A Colonial Christmas, Feast and Customs, by Diane Scott Lewis

For years I lived near the historic town of Fredericksburg, Virginia, named after the then Prince of Wales, Frederick Louis, father of George III. Poor Fred never did become king.

Fredericksburg was an important tobacco-shipping town on the Rappahannock River. I decided to write a Christmas story set during the dawn of the American Revolution, when Virginia, at the time of my story, was still part of England. Researching in the Virginiana Room at the local library, I came across many interesting Christmas customs from this time period—but I found that many originated from earlier eras before Christianity.

In the eighteenth century, the cooking would have been performed in a broad, deep hearth, with a wide chimney where meat could be smoked. Ham, an expensive cut of meat, was popular for a holiday feast.

On December 12th, the Yule Log would be put into the dining room fireplace. This log was kept burning until January sixth, with enough left over to kindle the following year’s Yule Log. The custom of burning the Yule Log dates back before medieval times and was originally a Nordic tradition left over from the pagan days of celebrating the Winter Solstice.

Mince pies were prepared, basically as they are today. But also a specialty called a "stack" cake would be served.

Sweetened, spiced dough was rolled into thin layers, and slices cut using a dinner plate to form a perfect circle. After baking, the cake rose but little. The colonials cooked dried apples and peaches separately, then spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg the fruit was mashed and spread like paste between the cake layers. The cake would be allowed to sit a few days to soak up the fruit.

Another cake would be prepared with a bean baked into one slice. The person who got that particular slice became the King of Misrule. He would rule from Christmas day to Twelfth Night, performing various trifling acts to ensure good weather for the next year. He’d also preside over celebrations, and sometimes cause mischief. This custom can be traced back to ancient Rome, when the King (or Lord) of Misrule was appointed for the feast of Saturnalia, and he represented the good god Saturn. During this time the ordinary rules of life were reversed as masters served their slaves.

Back to the eighteenth century, for holiday decoration, a Christmas Bush would be fashioned using two wooden rings. Binding the rings side by side, fresh cuttings of evergreen, boxwood and sweet William were added. Bright red apples, some rare lemons and pine cones were included for color.

On Christmas day, after dark, the bush was hung in the window with a candle at its center.

For a table centerpiece, a wooden cone adorned with headless nails was speared with apples. Boxwood was stuffed around the apples, and a pineapple put on the top.

On Christmas morning, the people attended church service. Returning to their residence, the home’s owner would enter the house with two sprigs of holly, thus ensuring he would remain master of his house for the coming year.

Then the meal would be laid out for family and friends who might drop by. A punchbowl filled with tea, sugar, pineapple juice and rum was placed next to the centerpiece. As well as the punch, another popular drink was "bumbo" made with rum and sweetened water.

Dried figs and nuts were available to snack on. The ham, smoking for hours, was brought out surrounded by sweet yams. Two roasted fowl would be added to the meat choices. The bread was usually cornbread, served with a hunk of butter.

Muskets and pistols would be fired outside to augment the Christmas festivity.

Celebrations and church attendance on specific days would last until Twelfth Night. This tradition marks the feast of Epiphany, when the three wise men brought gifts to the baby Jesus.

Sources: Wikipedia and the Virginiana Room at the Rappahannock Regional Library, Fredericksburg, Virginia.
And the Williamsburg Marketplace

For more information on my eighteenth-century novels, visit my website:

http://www.dianescottlewis.org

A Passion for Reading by Victoria Chatham

With Christmas just days away, I'm hoping that among my gifts, if I'm lucky enough to receive any, will be a book. A real book. 

Yes, I have a Kindle and a tablet and buy ebooks from Amazon, but I love the lure of real books, the flow of words, the feel and smell of old paper. As Helene Hanff says in 84 Charing Cross Road: ‘I’m almost afraid to handle such soft vellum and heavy cream-colored pages. Being used to the dead-white paper and stiff cardboardy covers of American books, I never knew a book could be such a joy to touch’. I adore the sensory perception instilled by such writers as Anita Diamant (The Red Tent) who describes Rachel as ‘smelling like water’ and in Marek Halter’s Sarah, the first book in his Canaan Trilogy, ‘Abram smiled and the wings of his beautiful lips seemed to fly away’. In The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini describes how ‘suddenly, just like that, hope became knowledge’.

Along with a passion for words comes a passion for dictionaries and Thesauri, books on writing and grammar. And, for those of you who may suspect otherwise, I do have a sense of humor! My favorite grammar book is a saucy little number by Laurie Rozakis, The Comma Sutra, whose first chapter on the vagaries of the English language is entitled ‘How We Got Into This Mess’.

There are books, books and more books and never enough time to read them all. But read I must. The authors I read and reread spill from my bookshelves onto piles on the floor beside the shelves, are stacked on and under my coffee tables and nightstand, beside me on my bed and tucked behind the cushion in my chair.

As children, my cousins and I all had the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic instilled in us before we marched up the steps of the school we all attended. Ahead of our time, we were separated in class because, bored mindless with the inanity of A is for Apple, we became recognized troublemakers. But books kept us quiet, and we were given books in plenty to read quietly to ourselves.

The first book I remember being given as a birthday present was Alison Uttley’s Little Grey Rabbit. Then along came Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit. The children’s classics: Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass followed when I was five, Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty when I was six and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island when I was seven. Am I blessed with a brilliant memory? Sometimes. But now, more years later than I care to admit, I still have these books with loving inscriptions from my parents.

When I turned eight years old there was a big jump in my reading material with titles that would probably be quite alien to eight year olds today. R.D Blackmore’s Lorna Doone, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, W.H Ainsworth’s Windsor Castle and Charles Kingsley’s Westward Ho! As a teenager my school reading included D.H. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Frank T. Bullen’s The Cruise of the Cachalot (about sperm whales) and, of course, William Shakespeare and Jane Austen. Following in my father’s footsteps I read Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories and The Jungle Book, also Stalky & Co and Soldiers Three and a personal favorite Thy Servant, A Dog.

Somewhere in my thirteenth year I discovered romance, particularly Regency historical romance and became a lifelong fan of Georgette Heyer. I still have my first edition copy of Frederica, which I read at least once a year and still find as fresh and as funny as the first time I read it. And there have been many, many first reads – too many to recount here. Books that I have loved and lost have come back to me via searches on www.alibris.com and www.abebooks.com. I’ll sometimes take a day and browse used bookstores – although this is dangerous territory for me as I’ll more likely not find what I am looking for but come home with new and exciting treasures.

There are books, books and more books and never enough time to read them all. But read I must. The authors I read and reread spill from my bookshelves onto piles on the floor beside the shelves, are stacked on and under my coffee tables and nightstand, beside me on my bed and tucked behind the cushion in my chair. My tastes these days are many and varied but this world, for all the technology available to us today, would be a much poorer place without the rich heritage we have of books, of the joy of language and the sheer pleasure to be found in the reading before we ever begin the writing.

To find out if Victoria receives a book for Christmas check out these links:

www.bookswelove.com/chatham.php
www.victoriachatham.webs.com
www.amazon.com/author/victoriachatham
www.facebook.com/AuthorVictoriaChatham

Books We Love Saves Christmas

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