A Wreath of Christmas Miscellany Quiz

Answer: That's the date the Church decided on.

The Church (at a Council in the year 440) fixed December 25 as the date on which Christians would celebrate Jesus' birth. Why December 25? Because it coincides with the Winter Solstice, and that was a festival time in most cultures. The Church merely Christianized the pagan revels! Scholars suggest that the actual birth of Christ was more likely to have been in the spring, when shepherds would be much more likely to be abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night, while the new lambs were being born. Even in Israel, it gets pretty chilly on December 25!

Answer: W.C.T. Dobson, R.A.

Artist W.C.T. Dobson initiated the custom in 1844, when he sent cards to his friends. Sir Henry Cole and J.C. Horsley really got the ball rolling in 1846 when they produced the first commercial Christmas cards. The cards, by the way, horrified the temperance types because they featured a picture of a family toasting the day with (gasp!) wine. Christmas cards became an annual bane after a British art printing company called Tucks started producing them en masse in the 1870s.

Answer: Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria.

Evergreens have been associated with Winter Solstice celebrations since long before there was a Christmas season. The Romans decorated their temples with evergreen boughs for the Festival of Saturnalia (a week long drinking spree that started on December 19)and the Teutonic peoples of Northern Europe set up fir trees in their homes because, as evergreens, they were a sign of life in the dead of winter. When Christianity became the norm, the trees stayed! (Think of that old German carol, 'O Tannenbaum', which is sung to the same tune as that used by the (old) British Labour Party for 'The Red Flag').

Prince Albert was a German prince and he brought the tradition of the Christmas tree with him when he married Queen Victoria in 1840. I guess it helped him to feel less homesick.

Answer: From 'dole boxes' placed in churches.

It was the custom to have Dole Boxes in churches at Christmas, into which people placed gifts or money for the poor. The boxes were opened on December 26, and their contents doled out by the priests.

Later, the tradition was enlarged to include gifts given by well-to-do householders to their household staffs. This was, of course, back in the days when there were such things as household staffs, complete with butlers and cooks, footmen and parlourmaids, housekeepers, gardeners and coachmen! The tradesmen who supplied the household with coal,meat, candles, milk, and so on, received tips. Later still, the postman and the paper boy were added to the list of recipients.

December 26 is also the feast of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr. He's the one referred to in the carol 'Good King Wenceslas'.

Answer: Wynkyn de Worde

Wynkyn de Worde's 'Book of Carols' was printed in 1521, and it includes 'The Boar's Head Carol', which is still sung every Christmas at Queen's College, Oxford. Henry VIII, when he wasn't busy getting married and getting rid of his wives, was known to compose a few songs (tradition has it that he wrote 'Greensleeves') but it's doubtful he'd ever mess about with a printing press. Bach was too busy composing magnificent music to bother with printing carol collections. And if Wenceslas ever printed a carol book he would have to do it by hand, since the printing press wasn't invented in Europe until the fifteenth century!

Answer: Yes

Wencelas (907-929), King of Bohemia, was noted for his piety, compassion and generosity. He was murdered by his brother Boroslav, who coveted the throne. The carol about Wenceslas dates from the 19th century. A very large square laid out in the 1890s in Prague is named after him.

Answer: Those amorous Englishmen!

The Druids took mistletoe far too seriously to do anything frivolous like kissing under it! Mistletoe is a parasitic plant that grows on various trees, especially apple trees, and it was held in great veneration by the Druids, especially when they found it on an oak tree. Don Juan was a famous kisser year 'round, and didn't need mistletoe as an excuse! I made up the bit about the ugly women.

As for those amorous Englishmen, the tradition began in the early seventeenth century, and it was customary for a man to remove a berry each time he kissed a girl under the mistletoe.

When there were no more berries left, no more kisses were to be exchanged. That rule has long since gone by the board! By the way, if you're in charge of decorating the church for Christmas, don't use mistletoe! It's not looked on favourably because of the tradition that the Druids used mistletoe in human sacrifices.

Answer: Pantomime.

It wouldn't be Christmas in the U.K. without a visit to the theatre for a pantomime, a peculiarly British art form that takes a well-known fairy tale, laces it with topical (generally political) humorous songs, adds a comic female character (played by a man - usually a well-known comedian) and a dashing prince known as the Principal Boy (always played by a woman).

It's been going on for decades! Punch and Judy is more of a summer, seaside entertainment, and I made up the other two choices.

Answer: Clement Clark Moore

The immortal words "'Twas the night before Christmas..." were penned by Clement Clark Moore, as a Christmas gift for his children in 1822.
Charles Dickens wrote that other Christmas classic, "A Christmas Carol" (one of my personal Christmas traditions is watching the superb 1948 film version, starring the incomparable Alastair Sim as Scrooge). I don't know if Washington Irving ever wrote anything Christmassy, but my kids loved to have me read his 'Legend of Sleepy Hollow' to them on Hallowe'en! And Charles Reade is the chap who wrote "The Cloister and the Hearth".

Answer: A Child's Christmas in Wales

My favourite line in 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' is the one about 'a book that tells you everything about wasps, except why'. And I never fail to laugh out loud over the part about hunting the polar cat, or the tale of Mrs. Protheroe and the firemen.
'Deck the Halls' is a traditional Welsh carol, and who knows who wrote it - it certainly wasn't Dylan. I don't know who wrote 'The Little Drummer Boy', either (and by the time I've heard it for the hundredth time, I really don't care!), and somebody may have written something called 'The Littlest Shepherd', but I think I made it up.

Now, on to the egg nog and the mince pies. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!