The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1873-12-25
THE PRESS.
THURSDAY MORNING, DEC. s5. 1878

Il IL II t. III Eoo.
THURSDAY MORNING, DEC. s5. 1878
Christmas Gossip and Gleanings
"A Merry, Merry Christmas to you ALL"
Christmas is emphatically the children's
| festival.
Christmas decorations are borrowed from
Druid practices.
In England Christmas is at once a religious
domestic and merry-making festival that is
observed by persons of all ages and ranks.
Chrysostom calls Christmas ''the most ven-
cradle and tremendous of all festivals, the
metropolis and mother of ALL"
The Italians have a proverb: "He has
more business than English ovens at Christ
mas"
Jeremy Taylor said that the first Christmas
carol was the song of the angels Oh the birth
of the Saviour
The Duke of Norfolk, who fourished be-
tween 164S and 1879, usually spent twenty
thousand pounds sterling annually in keeping
Chsistmas.
In old times the revels begun on Christmas
Eve were continued often until Candlemas,
early in February. every day being holiday
till Twelfth Night, January6 6.
Christmas is indeed the season of regener- |
ated feeling-the season for kindling, not |
merely the fire of hospitality and love in the |
hall, but the genial fame of charity in the |
heart.
Many worthy old Puritan carried his |
zeal against the social observances of Christ |
mas to such an extent as to refuse to touch |
mince-pie, which was one of the great dishes |
of the time.
Christmas should be emphatically the sea-
son of gladness. In every heart let there be
peace and love, and over all the bright blue
heaven of hope, radent with the golden sun
shine of happiness.
In rude times Christmas has had the |
power to mitigate the ferocities of war. Dur
ing the seige of Orleans, in 1923, the French |
granted the request Of their English enc
mics to allow them to observe Christmas.
In the sixteenth century, Christmas festivi-
ties were carried to their height in England. |
Those who could afford it, had a dinner laid |
out with great pomp, which was served while |
bands discussing music and masqueraders en-
tertained the company.
One of the most charming features of Eng
lish life is the humane and hallowed joy that
invests the Christmas-time. All the latent |
charities, ,courtesiesand amenities of the peo-
pie flower out then, and turn the midwinter
into the summer Of social feeling, ,benevolence
and genial pety.
A quaint conceit of an old chronicler: |
''Every holly bough and lump of berries with
which you adorn your houses is an act of nat
ural piety as well as beauty, and will enable
you in Summer days to relish that green
world of which you show yourselves not un-
worthy"
The Yule-Tide is here again, and instinct
lively our hearts yearn for him whose ashes
lie in the Poets Corner of Westminster Alb
bey; whose memory is Christmas benedic-
tion to the whole English-speaking world.
and whose immortal spirit has gone to join
mayhap, the angelic host of Bob Cratchits
and Tiny Tim in the Yule-Tide on high.
Leigh Hunt says that volumes can be pen
ned on some of the separate items Of Christ
mas association, beginning with "roast beef
and plum pudding" and ending, characters
tically with love, hope, charity and endeav-
or;" concerning which he exclaims, "Esto
perpetua, and plum-pudding enough by and
by all the year round for everybody that likes
it?"
II is practice worthy of our English an
cestors, to fill their houses at Christmas with
their relations and friends; that, when Ma
ture was frozen and dreary out of doors,
something might he found within doors, "to
keep the pulses of their hearts in the proper
notion The custom, however, is only ap
propriate among people who happen to have
hearts.
According TO an old German custom, still
observed in some villages, the presents made
by all the parents were sent to some one per-
son. who, in high buskins, white robe, a
mask, and an enormous fax wig, becoming
the bugbear of children, known as ''Knecht
Rupert" goes from house to house, is re-
ceived by the parents with great pomp and
reverence, calls for the children, and bestows
the intended gifts upon them according 10
the character which he hears from the par
ents after severe inquiries.
The common custom of decking the houses
and churches at Christmas with evergreens is
derived from ancie mt Druid practices. 1t was
an old belief that sylvan spirits might flock TO
the evergreens, and remain unIipped by frost
| till milder season. The holly, ivy, rosema-
| ry, bays, laurel and mstletoe, furnished the
favorite trimmings, which were not removed
| till Candlemas. Holly and ivy still remain in
| England the most esteemed Christmas ever
| greens, though at the two universities the
windows of the college chapels are decked
| with laurel.
Farm and Garden.