The Everything Family Christmas Book (14 page)

Mistletoe

To this day, mistletoe—a parasitic plant that grows on oak and other nonevergreen trees—is the only form of greenery not allowed inside many Christian churches during the holiday season. That’s because although other greenery was also used in pagan festivals, mistletoe was actually worshiped.

Both Druids and Romans considered the plant sacred, as a healing plant and a charm against evil. Mistletoe was thought to be the connection between earth and the heavens, because it grew without roots, as if by magic. It was also considered a symbol of peace; warring soldiers who found themselves under mistletoe quickly put down their weapons and made a temporary truce. In a related custom, ancient Britons hung mistletoe in their doorways to keep evil away. Those who entered the house safely were given a welcome kiss.

While the custom of kissing under the mistletoe lost popularity in most other countries, it remained popular in England and the United States. Today, most consider mistletoe an excuse for kissing and nothing more, but some people in France still brew it as a cure for stomachaches.

The Kissing Bough

The kissing bough was very popular, particularly in England, before the heyday of the Christmas tree. Though its name might suggest otherwise, it wasn’t made just out of mistletoe, but included holly, ivy, and other evergreens. Shaped in a double hoop with streamers flowing from the top, the kissing bough was decorated with apples, pears, ribbon, and lighted candles. As with plain mistletoe, anyone found under the bough was to be kissed right away!

Sending Christmas Wishes

Although the electronic age is beginning to replace the signing, addressing, and sending of paper Christmas cards, many people hold onto this custom with fervor. They’ll carefully choose a design that represents their favorite interpretation of the holiday, and add greetings for the friends and family that will receive it as a welcome connection to loved ones both near and far.

Christmas Cards

The distinction of having created the first Christmas card is usually given to John Calcott Horsley of England. Horsley printed his card in 1843 for Sir Henry Cole, the friend who had given him the idea. The card looked much like a postcard and consisted of three panels. The central panel pictured the typical English family of the day enjoying the holiday (this panel caused some controversy, as it showed a child drinking wine). The other panels depicted acts of charity, so important to the Victorian Christmas spirit. The card’s inscription read “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You.” A thousand copies of the card were printed, selling for one shilling apiece.

But around the same time, two other men, W. A. Dobson and Reverend Edward Bradley, were designing cards and sending them to their friends. These cards, however, were handmade instead of printed, which is why the credit generally goes to Horsley.

Christmas cards, which tended not to be particularly religious, soon became the popular means of sending holiday greetings among the Victorians. The launch of the penny post in 1840 made it affordable for people to send greetings by mail, and the invention of the steam press made mass production of these cards possible.

At one time in Britain, the Post Office (also known as the Royal Mail) delivered on Christmas Day, which is when most people received their cards. As could be expected, this process soon became too much for postal workers, who eventually got the day off.

Across the water in America, the Christmas card was popularized by the firm of Marcus Ward & Co., and later by Louis Prang, a German-born printer and lithographer. Prang first turned his talents toward Christmas cards in 1875, designing and printing them from his Roxbury, Massachusetts, shop. Prang created chromos, as he called the colored lithographs, in eight colors. His cards depicted Nativity scenes, family Christmas gatherings, nature scenes, and later, Santa.

The beauty of Prang’s cards did much to ensure their popularity, but so did his marketing technique. He would hold contests all across the country, offering prizes for the best card designs, which spurred public interest. Prang’s cards went strong until 1890, when the states began importing cheaper cards from German manufacturers. Americans reclaimed the market twenty years later.

Christmas Seals

Like Easter, Christmas has a special seal dedicated to helping those in need. The Christmas Seal, which changes in design each year, was originated in Denmark in 1903 by postal worker Einar Holboell, who felt there should be a special stamp to benefit tuberculosis sufferers. The first seal was printed in 1904, with a picture of Queen Louise of Denmark; more than four million were sold. Sweden followed suit that same year, and Norway had its own seals by 1905.

The original American Seal, designed in 1907 by Emily Bissell, pictured holly, a cross, and the words “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.” By 1908, the Christmas Seal was circulating nationwide for the benefit of various charities. In 1919, the National Tuberculosis Association (later the American Lung Association) became the seal’s sole beneficiary. That same year, the double-barred Cross of Lorraine became the seal’s signature element.

The Christmas Seal is popular in America largely due to the efforts of Emily Bissell, state secretary of the Red Cross in Wilmington, Delaware. Word of the success of the seal in Scandinavia had spread to America, and Bissell sought to use such a seal to keep a local tuberculosis treatment center open.

Christmas Stamps

Christmas stamps, not to be confused with Christmas Seals, are issued seasonally by the post offices of various countries to give the mail some holiday spirit. The stamps generally feature different religious or secular Christmas scenes each year, and are often eagerly awaited by stamp collectors.

The very first Christmas stamps were printed in Canada in 1898; the United States did not have its own until 1962. For some years, the most popular stamp in U.S. history—until the Elvis stamp came along in the 1990s—was a Christmas stamp picturing a reproduction of the Renaissance painting
The Adoration of the Shepherds,
by the Italian painter Giorgione; more than one billion were printed.

The Christmas Bonus and Other Economic Niceties

The Christmas bonus was first instituted by department store owner F. W. Woolworth in 1899. Woolworth, savvy to the ever-growing fiscal importance of the Christmas shopping season, decided to take steps to ensure that his stores ran smoothly through the frenzied buying time. Working under the assumption that happy workers are reliable and productive workers, Woolworth gave a bonus of $5 to each employee for every year of service, bonuses not to exceed $25—quite a sum of money in those days.

In 1876, publishing magnate James Gordon Bennett, Jr., left his breakfast waiter a Christmas tip of $6,000—perhaps $200,000 in today’s funds. Initially, the flabbergasted waiter gave the money to his supervisor to return, but Bennett later insisted that he had meant to leave the sum. The end result was that Bennett’s tip was—and is—among the most generous on record.

The holiday bonus has a cousin, the Christmas tip, extended to letter carriers, newspaper deliverers, apartment-complex employees, and other workers. Both are outgrowths of the English tradition of giving to the needy on Boxing Day.

The custom of giving employees the day off for Christmas was apparently not observed in the United States until about 1875. Up until that time, nearly all workers were expected to report as usual—unless the holiday fell on a Sunday, of course. (No matter the time of year, merchants were forbidden to sell their wares on the Sabbath, although some were arrested for trying to do so during the holiday season.) Store clerks of the era were paid by the day, and worked thousands of unpaid overtime hours during the holiday rush each year. Woolworth’s later generosity toward his workers was the culmination of a long series of concessions by the owners of retail establishments to harried store workers.

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Gift Giving