8 Things You Didn’t Know About a Colonial Christmas

"All over the Colony, an universal Hospitality reigns, full Tables and open Doors, the kind Salute, the generous Detention.... Strangers are fought after with Greediness, as they pass the Country, to be invited." ~The London Magazine 1746

Recreation of Christmas feast at Colonial Williamsburg, The Barraud House Image via Williamsburg Christmas

The 12 days between Christmas to Twelfth Night was the height of the social season in the Southern colonies. Traveling was manageable with the mild weather and the wealthy used this period of agricultural downtime to go visiting. These 12 days were a culminating celebration of the year succeeding the Anglican Advent season, which was a time of penitence, fasting, and reflection in expectation for the coming of Christ.

Hostess vied with each other to throw lavish fetes with abundant feasts, dancing, and musical entertainments. Weddings were particularly common during the Christmas season. In fact, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both married during the season.

These parties were largely adult affairs with children only peripherally involved. Christmas during the 18th century was not centered around creating a "magical" season for children as it is today. That was a Victorian era development.

A groaning board with an abundant variety of foods artfully and symmetrically arranged was the focal point of the feast for those in the upper echelons of society. Hostesses took great care in planning the menus and overseeing the presentation of the meal.

The Georgian table could not escape the period's adoration for symmetry, and the table would have been laid à la française with the first course carefully positioned on the table when guests sat down to eat. This course consisted of meat and vegetables, a second course of meat and vegetables followed, and then one or two courses of desserts.

Jelly or Ice Glass Dessert Stand circa 1725-1750. Image via Toledo Museum of Art

The table would have been laid with a fine linen cloth for the first two courses and then left bare for the dessert courses. Sitting pretty in the center would have been an elaborate dessert pyramid of stacked fruit, cakes, cookies, or sweetmeats (candy). Flowers on the table were more of the edible variety and not arranged as centerpieces. Often an epergne or stack of glass salvers would have been used to serve and show off the desserts.

Popular foods for the feasting include meats common to the colonies, particularly turkey, beef, duck, ham, venison, and seafood. Mince pies, a traditional Medieval dish, carried into the New World would have been seen on many a table, and by 1796 special cookies baked and decorated just for Christmas were in vogue.

The Twelfth cake held special sway and was part of the Twelfth Night celebrations which occurred on January 5th. Twelfth Night was often a more festive occasion than Christmas day. The cake ingredients varied but most resembled a fruit cake. The cake involved a special ritual with tickets or figurines baked inside or drawn from a hat, which designated a king and queen as well as other Christmas characters for next year's celebrations.

English broadside from 1794 shows a gathering around the Twelfth Night cake with the woman in front drawing her ticket from the hat. Image via Colonial Williamsburg

The pressure on women to decorate for Christmas runs deep y'all! As this line from 16th century poet Thomas Tusser attests.

Swaging garlands, arranging holly, and hanging kissing balls has long been a seasonal tradition of dreary winter days. Ivy, bay, holly, laurel, mistletoe, and evergreen's cheery green hues have herald hope and symbolized eternal life in connection to Jesus' birth at least since the Middle Ages when Church records show yearly purchases of greenery for Christmas.

In Colonial America this tradition continued with colonists finding new greenery to gather from magnolia to mountain laurel and new varieties of pine. In homes, greenery was strung across mantels and down banisters and frequently placed in windows. As several 18th century prints show holly or ivy was often wedged into the wooden muntins of each windowpane.

Christmas in the Country 1791 Bentley & Co. Image via Colonial Williamsburg

Kissing balls were popular by the middle of the century and often rather elaborate displays with two or four crossed hoops wrapped with greenery and strung with apples, oranges, colored ribbon, and paper flowers. Mistletoe, too, was gathered and strung up for this purpose.

'Christmas Eve at Mr Wardle’s’, an illustration by ‘Phiz’ (Hablot Knight Browne) for Charles Dickens’s ‘Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club’, originally published in London, 1836–7, Image via English Heritage

Fresh fruit would have been available in many regions of the 13 Colonies to those who could afford it as merchants imported pineapples from the Bahamas and citrus from Antiqua, Barbados, Jamaica, etc. Apples and cranberries from New England were also plentiful. Ingenious ways of packing and preserving it between layers of moss, ashes, or straw meant it could be kept fresh for travel.

Garden books of the period also attest to the use of "everlastings," which were preserved floral arrangements sometimes dyed and arranged in vases and urns filled with sand. Globe amaranth, purple-cupped sea lavender, hydrangea, rosemary, pearly everlastings, and strawflowers were commonly harvested, dried, and used to decorate the house and bring in sweet smells.

The exchange and opening of gifts on Christmas day was not an established custom during the 18th century. Instead many families practiced a top down system of tipping wherein masters and mistresses gave gifts of food, coin, drink, and other necessities to their servants, slaves, apprentices, and other dependents. These gifts were known as the 'Christmas box.'

By the end of the century it was more common to give gifts to children, and one of the most popular gifts was books.

A Central European tradition probably brought over by Moravians who establish communities in Pennsylvania and North Carolina erected communal and private nativity scenes flanked by faux pyramid like trees decorated with candles, fruit, and sweets.

The portrayal of the Nativity was a common Christmas tradition in Catholic countries with the oldest known instance occurring in 1223 with Francis of Assisi who directed a "living" scene with real people and animals. Hand crafted nativity scenes were also popular in German areas.

The Moravian Putz tradition continues today, and you can tour the Putzes erected in the community of Bethlehem.

Several Ancient Saturnalia like traditions transformed and popularized in the Medieval period continued into the 18th century, including topsy-turvy rituals that involved the reversal of master/subordinate roles. Feasts of Fools, Lords of Misrule, and masquerades were possible forms of Christmas entertainment that subverted the hierarchy for all or part of the twelve days of Christmas.

Mummers Robert Seymour’s “Book of Christmas” illustrations (1836) Image via 18C Colonial & Early American Women

Mumming was a form of pageantry dating from the Medieval period engaged in by both royal courts and commoners albeit on very different scales. The basic tradition was to dress in costume and parade door to door banging pots, playing instruments, and singing. Each household was pressed to give food and drink, join in the revelry, and try to guess the true identities of the costumed mummers.

Mumming and other forms of topsy-turvy took place in Colonial America to varying degrees. Records of John Canoeing occurred in slave holding colonies where slaves paraded house to house in masks singing and dancing in return for money or treats. As different cultures mixed in the colonies a lack of understanding of the "rules" of topsy-turvy sometimes led these events to get out of hand and result in robbery or rowdy disturbances.

Here we come a-wassailing

Among the leaves so green;

Here we come a-wandering

So fair to be seen,

Love and joy come to you

And to you your wassail too;

And God bless you and send you

A Happy New Year

It is likely that wassailing grew out of a toasting tradition drinking to one another's health. The word comes from the Anglo-Saxon word "Waes hael" meaning "Good Health!" wherein a communal bowl of mulled wine or mead was passed around.

By the 15th century, wassailing moved out of doors with celebrants carrying a cup around the village offering toasts in exchange for food, drink, or money. Some accounts also describe the tradition in rural areas as a toast or blessing drank to the orchards and livestock.

1708 Delftware Wassail Bowl Image via Library of the University of Wisconsin-Madison

By the 18th century, wassailing was intermixed with caroling in many areas and singers usually went out on New Years or Twelfth Night. Some groups brought their own wassail and for a fee shared it with the house. Special bowls for wassail were even created to serve this specialty cocktail.