Radio Script #285
Little Talks on Common Things
December 25, 1955
Everyone’s thought today has centered on one thing — Christmas. But it was not always so. We do not have to go back to the strict Puritan days to find a time when events drove from people’s minds the home gatherings and the gift sharings of Christmas. Only a dozen years ago many a home thought of some on the Anzio beachhead or the Pacific islands, and some of the homes had to face the memory of sons who would never return.
So it was, when a copy of an old atlas recently came into my hands. containing among other things, a detai led chronology of what the atlas cal led the Great Rebellion, I had the curiosity to seek what that chronology said about each successive Christmas during the Civi I War. This particular atlas was a big folio volume, published in New York in 1867, on I y two years after the conf Ii ct ended. The ti tie reads, lIJ ohnson ‘s FamiIy Atlas of the World, A. J. Johnson Publisher, 118 Fulton Street, New York”. It was thus offered to the pub Ii c whi Ie memories of the war were very fresh i ndeed in every reader’s mind. Sma I I wonder that 31 of the big pages, three columns to the page, were devoted to a chronological history of the war. Just before Christmas in 1861, Union forces had succeeded in blockading completely the entrance to the harbor at Charleston, S. C., by sinking seventeen stone vesse I s across the channe I. Concern i ng Decembe r 25 the ch rono logy says: “Christmas Day observed in all the Union camps, such cheer being distributed to the soldiers as was withi n reach.”
In 1862 there is no mention of any observance of Christmas Day_ On December 23 the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, issued a proclamation denouncing the course of Colby graduate General Benjamin Butler at New Orleans, dooming Butler to death if he should be captured, and further ordering that no Union soldier Should be paroled or exchanged unti I Butler had been punished. On that same day, two days before Christmas, Union forces occupied Winchester, Virginia. The chronology’s item for December 25 is: “Glasgow, Kentuckv occupied by the rebels. General Sherman advanced on Vicksburg.”
Again in 1863, nearly six months after the decisive battle of Gettysburg tand only five weeks after Lincoln’s famous address on that dedicated battlefield, the atlas chronology makes no mention of Christmas. Its entry for December 25 says: “She II i ng of Char leston conti nued, ten or twe I ve bui I di ngs destroyed by fire. N
When Christmas came in 1864, Union prospects were considerab Iy brighter. They had reached a low ebb in the previous summer, when even the renomination of Lincoln by his own party, to say nothing of his election against McClel Ian, seemed unlikely. Then the tide turned, so that in November Lincoln was reelected by an overwhelming vote. Before Christmas came in 1864 .. Sherman had burned Atlanta and was demanding the surrender of Savannah. He had made that memorable, devastating march from Atlanta to the sea. Yet, just as in 1862 and 1863, the atlas chronology makes no mention of Christmas. Its item for December 25,. 1864 again refers to Colby graduate General Benjamin Butler. It says:
HGenera I Butler’s troops land near Fort Fisher and engage the enemy.!f When Christmas came in 1865, the war had been over for eight months. On Apri I 9 Lee had surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. On the 15th Lincoln succumbed to the assassin’s buJ let of the previous evening in Ford’s Theater. The last item in the at I as chronology is dated Ap ri I 29, 1865: !IThe arms and mi litary effects of Johnston’s army are given over to the U. S. authorities at Greensboro.
When the calendar proclaimed that the day was December 25, 1865; most of the surviving soldiers of the Union armies had been discharged and were back in thei r homes. Perhaps they told the assemb led fami Iy how the previous Christmas had been spent under fire, with Grant in the wi Iderness or on Sherman’s bloody march to the sea. Some of them had spent that Christmas of 1864 amid the horrors of Andersonvi lie Pri son. But now it was a II over. Chri stmas at home -that was really Christmas again!
How did the custom of Christmas gifts get started? It stems from the very first Christmas, when Jesus was born in the grotto stable in Bethlehem~ and wise men from the East brought gifts to the chi Id in the manger. This is the way the story is told in the Gospel of Matthew: t!Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is he that is born king of the Jews, for we have seen his star in the east and are come to worship him?’ And when they came into the house, they saw the young chi Id with Mary his mother, and they fel I down and worshipped him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh.”
Why these three gifts? Let us see. In the world in which Jesus was born gold was valued as much as it is today, but it was even rarer than now. The golden ornaments which archaeologists find in ancient graves in the East are royal treasures. Common people could not afford even golden wedding rings. We can only speculate where the three magi got their gold. Perhaps from south of Egypt in ancient Nubia, which is now cal led the northern Sudan. Perhaps it came from the Midianite traders, whose camel trains crossed regularly on the old route s’outh and east of the Dead Sea. Perhaps it came from the distant mines at Mysore in India. Anyhow, the wise men offered to the new-born chi Id in the manger the most precious stuff known to the ancient world — gold.
Frankincense is a fragrant resin from a species of the torchwood tree ..which belongs to the same fami Iy as the rare elephant trees found in the Imperial Valley of Cali fornia. In ancient times the trees that yielded the precious frankincense were regarded as so sacred that only a few specially consecrated persons were permitted to approach them. Legend has it that the precious trees were guarded by winged serpents. Frank incense is sti II gathered by the Arabs, near I y 2,000 years after the birth of Jesus. The gatherer cuts a slash in the trunk, much as natives of the Amazon catch sap from the wi Id rubber tree The co Ilected sap is a I lowed to harden for three months. It is then gathered up in lumps and shipped to the nearest port. The I umps are a dusty yellow and have an acrid, bitter taste. But when ignited, they burn with a bright, white flame, and give off a sweet; heavy perfume. In the ancient world whose towns and streets and nomad tents were fi lied with nauseating smells, frankincense was a highly cherished luxury. Next to gold, it was the best gift the wise men could bring. Related to frankincense is the shrub that yields myrrh. It is extracted in much the same way and is also marketed in lumps. But instead of a dusty yellow, I umps of my rrh are redd ish brown. For centur i es be fore the birth of J es us myrrh had been associated with the solemn and the sacred. It was used by the Egyptians in mummifying the dead.
Those were the first recorded Christmas presents — gold, frankincense and myrrh — most precious, most pleas-ing, and most solemn possessions of the anc i ent wor I d • \vhen today we give and rece i ve our Ch r i stmas gifts r i tis worth remembering that this practice of Christmas giving began in veneration and love.
Here are some odds and ends of Christmas facts. Santa Claus, a corruotion of St. Nicholas, did not oriqinate anywhere in Europe, but in Asiatic Turkey. St. Nicholas was a fourth century bishop of Myra in Asia Minor. Jesus had been dead nearly 500 years before the church genera Ily adopted December 25 as his bi rthday and therefore Christmas Day. Hoi Iy is named as a sl ightly changed version of holy, because the plant’s berries ripen about Christmas time. How did the custom of the Christmas tree originate? No one knows for certain, but legend has it that St. Boniface, English missionary to Germany in the 8th century, replaced the sacrifices to Odin’s sacred oak with a fir tree decorated in tri bute to the Ch ri st ch i I d.
On previous Christmas broadcasts of this program I have refe’rred to hON lightly our ancestors a hundred years ago regarded Christmas. On one Christmas Day in the 1840’s Wi Iliam Connor and his crew, with forty yoke of oxen, started for the woods. On another in the 1850’s Wi II iam Bryant drove down to WatervilIe for some shopping, showing thatqthe stores were open on that day. As late as 1870 Massachusetts law permitted the discharge of workmen who refused to work on Christmas Day. How did al I that come about? We know that in Eng/and of Shakespeare’s time Christmas was a merry festival, and to the early Jamestown colony in Virginia, John Smith and his fellow settlers brought the custom of Christmas observance.
But the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock and the settlers at Boston were of a different breed. They were Puritans, haters of all frivolity and gaiety. Prejudice aga i nst a II ki nds of hoI i day reve I ry was intense. When the Boston theocracy began to lose its grip in the early 18th century, when church and state were no longer considered as one, a freer} gayer life began to enter New England towns. Then something happened to set back the clock of returning festivities. That was the coming to the colonies of the Methodist evangelist George Whitfield, preaching to thousands of people a dynamic plea for the stern religious life. So powerful was his influence that non-observance of festivals, including Christmas, lasted throughout New England unti I after the Ci vi I War.
That the settlers of Maine three hundred years ago were as independent as are Maine Yankees today is shown by an article in the current issue of Down East magazine, written by Nathan Fuller. As Mr. Fuller puts it: “The Maine Yankee in 1655 was a liberal, independent, Church of England man, who preferred no traffic, other than commercial, with Puritan Massachusetts or Crorrwellian Eng-I and. S01 wh i Ie Massachusetts fami lies were observi ng Ch ri stmas, i f at a J I: only as a stolen pleasure away from the disapproving eyes of the authorities, people in the Province of Maine carried on the English tradition of Christmas as free men, beholden to none but God. H Mr. Fuller tel Is that, all along the Maine coast, houses and cabins were hung with evergreens and bayberry, and on the night before Christmas the yule log was rolled into the huge fireplace.
In 1655 the eastern lands were at peace. King Phi lip’s terrib Ie war had nOT yet come. By 1655 there were a number of prosperous fami lies sett led between the pilscataqua and Pemaquid, and ~Christmas saw food and drink in plenty • As Mr. Fu I ler te lis it: “The long tab les, set with the i r fe~ pewter pi atters and spoons, and the other wooden utensi Is made by the whittling Yankees, sagged between their trestles. Roast beef and pork took second place only to the famous wi Id turkey. Domestic fowl joined wi Id duck and partridge, interfused with choice venison cuts, moose tongues, or an occasional bear tenderloin. Native ale and cider, with imported wines from Madeira and the Canaries, accompanied the commoner West Indian rum. Among the desserts was in~ origillCiI Cilwlstma~ pie, the mince. It was matched by the Christmas plum pudding,. and washed down from the bowl of hot, spiced ale. To the Massachusetts Puritans plum pudding was pooish and mince pie was idolatry, but to the people of Maine they were essentials of Christmas.
Mr. Fuller’ thinks it doubtful that 17th century Maine ever saw the elaborate masques, pageants and mummeri es wh i ch featured Ch ri stmas Day in Eli zabethan Eng/and, but he feels sure that dancing, card playing, dice and such games as bobbing for apple,s helped fi II the holiday hours in Maine homes 300 years ago. Furthermore Mr. Fuller says: !!Maine men were close in memory to the English beer-and-bull-baiting tradition, and it is possible that some sleepy bear was dragged from his winter den for baiting. Chasing wolves with dogs along the hard sand of the beaches was fami liar sport, and many a coastal settler knew how to lure a fox into position for a moonlight kill by strewing about a supply of well-ripened codfish heads. If the snow was deep”enough to hinder a moose~ls progress, a moose hunt on snowshoes was an exce f lent way to settle the last of the Christmas pie.”
Thanks to Mr. Fu Iler we know that the Puri tan abhorance’ of Christmas ce lebrati on di d not preva iii n Ma i ne a fu II hundred years before the bu i I di ng of Fort Halifax. No frowns of the clergy nor fines of the magistrates could deter those Maine pioneers from observing Christmas as they thought it ought to be observed.
Year: 1955