Even the vegetable world contributed to the wonders of Christmas, for was there not the famous Glastonbury Thorn which blossomed on old Christmas day? Legend says that this was the...
All the festivals of the Church are preceded by a vigil, or eve, and, considering the magnitude of the festival of Christmas, it is no wonder that the ceremonial attaching to the e...
Until Christmas eve there is nothing remarkable about this Novena of Christ-tide, excepting a curious charitable custom which used to obtain in the parish of Paddington, which may...
It would indeed be singular if an event of such importance as the birth, as man, of the Son of God had not been specially marked out by signs and wonders, and that many legends con...
The singing of carols is now confined to Christmas day; but it was not always so, appropriate carols being sung during the Christ-tide preceding the day of the Nativity--such, for...
The earliest historic Christmas in England was 790, when the Welsh suddenly attacked the soldiers of Offa, King of Mercia, who were celebrating Christ-tide, and slew many of them;...
Only one is noted in the reign of Edward VI., that of 1551, of which Holinshed writes, Wherefore, as well to remove fond talke out of men's mouths, as also to recreat and refresh t...
New Year's eve is variously kept--by some in harmless mirth, by others in religious exercises. Many churches in England have late services, which close at midnight with a carol or...
Before the advent of Christmas the Bellman, or Watchman, left at each house a copy of verses ostensibly breathing good-will and a happy Christmas to the occupants, but in reality a...
Christmas Eve is especially the time for decorating houses and churches with evergreens, a custom which seems to have come from heathen times; at least, no one seems to know when i...
We have seen in the account of historic Christ-tides how a Lord of Misrule was nominated to amuse Edward VI., and with what honour he was received at the Mansion house. The popular...
As soon as the Puritans became at all powerful, their iconoclastic zeal naturally attacked Christmas, and the Scotchmen, such as Baillie, Rutherford, Gillespie, and Henderson, in t...
This is rather sorry stuff; but then in purely rural places, untouched by that great civiliser, the railroad, a little wit goes a great way, as we may see by the following story to...
And this was the general feeling. Parliament might sit, as we learn by The Kingdome's Weekly Intelligencer, No. 152: Thursday, December 25, vulgarly known by the name of Christmas...
As these old customs are fast dying out, and should be chronicled, I must be pardoned if I give another and very similar illustration of how Christmas eve was spent in North Notts...
We take it for granted that in the old times, when Christ-tide was considered so great a festival as to be accorded a Novena--that it began on the 16th December, when, according to...
There was a curious tradition in the north of England, which is practically done away with in these days of lucifer matches. In the old days of tinder boxes, if any one failed to g...
Bishop Jeremy Taylor very appropriately said that the first Christmas carol was sung by the angels at the Nativity of our Saviour--GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST, AND ON EARTH PEACE,...
Time's Telescope (1824, p. 297) notes that in Cumberland, and in all the great towns in the north of England, about a week before Christmas, what are called Honey fairs were held,...
On the day succeeding Christmas day the Church commemorates the death of the proto-martyr Stephen, and in honour of this festival the following carol is sung:-- In friendly Love an...
Here Christ-tide ought to end, and men and women should have returned to their ordinary avocations, but the long holiday demoralised them; and although the women were supposed to s...
In 1570 was published The Popish Kingdome, or, Reigne of Antichrist, written in Latin Verse by Thomas Naogeorgus (Kirchmayer) and englished by Barnabe Googe, and in it we have some...
But another sovereign had a great deal to do with Twelfth day, The King of the Bean, who takes his title from a bean, or a silver penny, baked in a cake, which is cut up and distri...
These Christmas revelries were sometimes carried to excess, and needed curbing with the strong hand of the law, an early instance of which we find in Letter Book I. of the Corporat...
The presentation of gifts on Christmas day was an English custom of very great antiquity; so great that, in 1419, the practice had become much corrupted, and the abuse had to be st...
The 27th December is set apart by the Church to commemorate St. John the Evangelist. Googe, in his translation of Naogeorgus, says:-- Next John the sonne of Zebedee hath his appoyn...
If any exception can be taken to Christ-tide in England, it is to the enormous amount of flesh, fowl, etc., consumed. To a sensitive mind, the butchers' shops, gorged with the fles...
There is a peculiar feeling of satisfaction that comes over us with the advent of the New Year. The Old Year, with its joys and sorrows, its gains and disappointments, is irrevocab...
The 5th of January is the eve of the Epiphany, and the Vigil of Twelfth day, which used to be celebrated by the liberal use of the customary wassail bowl. In the Gentleman's Magazi...
The literature specially designed nowadays for Christmas reading is certainly not of a high order, whether we take books--which are issued at this time by the hundred--or the speci...