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Holly, Candy Canes & Wassailing

Wassailing The Apple Tree

Christmas is a holiday that blends the pagan reverence for the winter solstice with the Christian calendar and doctrine. As such, many pagan beliefs have found their way into our holiday traditions. One example is the wassailing of apple trees on Twelfth Night Eve.

Many pre-Christian peoples believed a spirit resided in all things, particularly plants. In a world where humans felt powerless against the forces of nature, it was in their best interest to appease these spirits. From the dawn of time, farmers have been preoccupied with placating nature spirits, whose blessings were vital to their annual harvests. Angered spirits would damage crops, while those who were treated with their due deference would ensure bountiful harvests. One of the many festivals involving such practices, the wassailing of apple trees, gradually evolved into a Christmas tradition.

The term wassailing comes from the ancient Saxon toast was hail ("be in good health"). Wassailing was particularly popular in the cider-making regions of southern and western Englandland was especially important in the era when a laborer's wages were paid in apple cider. A bountiful crop was necessary, not only to provide for a farmer's own family, but also to attract good workers to tend his orchards.

On Old Twelfth Night (17 January) the farmer and his laborers would visit the orchard to sing to the trees. Fires were lit and a great deal of noise was made to awaken the slumbering tree spirits so that they might hear the songs in their honor. When firearms became commonplace, rifles would be discharged through the branches to ensure that good spirits were awakened and evil spirits chased off. In addition, horns were blown and the tree threshed in the hopes of inspiring productivity during the coming growing season.

One tradition, particularly popular in Devon, England, saw the men encircle the tree and toast the tree three times with their jugs of warm cider. Cider would soak the roots and be thrown over the tree, while pieces of toast soaked in cider were speared on the branches to feed the spirit. There was also a mime performed in which the men acted out the carrying of overloaded sacks of apples, their backs hunched and knees bent under the great weight. It was believed that if the farmer failed to perform this ceremony, the subsequent year's harvest would be poor.

Twelfth Night was also a time to ensure that no apples were left upon the tree, for it was believed that if any fruit remained, a death in the family would follow in the coming year. By the 19th century, the simple cider toasts associated with the festival had been replaced with the popular drink known as wassail. This drink was made with eggs, curdled cream, nuts, roasted apples, mulled ale and spices.

Mistletoe, a traditional Christmas trapping, was previously a mystic symbol of Druidic power. Thanks to its predilection for apple orchards, mistletoe and apples became indelibly linked and it was, therefore, believed that the latter was infused with magical power as well. As such, apples also became a symbol of the holiday season. Victorians always placed apple decorations upon their Christmas trees, and such items are still available today, even if their ties to the holiday are lost.

The custom of wassailing apple trees was brought over to the New World. While it is rare in North America, it remains popular in rural England. In fact, it's seen a revival of late, becoming a tourist-friendly spectacle that closes out the Christmas season. In most cases, however, the custom of wassailing the apple tree has been forgotten, replaced by more commercial events, and with its passing goes one more tie to traditional Christmas.

Festivity Levels Your guests are chatting amiably with each other, admiring your Christmas-tree ornaments, singing carols around the upright piano, sipping at their drinks and nibbling hors d'oeuvres. Your guests are talking loudly - sometimes to each other, and sometimes to nobody at all, rearranging your Christmas-tree ornaments, singing "I Gotta Be Me" around the upright piano, gulping their drinks and wolfing down hors d'oeuvres. Your guests are arguing violently with inanimate objects, singing "I can't get no satisfaction," gulping down other peoples' drinks, wolfing down Christmas tree ornaments and placing hors d'oeuvres in the upright piano to see what happens when the little hammers strike. Your guests, hors d'oeuvres smeared all over their naked bodies are performing a ritual dance around the burning Christmas tree. The piano is missing. You want to keep your party somewhere around level 3, unless you rent your home and own firearms, in which case you can go to level 4.

Holly

When singing "Deck the halls with boughs of holly", do you ever wonder why? What does holly have to do with festive spirit? From religion to traditions to superstition, there are many reasons why holly is associated with Christmas. The Celts and the AngloSaxons, among others, revered evergreen plants, such as holly, for their ability to remain vibrant through the long, cold winters. They considered evergreens to be imbued with magical powers and therefore made them an integral part of many holy ceremonies, particularly the winter solstice festival.

Romans, likewise, held holly in high esteem. It, above all other plants, was sacred to Saturn, the god of agriculture, and therefore played an important role in this deity's holy festival, Saturnalia. Revelers gave one another holly wreaths, decorated images of Saturn with holly boughs, and carried holly during their festive processions.

When Christianity became the primary religion in the Roman Empire, the Church initially tried to stamp out pagan traditions. While successful on many counts, reverence for holly was too deeply rooted to be easily expunged, so church officials decided to assimilate holly into their own religious beliefs. In fact, this process had already started centuries before when, in the early years of Christianity, worshippers would continue to deck their homes with holly, as all Romans did, in order to avoid suspicion and persecution.

In early Christianity, holly had a religious significance that has been all but forgotten today. In fact, the plant's name derives from the word "holy". Holly has stiff, thorny leaves and many believed that this was the plant from which Jesus' crown of thorns was made. As a result, the bright red berries were symbolic of the crucifixion and were called "Christ's Blood".

English legend goes further. It explains the robin got its red breast in its efforts to relieve Jesus' suffering by removing the thorns, during which it was cut, its own blood staining its chest feathers red. That is why the holly berry remains one of the robin's favorite foods. Because holly is an evergreen, it was said to represent eternal life. As a result, it came to symbolize Christ because, like Jesus, it triumphed over death.

In medieval times, holly was the most revered of the plants commonly associated with Christmas. It was during this period that Christmas wreaths began to appear. Unlike those we hang upon our doors today, medieval wreaths were originally made from holly and were circular to represent Jesus' crown of thorns. It was believed that the leaves' prickly thorns warded against evil spirits entering the home.

Soon, our halls were decked with boughs of holly as well. This ensured a happy Christmas, free of misfortune. However, one must be sure to pick the branches before Christmas Eve, or risk exposing one's self to the evil intentions of an enemy either in our world or the spirit realm.

Interestingly enough, while modern custom might suggest otherwise, the original kissing bough was not just made of mistletoe. In truth, it often included holly and ivy in equal parts to mistletoe. The end result was the same, however; anyone caught under it was to be kissed. Finally, in many countries, the Christmas meal is topped with a sprig of holly as a blessing to Christ.

The Candy Cane

The candy cane has become, over the past century, one of the most recognizable symbols of the Christmas season. However, over that time, we've forgotten its significance as a symbol reflecting the humble roots of Christianity. Today, candy canes are a remarkably cheap and effective way of keeping kids quiet during holiday gatherings - at least for a time. Most people would be surprised to learn that this tried-and-true method, that has been with us for more than 300 years, and was largely responsible for the candy cane's origins. Beginning around the 17th century hard sugar candy sticks began to appear, produced both at home and by profrssional bakers. They were straight and completely white, devoid of any artistic license.

The candy came in its popular form first appeared in 1670, and can be traced to one man. He was the choirmaster of Cologne Cathedral in Germany, and it was he who first hit upon the idea of giving sugar candy sticks to the children to keep them occupied during the long Christmas Mass. But, as a man of religion, he felt the candy should somehow reflect the season, and so he had the sugar sticks bent in the shape of a crook in honor of the humble shepherds who were the first to worship the newborn Christ Child. By all accounts, his ploy to acquiesce the children worked marvelously.

Soon, the candy cane spread throughout Europe. A new holiday tradition was born. Sometime around thc beginning of the 20th century, the first red and white candy canes emerged. No one knows the exact date they appeared, but all cards and pictures prior to 1900 depict candy canes as being exclusively white. It seems likely that the striped ones made their appearance between 1900 and 1905. Similarly, we don't know who created the first striped candy cane or why. It has been suggested that the red stripe represents Jesus' blood and the sacrifice he made for humanity

There are also numerous myths about the candy cane, none of which have even a sliver of substantiation. Some suggeat the "J" shape is for Jesus, or was perhaps a secret symbol of Christianity during Roman times when the religion was oppressed. Others think the white is Jesus' purity, a theory that conveniently forgets that all sugar sticks were originally white. Equally outlandish is the notion that the candy's hardness represents the church's foundation on solid rock, which ignores the fact that sugar sticks were created by laypeople well before it was ever adopted by the choirmaster at Cologne Cathedral. Myths aside, the candy cane endures as a symbol, in its own fashion, of the true meaning of the Christmas season.

Andrew Hind and Maria da Silva. The History of Three Christmas Traditions. . December/January 2007.

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