BY GEORGE A. BRAY III

“We wish you health, and good fires; victuals, drink, and good stomachs; innocent diversion, and good company; honest trading, and good success; loving courtship, and good wives; and lastly a merry CHRISTMAS and a happy NEW YEAR.”

  • Published in the Virginia Almanack, 1771.

            The above good wishes for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, published in the Virginia Almanack, elicit very good thoughts and feelings for the holiday season even today. However, Christmas and New Year celebrations then differed greatly from today’s festivities. And, they even differed between the colonies. This short piece will focus on Virginia and what its residents did during this period.

            One account written by Philip Fithian, a visitor at a Virginia plantation in 1773, recorded that he “was waked up this morning by Guns fired all round the House.”[1] He apparently was not familiar with this tradition that was carried out throughout many of the colonies despite the potential dangers it presented.

            Evenings were not to be outdone by the morning gun firings. The nights would be spent in singing carols, playing games, performing plays, and dancing to music. Balls were held and skilled black musicians would also play on these occasions. One wealthy plantation owner hired fiddlers, a jester, a tight-rope walker, and an acrobat for his Christmas celebration.

            Then, of course, there was the drinking of alcoholic and other beverages. Among the various drinks were brandy, rum, wine, gin, whiskey, beer, cider, cordials, and punches. One person who was visiting at a Virginia gentry home mentioned that there was “good wine and all kinds of beverages, so there was a good deal of carousing.”

            Hospitality, then as now, was an important element in Virginian society. An observer stated that “a universal Hospitality reigned. Strangers are fought after with Greediness, as they pass the Country, to be invited.”  The Almanack also published these verses, in 1765:

“Christmas is come, hang on the pot,

Let spits turn round and ovens be hot.

Beef, pork, and poultry now provide

To feast thy neighbours at this tide.”[2]

            Anglican Virginia enjoyed the season with celebration beginning just before Christmas until Twelfth Night (the evening of January 5th). Some, however, extended it into the month of February. Another entry for the Virginia Almanack for 1765 joked that “When New Year’s Day is past and gone, Christmas is with some people done, But further some will it extend, And at Twelfth Day their Christmas end. Some people stretch it further yet, at Candlemas (February 2nd) they finish it. The gentry carry it further still And finish it just when they will; They drink good wine and eat good chear And keep their Christmas all the Year.”

            Another element included what was called the “Christmas-box” tip. These tips were provided to servants, apprentices, and enslaved persons by those whom they had served that holiday. Fithian recalled that he had spent most of his Christmas morning on the plantation with the tipping of the enslaved people.

            Those who were allowed to participate in Christmas celebrations probably were able to engage in a mix of social events, have leisure activities, and attend religious services. One Presbyterian minister described a group of enslaved people celebrating Christmas by “singing Psalms and Hymns in the evening, and again in the morning, long before the break of day.”

            And there were some enslaved people that received no special treatment during the holidays. In fact, they were employed to provide more work in the preparation of meals and the attention to guests above the normal. Some of the plantation owners, like Landon Carter, did so. He wrote in his diary that he was “not letting my (enslaved) People keep any part of Christmas.”[3]

This period of festivity also could present dangers in the form of rebellion with the enslaved people being provided extra money, rations, and time off. Consequently, Virginia would authorize slave patrols. In fact, in 1770, there was a deadly Christmastime rebellion by enslaved persons at a plantation located in Hanover County.[4]

            Unlike the wonderful decorations we can witness during Christmas and New Year’s at Colonial Williamsburg, there were no wreaths or candles utilized during the eighteenth century. These items, along with the fruits that are used today (lemons, oranges, and pineapples) were precious commodities then. However, there are references to some homes and churches having decorated interiors with evergreen branches and mistletoe.

            Finally, regarding Christmas gifts. Children, unless they were members of a wealthy family, did not receive gifts. While they might be allowed to attend a church service or a dance, the other adult activities, such as shooting guns, gambling, excessive drinking, and fox hunting, were not able to be pursued by children.

Editor Footnotes

[1] For more details on this quote, see Harold B. Gill Jr., “Christmas in Colonial Virginia: Good Eating and good Porter are two great Supporters of Magna Charta and the British Constitution,” Colonial Williamsburg (Autumn 1999), n.d., https://research.colonialwilliamsburg.org/Foundation/journal/autumn99/inva.cfm.

[2] For more details on this hymn, see Harold B. Gill, “Christmas in Colonial Virginia.” For more information on the possible author of this poem, see “Christmas is Come,” HymnsandCarolsofChristmas.com, https://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Poetry/christmas_is_come.htm, and Book of American Carols, edited by Roy Ringwald, (Pennsylvania State University, 2004).

[3] For the source of the quotation, see The Diary of Colonel Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, 1752–1778, volumes 2, edited by Jack P. Greene (University Press of Virginia, 1965), 909.

[4] For more details on this uprising, see Philip J. Schwarz, Twice Condemned: Slaves and the Criminal Laws of Virginia, 1705–1865 (Lawbook Exchange Ltd., 1998), 180; and original 1770 Virginia Gazette report transcribed at The Geography of Slavery website: https://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/saxon/servlet/SaxonServlet?source=/xml_docs/slavery/documents/han1va.xml&style=/xml_docs/slavery/documents/display_doc.xsl.