Radio Script #245
Little Talks On Common Things
December 19, 1954
Here we are again in the hal iday season, and this is the seventh annual Chri stmas broadcast on th i s program.
Let me ask you first if you have seen Phi 10 Calhoun’s splendid edition of Dickens’ Christmas Carol, published this fall by the Colby College Press. A life-long student of Dickens and an ardent collector of everything by and about that author, Mr. Calhoun has given us a marvelously unified wording of the carol with all the essential facts retained, but with enough of the long original 0- mitted so that the result is a story that can be read at one sitting, and conveniently read aloud on Christmas afternoon. This edition is, in fact, the best yet produced for reading the famous story aloud.
How did we get the custom of kissing under the mistletoe? Like several other customs connected wi th Chri stmas, th i s one seems to have come down from ancient pagan times. For some reason mistletoe was honored by those religious folk who erected the mysterious monoliths at Stonehenge, the Druids. Legend has it that, at the time of the winter solstice, which is approximately the time of our Christmas, mistletoe was gathered from the sacred oaks to which it clung and a lucky sprig given to every member of the tribe.
It was the Scandinavians, the old Norsemen, who brought kissing into the picture. They regarded mistletoe as such a symbol of good luck that, if they met an enemy beneath it, they laid down their weapons and embraced him. A branch of mistletoe hanging in a Norse doorway was an invitation to anyone entering to seal friendship with a kiss.
In the Norse legends Frigga, their equivalent for Venus, goddess of love and beauty, exacted a promi se from a II I i vi ng th i ngs not to harm he r son Ba I der.
But she overlooked the mistletoe. Loki, another divinity jealous of Balder, ki lied him with a mistletoe dart. Frigga wept, and her tears turned into pearly white mistletoe berries, which so moved the gods that they restored Balder to life. In gratitude Frigga agreed to bestow a kiss on anyone who passed under the mistletoe. That seems to be how mistletoe got mixed up with kissing.
Most of us know that, over the western world, there are many names for what we cal I Santa Claus, the commonest of which is Saint Nicholas, although at one time Kriss Kringle was a close second. In England he became Father Christmas.
How did the name Santa Claus come about?
Sa i nt Ni cho las was orig ina Ily a 4th century Bi shop of As i a Mi nor, who became the patron saint of maidens, schoolboys, sai lors, and especially little children. Some time after his death, the custom grew up to expect him to reappear in his bishop’s red robe on his saint’s day, December 6. At first he had no reindeer, but just one white horse, on which he carried his big basket of gifts. The Dutch term for st. Nicholas was Sinterklass, and as such the good sa i nt was brought to New Netherlands (the p resent New York) by Peter Stuyvesant and his comrades. In his early years In this country, as in Holland, Santa Claus was expected, not on Christmas Eve, but on his saint’s day. December 6, Kriss Kringle, in Germanic countries, is not St. Nicholas, but the Christ chi Id himself. In parts of Germany and Austria, to this day, the chi Idren receive gifts of cookies and fruit from St. Nicholas on December 6, and more qifts from Kr i ss Kr i ng Ie on Christmas Eve. In Ameri ca the two became merged and Santa Claus for we accepted the Dutch version of the name — appears only on the night of Decembe r 24.
The first Christmas ever observed in New England, perhaps even in the whole western hemi sphere, was ce leb rated in Mai ne. Sixteen years be fore the Pi I gri ms landed at Plymouth Rock and three years before the settlement at Jamestown, Chr i stmas was observed in Ma i ne.
In 1604 the French exp lorer Champ I ai n started a ti ny settlement on what he called the Isle of the Holy Cross, a little island near what is now the town of Calais (in Passamaquoddy Bay). On Christmas morning this little settlement of men, for there were then no women in the colony, assembled in their newly bui It chapel for a brief service. Then they went out to hunt and skate. In the afternoon they had a feast of venison accompanied by a few cherished luxuries long kept for the occasion. When they had eaten all they could, this band of Frenchmen sat back and told stories. Legend has it that much merriment was caused by passing around a humorous diary of the settlement, composed by one of the number. The scanty record mentions no gifts, no Christmas tree, no singing of carols. But the event was indeed New England’s first Christmas.
Devoted pretty much to things of the past, this program can wei 1 afford to mention a phase of Christmas brought to our recollection in the current issue of the magazine Holiday. Accompanying a ful I page colored picture of a tiny American vi Ilage, nestled in a valley among the hi lIs, Holiday gives us that always needed, but too little noticed, message. Here is just a part of that message:
f’Often forgotten in the party rounds of a 1954 Christmas are the old-fash-ioned valley vi I I ages tucked away in America’s rural places. \AJithin them the simple spires of valley churches sti II point the admonitory finger of God biddi ng man to lift hi 5 eyes to the surroundi ng hi lis. These are the vi IIages of the heartland, the homes of the provident, close to the land and its verities, whe re the ant i c cr i ses of da I I Y head lines are not beyond the strength of thoughtful men, not beyond the patience that comes with faith. Here the sampler framed on the parlor wall means more than all the slogans of all the politi:”,· clans. Here the shotgun used to chase the fox from the henyard has a purpose unknown to the atom bomb. Here work is a fundamenta I of fami Iy existence, and a fami I y we II rai sed is a man’s prime contrfbuti on to his country and his Maker’.’
It is these country vi I I ages , the true backbone of our nation, that remind us at Christmas time of another little village in a distant land In the long ago — a vi lIage that should be the unifying symbol for all the Christian world — “0 Li tt Ie Town of Beth lehem, How Sti II We See Thee Lle tl •
The Christmas feast is a very ancient custom. Christmas Day has been a time for lavish eating for many years. While we aren’t as big eaters as were our grandfathers, many of us can sti II do justice to a big dinner on Christmas, even though it comes only a month after the big Thanksgiving meal. I know that a goodly number of my listeners have been to Williamsburg, Virginia, where John D. Rockefeller, Jr. has restored (at the expense of several million dollars) the old capital town of colonial Virginia. And if you have been to Wi I Hamsburg, you have probab Iy eaten at the KI ng ‘s Arms Tavern, where you were wa’I,ted upon by boys from the College of Wi I II am and Mary in colonial costume, who tied the big, bib-like napkins around your neck, Just as the 18th century servants used to tie them around the necks of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Mrs. Marriner and I had dinner at the King’s Arms with Dr. and Mrs. John Piper on a memorable evening in the spring of 1951.
Well, at the King’s Arms, a lavish Christmas menu sti II prevai Is. Here is the meal that will be served there next Saturday, Christmas Day of 1954. It starts with cranberry shrub, tomato soup, a relish tray, and hot spiced cider.
The main course Is roast turkey accompanied by baked Virginia ham, sweet potato souffle, green beans in butter, creamed onions with peanuts, escalloped oysters, and the King’s Arms famous Sally Lunn.muffins. For dessert there will be plum pudding with brandy hard sauce, fresh layer cake, hot mince pie, eggnog ice cream, greengage ice cream, crackers and blue cheese, assorted nuts, grapes, apples, oranges and demitasse.
In old England the Christmas feasts long ago were certainly grand affairs.
As one wri te r puts It, “I n Eng I and’s ear Ii er ti mes there we re feas ti ng and pageantry so magnificent at Christmas that not even Hoi Iywood, In its grandest moments, has been able to capture the grandeur of those occasions. The great moment was, of course, the entrance of the liveried procession which brought in the boar’s head garlanded with bay and rosemary, with a rosy apple in his mouth.
I twas ca rr i ed a loft on. a great platte r to the accompan i ment of harps and s i ngIng of carols.”
At one great feudal feast in Norman England the principal dish consisted of 104 roast peacocks, borne along in single fi Ie by 104 servants escorted by minstrels, candle bearers and baying hounds. Each peacock had been stuffed with spices and herbs, its beak gi Ided, and its tal I feathers fanned out to their fu II spread.
Another English nobleman decided to outdo his rival lords with a memorable Christmas pie. Under a mounta i nous crust were p I aced a dozen geese, two dozen rabbits, twenty wi Id duck, and more than a hundred woodcock1 partridge, pigeons and blackbirds. Baked over a huge open fire, the big pie could be brought Into the banquet hall only on a huge cart especially bui It to carry it.
Everywhere that Christmas is celebrated, in spite of the changes In customs brought by the passing of time, the day brings good things to eat, whether the American turkey, the British plum pudding, the German Baumkuche, the Swedish Julgrlt, or the Italian Capitoni. Christmas is a time of good eating.
It is interesting to note how Christmas Day was spent In Watervi lie and Winslow exactly 200 years ago, on December 25, 1754. Fort Hali fax had been completed as a protection to the settlers on September 3. On November 6 a messenger was sped from the Fort to Governor Shirley in Boston, informing him that the I nd i ans had attacked a party from the fort, wh i Ie they were engaged in hau ling logs, had ki I led and scalped one soldier and had captured four others.Coming so soon after the treaties which Shirley’s emissaries had made with the Indians, this raid was viewed as the possible beginning of another dreaded Indian war. The tension was not lightened by further news that 500 French and Indians were gatheri ng at Quebec and were prepar i ng to make a furi ous assau It on Fort Ha I i fax.
The governor at once sent to Fort Ha I i fax a re-enforcement of 600 men with mortar guns. Many fami lies left their cabins and, with their cattle and pigs, took refuge within the palisade of the fort. As a result Christmas Day of 1754 was spent by the few settlers on both sides of the Kennebec at Ticonic Falls in anxious waiting for the expected onslaught of French and Indians. The attack fortunately did not come, but it is well for us to remember that Christmas Day for our forefathers on the Kennebec 200 years ago was not a day of feasti ng and carol singing, but a day of fear and dread.
As I have done in each of these seven years, I like to close th Is broadcast with a reminder of what Christmas really means. In spite of its feasting and gift-giving, in spite of the mad commercializing of its season, in spite of its revelry and vulgarity, the true significance of Christmas is not entirely lost.
The church services — the special music in the Protestant communions and the beautiful midnight mass in the Catholic churches — are sti I I emphasized. The familiar carols heard all through the holiday season remind us that the day celebrates a birth. And I don’t care what your religious belief may be, you have reaped a lot of benefit from that birth. That you can live in peace with your neighbors, that you can travel without hindrance from place to place) that your chi Idren can go to school, and that you yourself can be recognized as a person, not as a mere impersonal tool of the state, you owe to Christianity.
And Christi an i ty began ·.a I most two thousand years ago when humb Ie shepherds came down out of the hi I Is to 8eth lehem to I ay the i r gi fts at the manger bedside of Him whose birthday we ei:ther honor in reverence or desecrate in revelry next Saturday. Wh i ch way do you look at it? What is Ch ri stmas to you? The choice is entirely yours.
Year: 1954