A Very Bawdy Christmas!
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Christmas Wasn’t Always the Kid-Friendly Gift Extravaganza We Know Today
Until the late 18th century, Christmas was a boisterous affair, with roots in the pre-Christian Midwinter and Roman Saturnalia holidays. You’d find more along the lines of drunkenness, debauchery and raucous carousing at this time of year, especially from young men and the underclasses, than “silent night, holy night.” For example, in early forms of wassailing (the forerunner of neighborhood carol-singing) the poor could go into the homes of the rich, demanding the best to drink and eat in exchange for their goodwill. (Once you know this, you’ll never hear “Now bring us some figgy pudding” the same way again!)
But the boozy rowdiness of the season, together with its pagan roots, was so threatening to religious and political authorities that Christmas was discouraged and even banned in the 17th and 18th centuries. (These bans included the parliamentarians in mid-17th century England, and the Puritans in America’s New England in the 1620s—the “pilgrims” of Thanksgiving fame.) But then, as now, many ordinary people loved the holiday, making Christmas difficult to stamp out. So how did it transform from a period of misrule and mischief into the domestic, socially manageable and economically profitable season that we know today? This is where the children come in.
Until the late 18th century, the Western world saw children as bearers of natural sinfulness that needed to be disciplined toward goodness. But as Romantic ideals about childhood innocence took hold, children (specifically, white children) became seen as the precious, innocent keepers of enchantment that we recognize today, understood as deserving protection and living through a distinct phase of life.
This is also the time when Christmas began to transform in ways that churches and governments found more acceptable, into a family-centered holiday. We can see this in the peaceful, child-focused carols that emerged in the 19th century, like “Silent Night,” “What Child Is This?,” and “Away in a Manger.” But all the previous energy and excess of the season didn’t just disappear. Instead, where once it brought together rich and poor, dominant and dependent according to old feudal organizations of power, new traditions shifted the focus of yuletide generosity from the local underclasses to one’s own children.
