The Christmas Tree was first brought into England by Prince Albert husband of Queen Victoria, in 1841, for his wife and family this was decorated with candles and fruit, this soon became a popular addition to households across England.
Most homes also had the Advent Wreath, which had four candles the wreath was made with holly. The first candle was lit on first Sunday of advent the subsequent candles lit the following three weeks till Christmas, the candles symbolized faith joy love, and peace.
Boxing Day the originated in England in which the churches would open their alms boxes and distribute money to the poor so they could also share in the Christmas cheer, this was changed later to when apprentices and assistants would visit their employers customers asking for small tips in return for their services.
First footing another tradition, which means that the first person to enters your house lets Christmas in, there are variations of this tradition based mainly on New Year.
Food as always plays a huge part in festivities again traditionally Roast Beef was the meal of choice in Northern England and in Southern England it was Goose, the lower classes most who did'nt have ovens used local bakeries to roast their meats for a small fee, again in the 1800 Turkey was introduced, this then became the traditional Christmas dinner. dinner ws a grand affair depending on your class, with the higher classes feasting on Soup Roast Turkey vegetables sweetbreads(a type of offal) ending with fruits nuts and plum pudding.
Although Christmas pudding had been around for quite some time well from the 14th Century, it was a porridge type concoction made with boiled beef and mutton with raisons prunes and wine added for flavour these were usually made weeks in advance, each member of the household had to come and stir the pudding and make a wish, it was during the 1600's the the recipe changed adding eggs and breadcrumbs, a silver coin was added along with a ring button and thimble, the finders of these items, hopefully with teeth intact would have great wealth(coin) marry within the year(ring) or end up old maids or batchelors (thimble and button). When I was a kid there was always a sixpence added.
On looking this information up i came across a stroty of St Nicholas, who was in fact a Bishop from Turkey and the story goes that in his parish there were three sisters of marriagable age, but couldn't marry because they had no dowry, because he had to give up his wordly possesions to become a Bishop he took three bags of gold and dropped them down the chimmney into their stockings, the father caught him but he was sworn to secrecy, however within days the entire village had heard about the gifts, how accurate this is I don't know but it's in the spirit of giving.
7 comments:
That is so interesting. I looked up St. Nick the other day too. He was the third most admired person next to Jospeh and Mary. It is so neat how these stories come to life. :)
http://journals.aol.com/lattedah711/lattedah/ Tracy
I love history! thanks for this.
Traci
Very interesting Yasmin ,I love all these traditions ,...love Jan xx
Thanks for the information Yasmin, some eye-openers there
So nice to read of Christmas traditions. Thank you for your good wishes. Hope to be back in the chat room soon. Hugs xx
Hi Yasmin. I met you in the chat room. I'm enjoying reading your journal and getting to know you a little bit.
Hope you have a good weekend.
Pam
Hi Jasmin, great entry very interesting hope we never loose those traditions. Love Joan.
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