In 1888, The Book of Christmas was published, a lesser known work of a lesser known poet and critic, Thomas Kibble Hervey. The book was Hervey’s effort to offer a description “of the customs, ceremonies, traditions, superstitions, fun, feeling, and festivities of the Christmas season” in late Victorian England. Though I have generally been loath to give anything but a strictly religious thought for the Advent season, my love of the Victorian era is winning out over my disdain for Christmas this year. For the next couple of weeks, I would like to walk hand-in-hand with Hervey through the Victorian season of winter festivities, offering quotes, facts, and comments along the way. It’s the closest I’m likely to come to holiday mirth and merriment at this time of year; perhaps it can add a little historical color to your festivities as well.
“And now has arrived the great and important day itself which gives its title to the whole of this happy season, and the high and blessed work of man’s redemption is begun.” Though he declines to spend much time discussing it in detail, Christmas is for Hervey still basically a religious holiday, a celebration of the nativity of Jesus. It is also a day of tremendous community, when:
the streets of the city and the thousand pathways of the country are crowded on this morning by rich and poor, young and old, coming in on all sides, gathering from all quarters, to hear the particulars of the “glad tidings” proclaimed; and each lofty cathedral and lowly village church sends up a voice to join the mighty chorus whose glad burthen is — ” Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
With these religious duties out of the way, however, the rest of the day turns to more “secular observances.” Hervey takes these in the order in which they should occur. The first priority (once Jesus is dealt with) is Christmas dinner, the centerpiece of which is the plum pudding–“a truly national dish [that] refuses to flourish outside of England.” Victorians apparently had one pudding tradition that has flourished beyond their national border and that continues on in almost unchanged form to this very day: freaking out that nothing is going to be done cooking on time.
“Oh! Molly Dumpling! oh! thou cook!” if that clock of thine be right, thou art far behindhand with thy work! Thou shouldst have risen when thou wast disturbed by the Waits at three o’clock this morning! To have discharged thy duty faithfully, thou shouldst have consigned that huge pudding at least two hours earlier to the reeking caldron! We are informed by those who understand such matters, that a plum pudding of the ordinary size requires from ten to twelve hours boiling: so that a pudding calculated for the appetites of such a party…should have found its way into the boiler certainly before six o’clock.
Poor, Molly. We’ve all been there, but Hervey offers her only a few lines of cook-shaming poem–including this gem: “The pewter still to scow’r and the house to clean, and you abed! good girls what is ‘t you mean?” Then he moves on.
While the “good girls” are cleaning the house and fretting over the pudding, good boys take of the next Christmas tradition, giving back to others. In ancient days, this benevolence consisted of hospitality–inviting others into your home for the feast–and the giving of alms. But Victorian benevolence took on a much grander form, motivated as it was by a Christian doctrines that “contain the principles of all true civilization.” Christianity had come “in gentleness and lowliness and the spirit of peace” so that now it might wield “the civilized energies of the greatest of all the nations to the beneficent extension of its authority–imperishable in its glory and bloodless in its triumphs!” (Remember to say a word about the British empire when you give thanks for your Christmas dinner this year.)
With good works done, the night sees the culmination of Christmas revelries, “the blazing fire, the song, the dance, the riddle, the jest, and many another merry sport.” Not to mention, at least, the meal. Good wishes will be exchanged around and with the liberal aid of yet another wassail bowl. “Mischief will be committed under the mistletoe-bough.” (Hooray!) All in all, not a bad way to observe the holiday, as long as we don’t count the Boer Wars as a Christmas tradition.
The Itinerant Mind 