I thought we'd never see the end of this year, and believe me that's not my usual sentiment in December! This has been a "what have we done to deserve this?" kind of year. I'm not going to go on about politics, pandemics and global warming, this isn't the place for it, but we've all been affected by those, and it's all been a bit grim.
So what about the past?
They didn't have it easy, either. In fact, they often had it worse. We have central heating, running water and modern devices like dishwashers to help us through our misery. They didn't. But like us, they had times of celebration and Christmas was one of those. These days we know it as "the holidays," to try to include all the celebrations going on at this time of year, but back then, Christmas was emphasised over all the others.
In the period I write in, the Georgian era, Christmas trees were not usual. They became popular in the Victorian era. And Christmas lasted for twelve days. What traditions existed were often locally-based, but if there has been a detailed study of them all, I've never seen them.
Old traditions were continued, like the night when servants and masters changed places, but it all centralised on feasting. Most of the images of 18th century Christmas show people eating and drinking, like the one above.
Perhaps next year!
