Merry Christmas! So something a little different for you as Gemma unfortunately has caught Covid so our Christmas Tradition podcast is now a post for you. You will just have to imagine our voices and you can have 3 guesses as to which one of us wrote which parts!
Santa Claus
The figure of Santa Claus derives from Saint Nicholas, whose feast day is celebrated on the 6th of December. Children were told to go to bed before the arrival of the travellers and feasts were held to “mark the importance of generosity.” As for the leaving of gifts, according to the St. Nicholas Centre, this comes from the 12th century and the tradition of nuns leaving gifts for children of poorer families.
One of the most important jobs at Christmas is getting your letter to Santa, but originally it was Santa who wrote the letters and sent them to children and were used by children to “…counsel kids on their behaviour.” As gift giving became a more central part of Christmas the letters changed to be more “wish list” like. However, some parents continued to “have Santa write to their children” amongst them was J.R.R. Tolkien, “…who every Christmas, for almost 25 years, left his children elaborately illustrated updates on Father Christmas and his life in the North Pole.—filled with red gnomes, snow elves, and his chief assistant, the North Polar bear.”
So you might be wondering, how did Santa get the letters before the post office was in operation?
Well, there were different methods;
- In the U.S children would leave them by the fireplace in the belief that they would turn to smoke and go up to Santa.
- In Scotland children would shout the contents of their letters up the chimney.
- In Latin America, children attached their letters to balloons and let them go.
He now even has an email address – santaclaus@gmail.com.
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve is filled with traditions, one of the most important being leaving cookies and milk (or something more alcoholic) out for Santa. Food writer Sarah Daniels believes that this tradition of leaving them out for Santa can be traced back to the “…European tradition of offering gifts to magical figures,” for example, children in Norse society would leave hay out for the eight-legged steed of King Odin, Sleipnir.
Further to this, Daniels suggests that the custom may have arisen because in Germany traditional Christmas decorations were edible, and as such “….became midnight meals for mice and rats,” but rather than blame the animals for the disappearance it was blamed on Santa.
For some Norwegians, newer Christian Christmas traditions are mixed with ancient pagan ones. One Christmas Eve tradition is to hide all broomsticks before going to bed, as it is said that wicked witches and evil spirits that come out the night of December 24 will steal any broomsticks they see to fly on.
Christmas Crackers
No Christmas meal is complete without crackers, and I don’t mean the kind you put cheese on, (although those are good too). Christmas crackers were invented by British confectioner Thomas Smith in 1846 after he was inspired by the bon-bon on a trip to Paris. A bon-bon is a sugar almond wrapped up in tissue paper, with a twist on either side of the bon-bon, seeing that Thomas thought it would be a “…festive way of enjoying sweets,” and so wrapped confectionery in a similar way on the lead up to Christmas. In the early 1850s he began to include romantic poems wrapped around the sweet after noticing that it was mostly men buying the sweets to give to their partners.
They started going bang in 1860 when Thomas was “…inspired by the crackling of the logs in his fireplace and decided his crackers needed a bang!” He did this by adding two strips of chemically impregnated paper, which made a loud noise on being pulled apart. This method was so good, it’s still used today.
And as with all good ideas, it was quickly copied by others, so to keep ahead of the competition he replaced the sweet with a surprise gift. In the early 1990s Walter Smith took over from his father, and had the idea of adding a crown to the crackers to keep them ahead of other companies.
Quick note – Another source suggests that crowns were included because they traced back to the ancient Romans, who wore decorative headgear to celebrate Saturnalia, a festival around the winter solstice. By the end of the 1930s, the bad jokes we know had replaced the romantic poems.
Boxing day
In the UK the 26th of December is known as Boxing Day, whilst today it marks the start of the sales and is good for hangover adults. Its history is interesting, traditionally it was when those who worked as servants for the wealthy were allowed to visit their family as they would have worked on Christmas day. It was also when employers would give them a ‘box’ to take home which would contain gifts, bonuses, and sometimes leftover food. In the 19th century it was tradition for tradesmen to collect “Christmas boxes” of money or presents on the first weekday after Christmas as thanks for good service throughout the year.
Mari Lwyd of Wales
In the darkest months of the year, a white horse appears: the mysterious, menacing Mari Lwyd, she has lights or baubles for eyes. Her mane is made of colourful streamers, or holly and ivy. A white cloak falls from her skull, which is attached to a pole, which is held by a person inside it: they control the character’s mischievous nature, often snapping their bony jaw at you.
What on earth is that you ask? Well, one Welsh translation – Grey Mare, connects it to the heritage of pale horses in Celtic and British mythology, many of whom can cross over to the underworld.
The other translation – Grey Mary which some scholars have linked her to a legend connected to the nativity story. When a pregnant horse was sent out of the stables when Mary arrived to have Jesus. The horse spent dark days roaming the land trying to find somewhere new to have a foal. But many Mari fans believe the character to have come from pre-Christian, pagan origins
The first written record of the Mari Lwyd doesn’t come until 1800 in J. Evans’ book, A Tour through Part of North Wales, although the tradition is best known for its practice in Glamorgan and Gwent. It has similarities to other hooded animal customs in Britain, like the Hoodening in Kent, the Broad in the Cotswolds and The Old Tup in Derbyshire, which involved a group of poor people trying to find food and money in the harsh depths of the winter. Entertainment was their method, with a side portion of menace: that dead horse’s skull appearing in shadow at your door.
Mari is taken around a village traditionally, between Christmas Day and Twelfth Night, She is dressed with festive lights and decorations, and is usually accompanied by an ostler (a man employed to look after the horses of people staying at an inn), and in some regions of the Swansea Valleys, other folk characters like a jester and a Lady also accompany the horse. When the groups get to a house, they sing Welsh language songs or wassails, or more traditionally indulge in a ritual called pwnco: an exchange of rude rhymes with the person who lives there. If the Mari and her gang get entry, the household is said to have good luck for the year. The Mari is well-known to be mischievous – trying to steal things and chase people she likes
Obviously over the years the tradition was looked down on for being “Pagan” and Welsh Methodists and other Christian non-conformists criticised the Mari Lwyd in the 19th century. The Blaenau Gwent-based Baptist minister, Reverend William Roberts, called her “sinful” in his 1852 book, The Religion Of The Dark Ages, although he also transcribed twenty verses of the Mari’s performance, helping to disseminate the tradition.
In the 1930s and 1940s, Welsh folklorist Iorwerth Peate found the practice still alive in Cardiff, Bridgend, Llangynwyd, Neath and other parts of Glamorgan, despite fears that it was starting to die. Only a few Mari processions were left by the 1960s, including in Pencoed near Bridgend and Pentyrch near Cardiff. But later that century, Llantrisant Folk Club revived the tradition, as did a family in Llangwynyd near Maesteg, who still visit the Old House Inn in the village with their Mari today: three generations of landlords have now hosted them.
Spider webs decorations
Perfect for those goths amongst you! The tradition of putting spider webs on the tree is based on an old tale about a mother that was too poor to decorate her tree.
The story goes a widowed mother is too poor to decorate her Christmas tree, so friendly spiders spin elaborate webs on the evergreen. When the mother and her family wake on Christmas morning, they open the curtains and sunlight hits the webs, turning them silver and gold (a note here that this tale is sometimes said to be the origin of tinsel). The family then went on to have continued good fortune. The story and the tradition are likely the legend is linked to the idea that spiders are lucky.
The Yule Goat
This tradition comes from Sweden. Where every year a town puts up a giant straw statue of a goat. It’s to mark the beginning of the holiday season. Then they wait — and sometimes bet — on whether the goat will make it to Christmas. Because in the town of Gävle , someone always tries to burn down the goat.
A goat may sound like a strange thing but for hundreds of years people in northern Europe have had big festivals in December -Yule. Those traditions became part of Christmas celebrations in places like Sweden. One of these traditions is the Yule goat. In some stories, Christmas elves would ride the Yule goat door to door to deliver gifts to sleeping children. Just like Santa Claus does today. And if you remember your Norse myths… Thor liked a goat or two so perhaps there is a link there too.
In 1966, the town of wanted something fun and Christmas-y for the town square. A giant Yule goat seemed like a great idea, beats a boring old christmas tree right?
I mean it did have one big downside in that it was made of super-flammable straw. BUT the first Gävle goat actually made it all the way to New Year’s Eve before being burned down. In the past 56 years, the Yule Goat has been destroyed at least 35 times!
They’ve tried a fair few things over the years to protect the goat, including:
- They’ve had guards stationed,
- security cameras put up and fences raised
- The goat itself has been sprayed with water and flameproof chemicals.
Some years the goat does survive the whole holiday season! But that doesn’t stop people trying to burn it.
In 2005, a group dressed as Santa and gingerbread men fired flaming arrows into the goat. Hackers in 2009 disabled the security cameras and set the goat on fire. An American tourist was arrested for burning down the goat in 2001. He said he’d been told by his Swedish friends that burning the goat was OK. He ended up spending two weeks in jail. – this is a case of do not trust your friends when they suggest arson!
The 50th anniversary of the first Yule goat statue was in 2016. On November 27, the statue was unveiled. By night, it was up in flames.
Our question on this tradition was why don’t they just not build the goat? The answer… Spite! The town is stubborn. Over the years, they’ve been urged to stop building the goat. Or at least stop using the traditional straw. But they’re proud of their Yule goat. It’s been in the Guinness Book of World Records — for its size, not the fires. And every season, people visit the goat and take part in Yule celebrations. Part of the reason people come may be to see how long the goat will last. And some suspect that the town secretly likes all the attention.
People seem to love it more for seeing how long it lasts rather than for the goat itself.
We hope you have a wonderful festive season no matter how you choose to celebrate and we will hopefully be back and non covidy in the new year!
Sagas of She 