What an "old-fashioned Christmas" really meant
...was drunken orgy.
I always knew that Christmas was celebrated in winter because of Yule, Saturnalia, and (in Rome) the supposed birth of Mithras. But until I read Stephen Nissenbaum's The Battle for Christmas I never suspected it was quite such a festival as it was! If you wish someone an "old-fashioned merry Christmas" what you are really wishing them is "drunkenness, extortion, transvestitism and orgies."
Christmas was once a time of misrule. The harvesting was finished, freshly slaughtered meat was widely available, and the year's supply of beer and wine was ready for consumption. PAAAR-TAAAY! Observers wrote of young men who started drinking in early December and did not draw a sober breath until mid-January. These same young men would form "callithumpian bands" (the eighteenth-century equivalent of death metal) and play until given money, food and drink. They would put on women's clothing and burst into the houses of the rich, demanding "wassail" (liquor, and small coins) - next time you hear a Christmas carol with "wassail" in it, this is what it meant. Not rosy-cheeked caroling children, but burly guys in dresses who Wanted Their Booze Now.
In addition, there was a lot of promiscuous sex, leading to a lot of February shotgun marriages and a very high late September/early October birthrate. Basically, the original old-fashioned Christmas was a way for a hierarchical, agricultural society to let off steam and relax for a month or so. And seventeenth-and-eighteenth-century ideas of a good time were bawdy and raucous.
So what happened to the old-fashioned merry Christmas? Industrialization, urbanization, and new ideas of domesticity and childhood innocence. Industrial workers were expected to labor year-round - no breaks in the millwork, unlike the harvest. With industrialization came class unrest, a move to the cities where a callithumpian band might lead to an urban riot and the rich no longer knew the poor who wanted wassail, and a new emphasis on the innocence of childhood and the cozy nuclear family. So, the demure, old-fashioned Christmas as wholesome family holiday was born.
But the old-fashioned ones were so much fun...
I always knew that Christmas was celebrated in winter because of Yule, Saturnalia, and (in Rome) the supposed birth of Mithras. But until I read Stephen Nissenbaum's The Battle for Christmas I never suspected it was quite such a festival as it was! If you wish someone an "old-fashioned merry Christmas" what you are really wishing them is "drunkenness, extortion, transvestitism and orgies."
Christmas was once a time of misrule. The harvesting was finished, freshly slaughtered meat was widely available, and the year's supply of beer and wine was ready for consumption. PAAAR-TAAAY! Observers wrote of young men who started drinking in early December and did not draw a sober breath until mid-January. These same young men would form "callithumpian bands" (the eighteenth-century equivalent of death metal) and play until given money, food and drink. They would put on women's clothing and burst into the houses of the rich, demanding "wassail" (liquor, and small coins) - next time you hear a Christmas carol with "wassail" in it, this is what it meant. Not rosy-cheeked caroling children, but burly guys in dresses who Wanted Their Booze Now.
In addition, there was a lot of promiscuous sex, leading to a lot of February shotgun marriages and a very high late September/early October birthrate. Basically, the original old-fashioned Christmas was a way for a hierarchical, agricultural society to let off steam and relax for a month or so. And seventeenth-and-eighteenth-century ideas of a good time were bawdy and raucous.
So what happened to the old-fashioned merry Christmas? Industrialization, urbanization, and new ideas of domesticity and childhood innocence. Industrial workers were expected to labor year-round - no breaks in the millwork, unlike the harvest. With industrialization came class unrest, a move to the cities where a callithumpian band might lead to an urban riot and the rich no longer knew the poor who wanted wassail, and a new emphasis on the innocence of childhood and the cozy nuclear family. So, the demure, old-fashioned Christmas as wholesome family holiday was born.
But the old-fashioned ones were so much fun...