The Warner weekly sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1885, 1884-12-19
Christmas Customs.

Christmas Customs.
Christmas is a festival that seems to
be more particularly the property OF
children than any other; notthat every
body does not join in the celebration
with all their hearts, but hat children,
in honor perhaps of Him who became a
child, are given the chief part in its
pleasures.
In Cornwall on Christmas eve, the
children are all allowed to sit up till
midnight, and to have a taste of cider,
too; and in Devonshire they go, with
their father and all the family and
friends, out in the orchard with cider
and a caEe, placing the latter in the
crotch of one of the branches, and
throwing the other over the tree. This
is evidently the relic of an old pagan
rite, bearing every appearance of the
ancient sacrifice, a sacrifice to propitiate
the tree to continue its fruitfulness, al.
though, why it should be offered on
Christmas eve is not explained.
Indeed, there are many heather Gus.
toms that have been grated upon oui
way of keeping Christmas. This win
be understood when it is remembered
that the early Christian fathers found
80.
it hard to keep their focks from join.
ing in the Pagan ceremonies at times OF
good feeling and iollity. They there.
fore wisely made their own ceremonies
conform to the same occasion, so that il
their people must celebrate, they could
be celebrating Christian facts. Thus
the old Roman Saturnalia, a time of
great merry making, to speak mildly,
coming at this season of the year. the
early fathers thought best to harmon.
ize it with their Christmas festl titles.
From the S~aturnalia are descended
the "Mummers," a band of people who
go about in masks, in England, and en-
act some rude play before the doors.
Whatever this play was in the days OF
the Saturnalia. in the Christian days il
has usually been the story of st. George
and the Dragon,-old Father Christ
mas, crowned with holly and carrying a
wassail bowl, introducing st. George, 0
Turkish knight, a huge scaly dragon,
and a doctor to bind up the wounds; to
all OF whom the children at the window
are delighted to throw their half-pen.
mics.
Again in Great Britain the priests oil
the new religion borrowed from the
Druids, for their Christmas use, the
observance of the winter solstice with
great solemnity, and allowed also some
of the customs of the ancient Saxons to
be absorbed. Thus from the Druids
we have the mistletoe. and from the
Saxons the Yule log.
There is cheer snd hospitality about
the Yule log which it warns one TO
think of. In the places where such q
thing is really burned, When it is cut
and dragged along to be placed on the
hearth, and lighted from the emb-rs OF
last years log, put away for that pur.
pose, every wayfarer raises his hat to il
it goes along. il means SO much.
From what the Watts another ac-
compartment of Christmas, dear tc
English children, have descended is
not certainly ascertained; but there was
) C company of Waits 81 early as the
year 400, and it is understood that
they were then strolling players on
hautboys and other wind instruments
and that is all they are to-day.
The one purely Christian observance
in all these glad, gay ceremonies is the
Carols The singers have a pictur.
sequences as the glimmer of their Lam
iAsmines them by fits and starts
in the darkness on the snow, and then
have q sweetness half stolen from
songs. The Carols" are sung
now all i've the European continent,
and in England usually by a portion oil
the church choir on Christmas ewes, and
often on Christmas mornings, by GER
tain of the children of the parish. LIN
the early ages the bishops sang them
among their clergy.
In all these things childrc1 have their
share, being the principal ones to enjoy
them; while with the "Mummers" a lit
lie girl goes, having no other part than
that of carrying a branch Of Christmas
green. The Christmas.trec, which is
The most positive feature of children's
Christmas nowadays, was not much
if at all, among the English
speaking children till after the good
Prince Albert came to England.
The very fact that Christmas means a
celebrating the day of Christ's birth
gives children an especial claim upon
;he day which belongs to the Holy Child,
md one of the appellations of whose
saint IS Kriss Kringle, which
means the Christ Child.