Classic Christmas Stories (5 page)

by Jim Rockwood

H
AS THE NEWFOUNDLAND OUTPORT Christmas really changed
that much from those of yesteryear?

Undoubtedly there havebeenchanges—the result of anumber of factors, not the
least of which are the vast improvements in transportation and communication
methods—which have resulted in a decrease in the number of small communities and
an opening up of those that remain.

Today, with roads, television, radio, telephone and telegraph facilities
inhabitants are not isolated to the same degree as in the past.

Accordingly, there has been a change in the celebration of Christmas, although
a typical old-fashioned Christmas can still be found and it does not require a
trip to some remote location.

It can be found in many small communities which exist near larger towns.

Here, residents still seem to be closer knit than those in the larger centres
and as a result it shows in their celebrations which sees Christmas the biggest
and longest.

However, even the length of the Christmas celebration is changed.

True, Christmas extends from Christmas Eve, until Old Christmas Day, but
commercialism has resulted in its beginning long before.

Commercialism, which some feel is destroying Christmas, has
seen Christmas start in late November when stores put up their Christmas
decorations, inaugurate their Christmas shopping hours and begin spreading their
Christmas shopping propaganda via all mediums.

By beginning interest in Christmas in late November some feel the interest in
“the big day” itself is diminished.

Christmas in the outports usually started Christmas Eve, although preparations
for the celebration got under way a day or so before.

The women of the house started preparations by cleaning house and baking the
many treats needed for the 12-day event that lay ahead not to be left out, the
men made their own preparations, not the least of which was filling the liquor
cabinet with either “store bought” or that well known other method known as
“moonshine, ” slightly illegal mind you, but certainly didn’t detract from the
taste.

Christmas Eve itself was a time for putting all in order for the big day. It
meant an excursion to the woods by the men folk and children to select that
“just right” tree for the living room. Then it was off home to decorate
it.

Evening saw the children off early to bed awaiting the arrival of Santa Claus,
while the older folks went off to midnight service and then home to bed.

Bed, however, offered little sleep for the young. At or before the crack of
dawn it was downstairs—no one minded the cold floor because the stove wasn’t lit
yet—and into the presents.

Christmas morning saw the family off to church as a unit, normally without
mother who stayed home to cook Christmas dinner. Whether it be wild duck or
goose, whatever meat was available or if possible that
wonderful turkey, Christmas dinner was a treat fit for a king.

The table would be laden down with vegetables—mostly grown in the back
garden—along with breads, buns, cakes and of course the traditional boiled
Christmas pudding.

The majority of Newfoundlanders in the smaller outports were fishermen or
farmers and accordingly couldn’t afford a holiday during the five months of the
year when they had to make a living. So, when Christmas came it “certainly made
up for the summer vacation that a farmer or fisherman could not have, ” said one
person who lived for a number of years on the south coast.

The 12-day period was one of continuous parties, teas, socials, dances, times
and of course the “mummering” without which a Newfoundland Christmas would not
be complete.

Starting on Christmas Eve, children and adults would disguise themselves in old
clothes, cover their faces and visit other members of the community. When they
would arrive at the door, they’d ask “any mummers tonight, ” and when invited in
would sing and dance before unmasking and receiving a piece of Christmas cake
and a “drop of good cheer.”

Unfortunately, mummering is something that just about disappeared.

A noted Newfoundlander a few years ago, in an address to a local service club,
said that mummering is not something which originated here, but is “as old as
man himself.”

Lodges and societies were an integral part of Newfoundland outports and during
the Christmas season each in turn had its “time.”

These were for the entire community. Children played and frolicked while the
adults danced to music supplied by accordions and fiddles. Food was in
abundance. Hard beverages were not provided at the “time, ” but many the man and
younger person who sneaked outside for a “nip.”

In addition to the community-wide activities, Christmas was a time for visiting
friends and neighbours. Whenever one visited a neighbour’s home they were
required to taste the Christmas cake and sip a drop of rum or wine while the
children got the traditional syrup.

Times are changing, the traditional outport Christmas with it. However, while
adults may find changes, for children Christmas remains
a
mystical and wonderful experience.

Could it be that the child’s ability to believe in fantasy makes the
difference?

Christmas, noted Reginald Sparkes, a former speaker of the House of Assembly,
some years ago, is “a microcosm of our culture” and reflects every shade of
us.

Western civilization has achieved a goal of affluence during the recent
decades, but “nothing can be had without a price.” We gained a whole world, but
have lost the ability to enjoy pure fantasy.

Maybe the only way to get back many of the fast-fading customs of Christmas
past is to become like little children for one day, and in so doing recapture
the feeling of good will and only then will Christmas be not a “feast of
remembrance, but a feast of beginning.”

Christmas can be what every individual makes it.

by P. K. Devine

N
EARLY EVERY CIVILIZED COUNTRY intheworld has its
customs and superstitions peculiar to Christmas, and to this rule Newfoundland
is no exception. Our forefathers brought their traditions with them from
England, Ireland and Scotland, and they are, though gradually dwindling away,
still handed down to their descendants, to this day, especially among the people
of the outports.

On the “French Shore, ” at midnight on Christmas Eve, a live brand from the
Yule-log is solemnly taken out doors and thrown over the house, to preserve it
from being burnt down the coming year.

Peculiar observance is attached to the crowing of the cock on Christmas night,
and it is a common thing in Bonavista Bay to hear the people say, when the cock
crows in the stillness of Christmas Eve night, “He is scaring away the evil
spirits from the Christmas Holy Day.”

Most people believe, too, that the cattle kneel at the Manger when the cock
strikes twelve.

On Christmas Eve, at Broad Cove (Bonavista Bay), a custom brought from Ireland
by the generation of hardy pioneers, long passed away, is still religiously
observed, and is believed to ensure plenty of provisions and good times during
the coming year. A loaf of the Christmas baking is cut into four parts by the
housewife, and a quarter thrown to each such side of the house, indicating
plenty from north, south, east and west.

It is also believed that the deer kneel on Christmas night,
and it is a common thing for those who go in the bottoms of the Bays “on winter
works” to stay up all night to watch the caribou kneeling on the snow.

This custom is also peculiar to the woodmen of Upper Canada, where the
lumbermen and hunters also believe that horses and cattle have, on Christmas
night, the gift of speech, but that to play eavesdropper on them means death
before the New Year.

This belief is also common in Switzerland. According to an Alpine legend, a
doubting servant once hid in his master’s barn yard on a Christmas Eve, to prove
to his neighbours that they were fools to believe such trash. Upon the striking
of twelve, he heard a farm horse say, “We shall have hard work to do this day
week.” “Yes, ” replied his mate, “the farmer’s servant is heavy and the way to
the graveyard is long and steep.” Upon New Year’s Day, the servant was
buried.

In French Canada, Christmas is still marked among the farmers by many of the
old customs brought from Brittany by the early settlers. The children are told
that the domestic animals have the gift of speech on Christmas Eve, as a memento
of their presence in the stable when our Blessed Saviour was born. The little
children are taken to the Midnight Mass to see the Manger with the Infant Christ
lying therein, and the ox and the ass in the immediate foreground.

Under the French regime the Midnight Mass was always saluted by the firing of
the guns at the fortress, at Quebec, five times in succession.

In Russia, the home of “Santa Claus, ” it is easy to believe that special
observances are attached to the celebration of Christmas Eve. At sunset the
peasantry go in procession to the houses of the local dignitaries and serenade
them, when money is lavishly distributed among them. At sunset a sacred feast is
held, after which the nobleman, or “little father, ” as he is called invites the
peasants to behold a gigantic pine tree prepared in their honor and decked with
gifts which he distributes among those present. Herein can be recognized the
counterpart of our Santa Claus.

In Norway and Sweden, every member of the household must bathe on the day
before Christmas. In the evening, the Bible history of the Nativity is read in
every home, followed by special prayers. In the villages, among the peasants, a
candle is placed in every window to guide Kristine (Santa Claus) on his way. A
pan of meal and sheaf of wheat upon a pole are placed at each
door as an offering to the friends of Heaven, the little winter birds.
Games and dances are held in many of the houses on Christmas night, the parties,
like in our own Newfoundland, being often interrupted by masquerades, who sing
and dance a pantomime, and are at the conclusion rewarded with cakes, sweetmeats
or money. The small boy also have customs peculiar to themselves, and clad in
white pass from house to house, one of them carrying a star shaped lantern,
representing the Star of Bethlehem, and another a box containing two images to
represent the Virgin and Child.

It will be seen that there is certain resemblance in all the Christmas customs
of northern Europe to our own, which is very interesting to trace, and shows
that they all had a common origin.

Telling fortunes, by melting lead, on Christmas and New Year nights, is a
custom still kept up among the ladies in at least one village I know of in
Newfoundland. It is invariably done to obtain some knowledge of what kind of a
looking fellow the future husband will be, and whether the result will confirm
the omen of the cards and about the “dark-haired man across the water, ” or
not.

In Poland when the marriageable maiden yearns to get an idea of the appearance
of her future husband, she draws a stick at haphazard from a heap of wood on
Christmas Eve. As the stick proves to be long or short, straight or crooked, so
shall the husband to be. She next proceeds to find out his occupation, by
dropping hot lead into cold water. The lead will form an imaginary plane
(carpenter), or a last (shoemaker), pair of scissors (tailor), and so on, to all
the trades. This practice is still kept up on New Year’s night among the
peasantry of England and Ireland.

Who will not say that those practices are so conducive to the object aimed at
as the palmistry and Christian science of the so-called cultured and enlightened
people of the present day.

The utilitarian spirit of the age deals with those old customs and traditions
with a ruthless hand. Many of the old customs that our forefathers of
Newfoundland observed at Christmas, in the days of the open-fireplace, are
looked on by their descendants with ridicule, if not with contempt.
Cui
bono?
After a hard season’s work at the fishery, the harmless sports and
relaxation of the Christmas season made new men of them, and a firm religious
belief quickened them into close touch with the grand story of the Nativity and
made them better Christians. Phlegmatic and silent
fishermen,
who had not a word to say all the year round, now blossomed into Grand Knights
of St. Patrick, St. Michael and St. George, Hector Alexander, etc., and gave out
their heroic speeches in verse as they went in fantastic mumming costume from
one neighbours’ house to another. At the village of Vocksinge, the last of them
passed away to his eternal reward a year ago. Alas! Old age and hard work had
shrivelled him up to unheroic proportions. But “poor old Tommy Holland” once
stood on the floor on Christmas night, a veritable hero, as he recited:

“Here come I, Hector, the renowned Hector,

King Priam’s only son, ” etc.

May the light of Heaven shine upon them all, this Christmas morn.