The Christmas period is one of celebration and a well-deserved holiday from work. The word holiday is derived from ‘holy day’ and a Medieval peasant could expect not to have to work on high days and holy days meaning that they enjoyed many more days off work than their post-industrial descendants. Christmas in the past followed the ‘second lent’ which is called Advent and was celebrated for twelve days starting on Christmas morning with mass.
Pagan Roots and Winter Solstice Celebrations
The tradition of celebration and holiday are ancient, if not as noted last year, prehistoric. We certainly suspect that our Neolithic ancestors celebrated the solstice at Stone and Wood Henges, and the Germanic tribes celebrated Jule with the prohibition on fighting and conflict. When Hengist and Horsa took their sister to be married to the King of the Friskens they were insulted at the start of Jule and were compelled to keep their revenge until the season had finished. This prohibition also nearly led to disaster for the Anglo-Saxons when the Great Army launched a surprise attack on Wessex at Jule.
Medieval Merriment
Throughout history women and men of every class would spend every waking moment spinning. Even Augustus’s daughter was compelled by him to spin to maintain the illusion that the imperial family was just a normal Roman family. In the 1660s men and women would take a break from their hard work and celebrate the holiday of the twelve days of Christmas. Women would decorate their spinning wheels with ivy and men their ploughs with evergreen and leave off their respective work. Their work would begin for the men on the first Monday after Christmas, known as Plow Monday, and women would resume spinning on St Distaffs Day the day after Twelfth Night.
The Victorian Revival: A Dickensian Christmas
The modern Christmas or Xmas was invented in the 19th century mainly by Charles Dickins with the publishing of A Christmas Carol. In this very historically important book, he rescues what had become a neglected medieval feast and reinvented it for the modern age. The Carol concert was also a Victorian innovation drawing on an old tradition of singing carols at Christmas time in pubs. Cards, presents and parties coalesced around the Dickensian revival of Christmas. Notably in A Christmas Carol the butcher is still working, and Scrooge is surprised that Bob wants a day off. This is because the innovation of Bank holiday was only made in 1871 when Sir John Lubbock made Christmas a bank holiday, a holiday that we still enjoy today.
Honouring the Past, Embracing the Present
So, enjoy your office party and few precious days off work in the knowledge that you are following in a well-established tradition as well as new traditions that have been made for us to enjoy. Most of what we associate with an ancient past is very new but every so often with the holly and the ivy, the restful peace from work and the boisterous celebration we can glimpse the past and know that we are celebrating in ways that if our ancestors saw us, would recognise.