At Christmas time, households had guests to stay and games were played to either fill in the time inside when the weather was too bad to venture out with sleds or skates, or to keep tradition. Blind man’s bluff, forfeits, and snap dragon were all played.
A list of some entertainments for Christmas…From The book Of Christmas by Thomas kibble Hervey. “jugglers, and jack-puddings, scrambling for nuts and apples, dancing the hobby-horse, hunting owls and squirrels, the fool-plough, hot-cockles, a stick moving on a pivot, with an apple at one end and a candle at the other, so that he who missed his bite burned his nose, blindman’s buffs, forfeits, interludes and mock plays :” — also of ” thread my needle, Nan,” ” he can do little that can’t do this,” feed the dove, hunt the slipper, shoeing the wild mare, post and pair, snap dragon, the gathering of omens….
Snap Dragon A favorite game was Snap Dragon, often played on Christmas Eve. Raisins were put into a large, shallow bowl and brandy was poured over them and then ignited. Lights were extinguished to increase the eerie effect of the blue flames playing across the liquor. The object of the game was to reach through the blue flames and grab as many raisins as possible from the flaming brandy and pop them into your mouth. The risk of burning yourself increased the excitement.
Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language in 1755 describes the. game as “a play in which they catch raisins out of burning brandy and, extinguishing them by closing the mouth, eat them”. According to an eighteenth-century article in Richard Steele’s Tatler magazine, “the wantonness of the thing was to see each other look like a demon, as we burnt ourselves, and snatched out the fruit.”
Snap-dragon was played in England, Canada, U/S.A, and probably other countries with British backgrounds. The words snap-dragon and flap-dragon can refer to the game, the raisins used in the game, or the bowl with brandy and raisins.
The first reference to Snap-dragon as a game is in Francis Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue in 1811. “Christmas gambol: raisins and almonds being put into a bowl of brandy, and the candles extinguished, the spirit is set on fire, and the company scramble for the raisins.” Snap-dragon as a Christmas parlour game was mentioned in 1836 in Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers and in 1861, in Anthony Trollope’s novel Orley Farm. Lewis Carroll, in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There in 1871 describes “A snap-dragon-fly. Its body is made of plum pudding, its wings of holly-leaves, and its head is a raisin burning in brandy.”
Agatha Christie’s book Hallowe’en Party describes a children’s party during which a child’s murder causes Hercule Poirot to be brought in to solve the case and at which Snap-dragon is played at the end of the evening.
Legend has it that during the 17th century, craftsmen created straight white sticks of candy in the shape of shepherds’ crooks at the suggestion of the choirmaster at the Cologne Cathedral in Germany. The treats were given to children to keep them quiet during ceremonies at the living creche, or Nativity scene, and the custom of passing out the crooks at such ceremonies soon spread throughout Europe.
‘The legends of the candy cane are many, including that the cane was shaped like a “J” for Jesus, the three red stripes symbolized the Holy Trinity, the hardness of the candy represented the Church’s foundation on solid rock and the peppermint flavor reflects the use of hyssop, an herb referred to in the Old Testament.’ via Encyclopedia Britannica
In celebrations of Saint Nicholas Day, candy canes are given to children as they are also said to represent the crosier of the Christian bishop, Saint Nicholas; crosiers themselves allude to the Good Shepherd, a title associated with Jesus. Some people explain the symbolism of a striped cane as white representing Christ’s purity, red the blood he shed, and the three red stripes the Holy Trinity.
In the mid 1600s, sugar roses were added but weren’t popular so plain white canes remained until red stripes were added around 1890. In 1847, a German immigrant living in Wooster, Ohio, U.S.A. looped candy canes that he brought with him from Europe over the boughs of his Christmas tree.
In 1919, Bob McCormack of Albany, Georgia, made candy canes for family, friends and local shopkeepers. The canes were bent by hand as they came off the assembly line into the ‘J’ shape of a shepherd’s crook, so breakage was often over 20 percent. In the 1920s, a cherubic child in a red-and-white hat sold peppermint candy cane to Albany natives in an advertisement for Bob’s candy company. McCormack was the first manufacturer to wrap his candy in cellophane. Bobs moved to a larger facility in the 1930s so that it could expand its product lines and was one of the few candy companies to remain solvent during the Great Depression.
As the economy improved, people bought more sweet treats, but Bobs Candy was then leveled by a tornado and, as the company had no tornado insurance, they had to rebuild on their own. By August 1940 the company was back in business and employed McCormack’s three children.
During World War II (1941-45), when sugar was rationed, coconuts were in short supply, and pecans were expensive, Bobs took advantage of a plentiful local product—the peanut—and sold peanut-butter crackers and vacuum-packed peanuts. During the 1950s, Bobs began making money with such innovations as break-proof packaging, moisture-proof candy wrappers.
In 1952, Bob McCormack’s brother-in-law, Catholic priest Gregory Keller, invented the Keller Machine which automated the process of twisting soft candy into spiral striping and then cutting them into precise lengths as candy canes.
Harding Keller invented the Keller Machine around 1950 for his brother-in-law Bob McCormack. The machine twisted and cut stick candy, allowing for the mass production of the company’s signature candy canes and other items. – Courtesy of Farley’s and Sathers Candy Company, Inc.
First, candy sticks cut to the desired length enter the machine. Each stick is bent individually, but the machine has a system of multiple grippers and rollers to continually bend the sticks, one after the other. As each stick enters the machine, it is positioned in a gripper which holds the straight portion of the cane with the part to be bent protruding out. Each gripper has on one side a curved die which the protruding end will be bent over. The candy stick is first bent to a right angle as it is moved past and put into contact with an inclined face. The patent application describes two potential versions of the mechanism which complete the bending process.
The first version of the mechanism has a chain around two sprockets on which are mounted bending rollers. Each bending roller is attached to a cam which rides along another inclined face to move the roller along the protruding surface of the cane to complete bending it around the die. In the second version, the chain and sprockets are replaced by a wheel on which the bending rollers are mounted. In modern candy cane production, the sticks are wrapped in cellophane before they are bent.
By the middle of the century, Bob’s company – originally the Famous Candy Company, then the Mills-McCormack Candy Company, and later Bobs Candies, had become one of the world’s leading candy cane producers.Bobs Candies was sold to Farley’s and Sathers in Spring 2005. Farley’s and Sathers merged with the Ferrara Candy Company which continues to make candy canes under the Bobs name.
By the middle of the century, Bob’s company – originally the Famous Candy Company, then the Mills-McCormack Candy Company, and later Bobs Candies, had become one of the world’s leading candy cane producers.
From Harper’s Bazaar:- ‘Advent is the herald of Christmas. In Protestant as well as Catholic countries, choristers and school-boys during the “holy-nights” go from house to house singing songs or Christmas carols to usher in the auspicious day. In the south of Germany, they accompany the singing by knocking at the doors with a little hammer, or throwing pease, beans, or lentils at the windows. Hence the origin of the name of “knocking nights.”
In Bohemia, Styria, Carniola, and other German provinces, people group together and perform Christmas plays during Advent, with simple plots about the story of the Savior’s birth, his persecution by Herod, and the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt. The players usually consist of the Christ-child, St. Nicholas or St. Peter, St. Joseph and the Virgin, Herod, the varlet Ruprecht, several angels, together with shepherds and other less conspicuous personages.
The devil is the merriest character because he capers about through the village and furiously blows his horn, frightening or bantering with, the old and young, despite portraying the humble rôle of a messenger. A handsome youth of the strictest morals is usually selected to represent the Virgin Mary. The rehearsal is usually accompanied by a certain rhythmical movement, the players going four steps to and fro, so that a meter or foot corresponds to every step, and on the fourth, which includes the rhyme, the performer turns quickly around. The holy personages sing instead of rehearsing their parts, but accompany their singing with the same rhythmical movement.
On the first Sunday in Advent the play is inaugurated by a solemn procession, headed by the master singer bearing a gigantic star, followed by the others drawing a large fir-tree ornamented with ribbons and apples; and thus they go singing to the large hall where the play is to be performed. On arriving at the door they form a half circle, and sing the star-song; then, after saluting sun, moon, and stars, the emperor, the government, and the master singer, in the name of all the “herbs and roots that grow in the earth,” they enter the hall, and the performance begins.
The prologue and epilogue are sung by an angel. As the whole stage apparatus often consists of only a straw-bottomed chair and a wooden stool, every change of scene is indicated by a procession of the whole company singing an appropriate song; after which only those who take part in the next act remain standing, while the remainder go off singing.
These dramatic representations are often very simple, or only fragmentary, consisting, it may be, of a troop of boys and girls disguised as shepherds and shepherdesses, who go about singing shepherd songs, thus announcing the approaching advent of our Savior. At other times, they are performed from house to house and are associated with the distribution of Christmas presents.
In such cases, they are made the occasion of a solemn inquest into the conduct of the children, and constitute in Germany — which appears to be at once the paradise and purgatory of Christmas-loving juveniles — a potential auxiliary of pedagogic and parental discipline.
The archangel Gabriel, it may be, first appears upon the scene, and thus announces his advent: “May God give you a happy good-evening! I am his messenger, sent from angel-land. My name is Gabriel. In my hands I bear the scepter which the Son of God has given me. On my head I wear the crown with which the Son of God has crowned me.”
Thereupon the Christ-child, wearing a gilded paper crown, and carrying a basket full of apples and nuts, enters, singing the song commencing,
“Down from the high heaven I come,”
and greets the company with a similar salutation.
In the course of his song he informs the children that the object of his coming is to learn whether they have been good and obedient, and if they “pray and spin diligently.”
If so, they are to be rewarded with gifts from his golden chariot which stands at the door; if not, their backs are to be belabored with rods. St. Peter or St. Nicholas, as the case may be, is then called in to furnish a faithful account of the children’s deportment.
If it be St. Nicholas, he enters with a long staff or crozier in his hand, and a bishop’s miter of gilt paper upon his head. His report is not usually a flattering one. On their way from school the children loiter in the streets, they tear their books, neglect their tasks, and forget to say their prayers; and as a penance for all this evil-doing, he recommends a liberal application of the rod. The Christ-child interposes, almost supplicating,
“Ah, Nicholas, forbear.
Spare the little child.
Spare the young blood!”
The two then join with the angel in singing a song, when St. Peter is summoned, who promptly enters, jingling his keys. The saint, who rather plumes himself on his high office of heavenly janitor, carries matters with a high hand.
He examines the children’s copy-books, it may be, bids them kneel down and pray, and then, by virtue of his high prerogative, pronounces sentence upon the unfortunate delinquents, and calls upon the black Ruprecht, who stands waiting outside the door, to execute his orders.
“Ruperus, Ruperus, enter!
The children will not be obedient.”
The frightful bugbear, dressed in fur, and covered with chains, with blackened face and fiery eyes, and a long red tongue protruding out of his month, stumbles over the threshold, brandishing an enormous birch, and as he falls headlong into the room, roars out to the children, “Can you pray?” Whereupon they fall upon their knees and repeat their prayers at the top of their voices.
The five heavenly visitors, standing in a half circle, then sing another song or two descriptive of the heavenly joys, or freighted with wholesome advice to both children and parents. The latter give them in return a few farthings, while the Christ-child scatters apples and nuts here and there upon the floor for the further edification of the children, and then Christ-child, St. Nicholas, St. Peter, the archangel Gabriel, and devil exeunt.
St. Nicholas, as all the world knows, is the patron of children, with whom he is the most popular saint in the calendar. Bishop of Myra, in Lycia, in the time of Constantine the Great, if we are to credit the Roman breviary, he supplied three destitute maidens with dowries by secretly leaving a marriage-portion for each at their window. Hence the popular fiction that he is the purveyor of presents to children on Christmas-eve.
He usually makes his appearance as an old man with a venerable beard, and dressed as a bishop, either riding a white horse or an ass, and carrying a large basket on his arm, and a bundle of rods in his hand. In some parts of Bohemia he appear dressed up in a sheet instead of a surplice, with a crushed pillow on his head instead of a miter.
On his calling out, “Wilt thou pray?” all the children fall upon their knees, whereupon he lets fall some fruit upon the floor and disappears. In this manner he goes from house to house, sometimes ringing a bell to announce his arrival, visits the nurseries, inquiries into the conduct of the children, praises or admonishes them, as the case may be, distributing sweetmeats or rods accordingly.
St. Nicholas is the Santa Claus of Holland, and the Samiklaus of Switzerland, and the Sönner Klâs of Helgoland. In the Vorarlberg he is known as Zemmikias, who threatens to put naughty children into his hay-sack; in Nether Austria as Niklo, or Niglo, who is followed by a masked servant called Krampus. In the Tyrol he goes by the name of the “Holy Man,” and shares the patronage of his office with St. Lucy, who distributes gifts among the girls, as he among the boys. Sometimes he is accompanied by the Christ-child. In many parts of Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands St. Nicholas still distributes his presents on St. Nicholas’s Eve — the 5th of December — instead of on Christmas-eve.
In the Netherlands and adjoining provinces he is especially popular, and is perhaps the only saint who has maintained his full credit, even among the Protestants. For days previous to his expected advent busy housewives have been secretly conspiring with the bakers in gilding nuts, cakes, and gingerbread, and torturing pastry, prepared with flour, sugar, honey, spices, and sweetmeats, into the most fantastical forms, from which the good saint may from time to time replenish his supplies.
As to the children, St. Nicholas or Sünder Klaas is the burden of their prayers, the staple of their dreams, and the inspiration of their songs. As they importune him to let fall from the chimney-top some pretty gift into their little aprons, they go on singing with childish fervor,
“Sünder Klaas da gode Bloot!
Breng’ mi Nööt un Zuckerbrod,
Nicht to veel un nich to minn
Smiet in mine Schörten in!”
In Belgium, on the eve of the good bishop’s aerial voyage in his pastoral visitation of his bishopric of chimney-tops, the children polish their shoes, and after filling them with hay, oats, or carrots for the saint’s white horse, they put them on a table, or set them in the fireplace. The room is then carefully closed and the door locked. Next morning it is opened in the presence of the assembled household, when, mirabile dictu! the furniture is found to be turned topsy-turvy, while the little shoes, instead of horse’s forage, are filled with sweetmeats and toys for the good children, and with rods for the bad ones. In some places wooden or China shoes, stockings, baskets, cups and saucers, and even bundles of hay, are placed in the chimney, or by the side of the bed, or in a corner of the room, as the favorite receptacles of St. Nicholas’s presents.
In the Western world, where Christmas is characterized by the exchange of gifts among friends and family members, some of the gifts are attributed to a character called Santa Claus. He is also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, St. Nikolaus, Sinterklaas, Kris Kringle, Joulupukki, Weihnachtsmann, Saint Basil and Father Frost.
Father Christmas, who predates Santa Claus, was first recorded in the 15th century and then associated with holiday merrymaking and drunkenness. Today’s version of Santa Claus was created by the German-American cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840-1902), who drew a new image of the character annually, beginning in 1863.
By the 1880s, Nast’s Santa had become the one now know and in the 1920s, this image was used in most advertising. In Victorian Britain, his image was remade to match that of Santa and France’s Père Noël (Papa Noël) evolved the same way and eventually began using the same Santa image.
The word ‘carol’ comes from the old French ‘carole’ for a song written and played as a courtly dancing song. Carols then took on a more popular form, telling stories and celebrating religious themes for all seasons until the late 19th century when they became associated with Christmas.
Carols took the place of Psalms in all churches on Christmas Day and, as the whole congregation could join in, were greeted with huge approval. Carols were passed on orally from place to place, often with different words or tunes. The published carols included songs still popular today, including The First Noël, I Saw Three Ships, and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. This collection was followed by compilations of carols from other scholars such as William Sandy’s works in 1833 and 1852.
Our modern Christmas tree tradition probably began in Germany in the 18th century, though some argue that Martin Luther began the tradition in the 16th century. An evergreen fir tree was used to celebrate winter festivals (pagan and Christian) for thousands of years. Nobody is really sure when Fir trees were first used as Christmas trees but it probably began 1000 years ago in Northern Europe. Many early Christmas Trees seem to have been hung upside down from the ceiling using chains.
The English phrase “Christmas tree”, first recorded in 1835, came from the German words Tannenbaum (fir tree) or Weinachtenbaum (Christmas tree). The Christmas tree is often explained as a Christianization of pagan tradition and ritual surrounding the Winter Solstice, which included the use of evergreen boughs, and an adaptation of pagan tree worship. At first, a figure of the Baby Jesus was put on the top of the tree. Over time it changed to an angel or fairy that told the shepherds about Jesus, or a star like the Wisemen saw.
Christian tradition associates the holly tree with the crown of thorns, and says that its leaves were white until stained red by the blood of Christ. Along with a Christmas tree, the interior of homes were decorated with plants, garlands, and evergreen foliage and in Victorian times, Christmas trees were decorated with candles to represent stars.
The early Germans conceived of the world as a great tree whose roots were hidden deep under the earth, but whose top, flourishing in the midst of Walhalla, the old German paradise, nourished the she-goat upon whose milk fallen heroes restored themselves. Yggdnafil was the name of this tree, and its memory was still green long after Christianity had been introduced into Germany, when much of its symbolic character was transferred to the Christmas-tree. At first fitted up during the Twelve Nights in honor of Berchta, the goddess of spring, it was subsequently transferred to the birthday of Christ, who, as the God-man, is become the “resurrection and the life.”
Queen Victoria saw a Christmas tree as a girl in 1832. The little princess wrote excitedly in her diary that her Aunt Sophia had set up two “trees hung with lights and sugar ornaments. All the presents being placed around the tree.” In 1841, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s German husband, arranged for a fir tree to be brought from Germany and decorated. By 1850, Victoria and Albert had Christmas trees erected in the British Royal Palaces and their children started the tradition of gathering around the tree.
‘The Christmas-tree is doubtless of German origin. Though in its present form it is comparatively of recent date, yet its pagan prototype enjoyed a very high antiquity.’ From 1873 Harper’s Bazaar, America.
A print of the royal family gathered about the Christmas tree at Windsor Castle appeared in the Illustrated London News in 1848, then in Godey’s Lady’s Book in 1850, and was reprinted again ten years later. The six-foot fir sits on a table, each tier laden with a dozen or more lighted wax tapers. An angel with outstretched arms poses at the top. Gilt gingerbread ornaments and tiny baskets filled with sweets hang by ribbons from the branches. Clustered around the base of the tree are dolls and soldiers and toys.
Christmas trees did exist in America before Queen Victoria made them famous, but mainly only amongst migrant groups from Europe. The writer of an 1825 article in The Saturday Evening Post mentions seeing trees in the windows of many houses in Philadelphia, a city with a large German population. He wrote, Their “green boughs laden with fruit, richer than the golden apples of the Hesperides, or the sparkling diamonds that clustered on the branches in the wonderful cave of Aladdin.” Gilded apples and nuts hung from the branches as did marzipan ornaments, sugar cakes, miniature mince pies, spicy cookies cut from molds in the shape of stars, birds, fish, butterflies, and flowers. A woman visiting German friends in Boston in 1832 wrote about their unusual tree hung with gilded eggshell cups filled with candies.
Not until the mid-nineteenth century did Christmas trees start spreading to homes with no known German connection. But once Queen Victoria approved of the custom of a Christmas tree, the practice spread throughout England and America and, to a lesser extent, to other parts of the world, through magazine pictures and articles. Upper-class Victorian Englishmen loved to imitate the royal family, and other nations copied the custom. Late in the century, larger floor-to-ceiling trees replaced the tabletop size.
1800 ca. Sleeveless Chemise or Nightgown of white cotton and lace. Length just below knee. Gathered back and front onto yoke of lace and gathered fabric inserts. Gathers around neck by tape in casing. ‘Blanche’ embroidered centre front. Waist up to 50 in or more. via National Trust Collections, UK. nationaltrustcollections.org.uk
Definition Chemise Or Shift: Sleeveless, mid-calf length garment of white cotton or muslin was worn next to the skin under stays or corset. Called ‘Shift’ from early Georgian (1700-1750) until Late Georgian (1750-1790) to replace ‘Smock’. By 1800, name replaced by ‘Chemise’. Sometimes doubled as a nightshift, or nightrail. From around 1700, women wore a long garment, like a man’s shirt, next to their skin, day and night. ‘Costume In England’ describes this as originally a shirt or smock and adopted by women as an undergarment.
This undergarment fell from their shoulders to calves, and was called a chemise, shift, or vest. During the day, it was worn under stays, or a corset, and at night it could be worn as a nightshirt. Wealthier women could afford specific bedroom attire, but lower and working class women wouldn’t have had this luxury and so wore a chemise as both an undergarment and as sleepwear. The rich and the upper classes wore embroidered and otherwise decorated versions of this simple linen or cotton shift. Other classes of women wore a very simple version with little or no decoration as they had no time for decorative embroidery and no money to buy silk threads.
1800s Typical Food Served and Table Settings Used. Historic food from Mrs. Beeton’s Household Management, 1882 Warne’ s Model Housekeeper, London, U.K., 1892 Cassel’s Dictionary of Cookery.
I love Pinterest for keeping thousands of historical images in some sort of order. And I love using Pinterest Boards as inspiration for my romance books. What about you? Do you use Pinterest for planning something, or just for fun? Need more hints for what to do with your boards and pins? Take a look at these fascinating articles on Pinterest. if you want even more Pinterest information and tips for becoming a power user, check out my Suzi Love Pinterest Boards
During the Victorian Era, the tight lacing of corsets became known for damaging women’s bodies. However, the whalebone used to stiffen corsets was also a protector of the chest and rib area.
1833 Morning Post: HATTON-GARDEN. ATTEMPTED MURDER. George Bailey, a youth about seventeen, was charged with having attempted to murder Mary Prendergast, a young woman, by stabbing her with a large knife. It appeared in evidence that on Thursday morning, last, about five o’clock, the Prisoner, who sells fish in a basket near Portpool-lane, Leather-lane, Holborn, was standing before his basket when the Prosecutrix asked him the price of his fish. He told her, and she refused to purchase, but laughed at him and jeered him.. . . . In the course of the evening the Prosecutrix was passing by, when the Prisoner rushed upon her with a knife which he uses to cut up the fish and, while in a great passion, he pluinged the knife several times at her heart, and the last thrust the point of the knife dug into her clothes, and would have entered her body had it not been that the bone of her stays prevented it …
1837 The Standard: MARLBOROUGH-STREET. – AN UNNATURAL SON – Alfred Grant, a lad about nineteen years of age, of sullen aspect, was brought before Mr. Dyer, charged with having attempted to stab his own mother . . . James Grant, the brother of the prisoner, about sixteen years of age, said the prisoner came home to Grafton-street, Soho, on Monday afternoon, and some words having ensued between him and his mother, he seized a knife and made a stab at her. Fortunately the bone of his mother’s stays turned the point of the knife …
1841 The Morning Post: Catherine Connor, the person alluded to by the last witness, and who is in a state of pregnancy, deposed that she kept a fruit stall opposite to the Phoenix public-house and that on seeing the young man so savagely treated, she made use of the expersions just named, when Hill called her a ——–, and kicked at her violently. Fortunately for her, she received two of the worse kicks aimed at her on the bone of her stays, otherwise they would, she had no doubt, have proved most serious to her from the situation she was then in.
1804 London Hairstyles, Gorgeous Gold Hats. via Fashion Plate via Fashions of London and Paris, Published By Richard Phillips, St. Paul’s Church Yard, London, UK. These styles of hats and hairstyles would have been worn by Jane Austen and her contemporaries as hats were an essential fashion item during the Regency years.
