published in 1836 in Thomas Hervey's The Book of Christmas, the artist Robert Seymour (1798-1836) displays the delights of a Christmas evening:

I hope that your Christmas and holiday season holds some such pleasures with family and friends despite our pandemic woes. Best Wishes...

'Til next time,

Lesley-Anne

Christmas 1817

 This year we are celebrating a very different sort of Christmas. It has happened before because of wars, and other pandemics and plagues. In 1817, it was a different Christmas in England because the much-loved heiress to the throne had recently died. Nevertheless, Christmas went ahead and was celebrated in some old and some new ways.

Richard Rush, a visitor to London as the new ambassador from the United States of America, recorded Christmas Eve 1817 in his diary and recounted it in his book "A Residence At The Court Of London".

December 24 [1817].--Go through several parts of the town: Bond Street, Albemarle Street, Berkeley Square, Piccadilly, St. James's Street and Park, Pall Mall, St. James's Square, the Strand, and a few others. Well-dressed persons, men and women, throng them. In the dresses of both, black predominates. It is nearly universal. This proceeds from the general mourning for the Princess Charlotte, late heiress apparent to the throne, who died in November. The roll of chariots, and carriages of all kinds, from two until past four, was incessant. In all directions they were in motion. It was like a show--the horses, the coachmen with triangular hats and tassels, the footmen with cockades and canes--it seemed as if nothing could exceed it all.  ....
Being the day before Christmas, there was more display in the shops than usual. I did not get back until candle-light. The whole scene began to be illuminated. Altogether, what a scene it was! The shops in the Strand and elsewhere, where every conceivable article lay before you; and all made in England... 

The Ladies' Monthly Museum posted fashion notes of the aforesaid black clothes. They were certainly a  visible, notable difference in the season that year.

The Liverpool Mercury posted one of the typical offerings of amateur poetry that filled newspapers and journals of the time.

And the Suffolk Chronicle; or Weekly General Advertiser & County Express recorded the usual school treat:

The Bury and Norwich Post offered two happenings that illustrated that human nature does not alter, despite the changes that might occur in circumstances from year to year.

Wherever you are this year, whoever you are with, I hope that you can celebrate Christmas and the holiday season in a way that is meaningful to you. Change is not always bad and hardship engenders gratitude for that which we do have...next year will be better.

Stay safe, and have a Happy Christmas,

'Til next time,

Lesley-Anne

Compliments of the Season -- Christmas 1815

1815 was a very good year. It heralded the end of the Napoleonic Wars that had troubled Europe for too many years. Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to Saint Helena, British soldiers and sailors had returned home; life surely would now improve.

Christmas of 1815 was celebrated as it had been for many years though, without the old traditions, with little fanfare, but quiet pleasures and substantial feasting. An excerpt from The Shepherd's Calendar by John Clare sets the scene:

DECEMBER.

GLAD Christmas comes, and every hearth
   Makes room to give him welcome now,
E’en want will dry its tears in mirth,
   And crown him with a holly bough;
Though tramping ’neath a winter sky,
   O’er snowy paths and rimy stiles,
The housewife sets her spinning by
   To bid him welcome with her smiles.

The Comic New Year's Budget of Song 1815 offered a seasonal illustration celebrating the year's successes:

The newspapers, as always, advertised gifts:

Bristol Mirror - Saturday 16 December 1815

Morning Post Sat 30 December 1815

Cookery books offered December table layouts that could very well be used for Christmas dinner service:

from The Universal Cook

 Such festivities were recorded in the Morning Post:

The costumes of the ladies for these festivities reflected the best trends from a Europe newly open to England:

English and French Fashions 1815 (Wikimedia Commons)

Fashion Plate 1815 - Austrian Hat and Pelisse (Wikimedia Commons)

The fashionable witzschoura, lavishly trimmed with squirrel, 1815 (Wikimedia Commons)

Royalty enjoyed themselves:

Morning Post, 30 December 1815

 And the season was summed up in a poem very typical of the era, pedantic and extravagant but determinedly rhyming.

Chester Chronicle - Friday 22 December 1815

I wish you and all your loved ones a Happy Christmas, a happy holiday season, and every good thing in the New Year!

'Til next time,

Lesley-Anne

Merry Christmas - 1806

The Christmas Plum Pudding from an old print-Published in the book

Christmas: Its Origin and Associations, by William Francis Dawson 

          As last year at this time we looked at Christmas in 1805, I thought that this year we might look at 1806.  Christmas Day was a Thursday, and it was an unusually warm December.

 Bury and Norwich Post Wednesday December 24, 1806

 The retailers were prepared for the season, and the advertisements were tempting:

Morning Chronicle - Friday 19 December 1806

Stamford Mercury - Friday 19 December 1806

The festivities of the season were well described by the newspapers:

Oxford Journal - Saturday 18 January 1806

Bury and Norwich Post - Wednesday 31 December 1806

from Christmas: Its Origin and Associations, by William Francis Dawson

There were sad occurrences as well, in the Christmas season. It never seems quite right to me that sadness or evil should occur at that joyous time, but life of course goes on with its good and bad events.

Hereford Journal - Wednesday 31 December 1806

Norfolk Chronicle - Saturday 27 December 1806

After Christmas, New Year's loomed large, and this advertisement below offered a lottery 'share' as gift and, as we are still lottery lovers, the emotions it engenders are ones we understand very well.

Morning Advertiser - Monday 29 December 1806

 But parties, then as now, were the main focus of New Year celebrations, and 1806 was no different:

Evening Mail - Friday 03 January 1806

Finally I leave you with a delightful contemporary imagining of a Regency Christmas.

Mrs. Hurst's Christmas by Pauline Baynes  1996  AllPosters.com

If you repost this picture, please keep the credits with it--the artist deserves the recognition.

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to you all!

'Til next time,

Lesley-Anne

Source: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/

Christmas in 1805

Although I have done other blog posts about Regency Christmases from newspapers of the day, I thought it might be interesting to focus on one particular year. In 1805, the Ordnance Survey had begun publication of its detailed maps of England, Walter Scott had published The Lay of the Last Minstrel, the Eton/Harrow cricket match had taken place for the first time, and the Battle of Trafalgar (with Lord Nelson's tragic death) had taken place in October.

In 1805, mention of Christmas does not appear in the newspapers I surveyed until the week before the 25th of December. Perhaps predictably, the first notice is from a retailer.

Morning Post - Wednesday December 18 1805

Advertisements for Christmas gifts are not so numerous as one might expect given today's retail frenzy, but they do exist.

Salisbury and Winchester Journal - Monday 23 December 1805

Evidence of the celebration of Christmas continuing through until Twelfth Night--January 6--is contained in the advertisements for the Season.

The Courier - Tuesday 31 December 1805

But then, as now, there was more to the Season than commercialism. There were songs and poems:

Staffordshire Advertiser - Saturday 05 January 1805

There were some funny, some impenetrable, and some rather rude jokes:

Morning Advertiser - Friday 27 December 1805

Evening Mail - Monday 30 December 1805

The solemnity of the Season and the importance of charity were not overlooked:

The Courier - Tuesday 24 December 1805

And the activities of the royals, and the notables of society, were reported in detail:

Kentish Weekly Post or Canterbury Journal - Tuesday 01 January 1805

London Courier and Evening Gazette - Saturday 21 December 1805

London Courier and Evening Gazette - Tuesday 31 December 1805

 And finally, in a note that seems oddly contemporary, the Lotteries are touted:

Morning Advertiser - Monday 23 December 1805

Morning Advertiser - Thursday 26 December 1805

There you have a picture of a Regency Christmas in the year 1805--a Christmas not so very unlike our own.

 I hope that you enjoy a very Happy Holiday Season, and every joy in the New Year.

'Til next time,

Lesley-Anne

All illustrations in this blog post are from http://randolphcaldecott.org.uk/

More Christmas information and illustrations can also be seen at my website: http://www.lesleyannemcleod.com/rw_christmas.html