Birmingham professor on Christmas traditions: Historical perspective from Sparkhill back to 10,000 BC

Christmas and the New Year provide an opportunity to reflect on previous years.

Growing up in Sparkhill in Birmingham, my memories of Christmas as a young child are watching Father Christmas making his way along the Stratford Road into the City and the nativity that was set up each year in the park which had life-size figures.

Best of all, though, was visiting Santa Claus in his grotto at Lewis’s, a department store which ceased trading in 1991, the site becoming Temple Court and Priory Court on either side of the Minories. Indeed, one of my most treasured photos is of me and my sister when we go to see Santa following the couple of hours of queuing to reach the grotto in the toy department.

Christmas is primarily based on celebrating the birth of Christ though the provenance of traditions has a fascinating history which I’ll explain below.

Notably, the word Christmas, a shortened form of ‘Christ’s Mass’ recorded in the eleventh century as Crīstesmæsse, based on a derivative of the Greek word for Massiah and the Latin for celebration of the Eucharist (‘thanksgiving’).

Regardless of belief, Christmas allows families and friends to come together and indulge in eating and drinking which, increasingly in our frantic lives, is difficult to organise. We also exchange gifts.

Many retailers view Christmas as a bellwether of how consumers feel about the future.

For those who can remember, for Woolworths, the much-loved emporium – especially its pick and mix sweets – Christmas was reputed to constitute that majority of its annual turnover.

Because consumers cut back in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, Woolies suffered badly and, sadly, like many other businesses, collapsed into bankruptcy.

In the current climate in which there’s much uncertainty about economic prospects – especially with rising costs for food and energy – there’s concern that we’re going to cut back on spending.

However, it seems, we continue to ‘splash the cash’ at Christmas. According to consumer website Finder, every individual is expected to spend an average of £596 on Christmas gifts this year; collectively £28.6 billion, an increase of £1 billion on last year.

Including gifts and, food, drink and socialising, we’ll spend an amazing £46.4 billion which works out at an eye popping £923 per person.

There’s little argument, most of us enjoy the trappings of a ‘traditional’ Christmas.

However, critics claim the ‘real’ spirit of Christmas frequently gets lost in over-commerciality.

Notably, the belief that celebration at this time of year is entirely based on the birth of Christ is mistaken.

Regardless of whether or not you believe in Christianity, the idea of gathering together at this time of year has a long tradition going back well before the time that Christ is believed to have been alive.

It’s notable that winter solstice, the day when, because the earth’s axis is tilted at its furthest point from the sun, meaning the northern hemisphere experiences the least amount of daylight, occurs at this time of year.

According to the astronomical definition of the seasons, the winter solstice marks the beginning of the season of winter.

There’s evidence that 10,000 years B.C., in the Neolithic Period, communities enduring cold temperatures, feasted on food stored from the harvest at the end of the summer.

For Romans the feast of Saturnalia, a holiday in honour of Saturn, the god of agriculture, was a weeklong celebration in period immediately prior to the winter solstice.

Celebration of Saturnalia, began as a single day, but by the late Republic (133-31 B.C.), had expanded to a weeklong festival beginning on December 17 th . 

Crucially with regards to the modern celebration of Christmas, Sol Invictus occurred in the Julian calendar, used by Romans, on December 25th. Under Emperor Constantine, who’d been convinced to convert to Christianity by his mother Helena, the Church in Rome began celebrating Christmas on Dec 25th  in 336.

It’s argued by, though without evidence, that this date was chosen to replace pagan celebrations. 

As Britain became a Christian country, celebration of Christmas day, as well as life in general, revolved around attendance at the local church.  Curiously, in 1551, the Holy Days and Fasting Days Act became law and required every citizen attend church on Christmas Day.

However, like their antecedents who’d celebrated solstice, people would feast on produce harvested and stored to provide sustenance until replacement could be grown the following year.

One tradition we still largely cling on to, is the burning of candles (which were usually used sparingly as the only form of light in darkness) and homes decorated with holly and mistletoe.

Moreover, another tradition which continues, excessive drinking of alcohol was regarded as commonplace.

Similar to celebration of solstice and Sol Invictus, locally brewed ales and honey-based mead, which was laced with brandy, was copiously consumed. 

By the Medieval period, beginning in 476 and lasting until 1400, according to National Geographic, Christmas had become a “12-day festival involving all kinds of revelry, from plays to wild feasts to pageants celebrating Jesus’ birth. Music, gift giving, and decorations all became the norm”. 

Notably, the culmination of this period, 6 th  January, ‘Twelfth Night’, the feast of the Epiphany when the Kings of the Nativity are reputed to have reached the stable in Bethlehem where Jesus was born, was when presents were exchanged.

Undoubtedly, freed from the hardship of needing to survive on rationed food, boisterousness occurred, encouraged by the local Lord of Misrule whose word was law. 

English Heritage on its website describes in their history of Christmas how “blending devotion with drunken partying” was encouraged by the behaviour of the monarch:

“The most extravagant feasts were celebrated by monarchs such as Henry III, whose guests gorged themselves on 600 oxen at one 13th-century Christmas feast.”

During the Tudor period (1485 to 1603), Christmas was celebrated with even greater gusto.

The ‘Twelve Days’ of Christmas allowed visits neighbours and indulge in feasting, drinking and singing accompanied by dance. 

A food consumed then is one many of us will eat over the festive period; what was known as a minced pye consisting of thirteen ingredients, including dried fruits, spices as well as some chopped mutton, to represent Christ and his apostles.

Twelfth Night was marked by eating of a fruitcake containing a coin or dried bean.  Whoever found the hidden object became ‘King’ or ‘Queen’ for the evening and would preside over the ensuing celebrations and entertainment.

According to Historic UK, “All work, except for looking after the animals, would stop, restarting again on Plough Monday, the first Monday after Twelfth Night”

Puritans, under Oliver Cromwell, when they came to power, viewed such raucous behaviour as sacrilegious and banned the celebration of Christmas in 1647.

Visible signs of Christmas in the use of holly, ivy and other evergreens as decorations, was banned. 

Unsurprisingly, restriction on consumption of large amounts alcohol in the celebration of Christmas was resented and resulted in rebellions breaking out across the country. 

Ending of Puritanism and the return of the monarchy under Charles II meant traditional Christmas celebrations reemerged with even greater vigour.

However, the industrial revolution, which created a need for people to work in factories, such as here in Birmingham, transformed society.

Christmas was still celebrated but mass-produced goods would alter the way homes were decorated and the nature of gifts given as presents altered. 

Christmas as we still celebrate it was largely shaped by the influence of Queen Victoria (1819-1901) and, of course, her German husband Albert (1819- 1861). 

As English Heritage explains on its website, putting up a Christmas tree originated in Germany and was usually an evergreen conifer, such as a spruce, pine or fir.

Having a Christmas tree was popularised by an engraving published in the press showing Victoria and Albert standing with their children beside a decorated tree. 

However, this wasn’t the first time a reigning monarch had included a decorated tree as part of Christmas celebration. 

George III, like Albert, had been raised in Germany and convinced his wife Queen Charlotte to have one at the Queen’s Lodge in Windsor in 1800.

We can also thank Germany for a number of other Christmas ‘traditions’ including Advent wreaths on doors, nutcrackers and Christmas markets which take place in many towns and cities when beer and mulled wine is enjoyed. 

Plentiful printing presses heralded the emergence of printed Christmas cards and Christmas crackers which accompany those enjoying the meal of turkey, which originated in North America and replaced goose.

Undoubtedly, the person most identifiable Christmas is Santa Claus (Father Christmas).

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This large-bellied, white-bearded patriarch, allegedly living at the North Pole and employing elves to make toys to be delivered by him on a reindeer-driven sleigh to all good children the world over, is a character based on St. Nicholas, a third-century Greek bishop who became associated with December gift-giving. 

Santa Claus came to the America via German and Dutch immigrants in the 18th and 19th centuries and, with not a little help from a certain cola manufacturer, who changed the colour of his cloak from green to red, became an essential part of Christmas. 

In 1890, American merchant James Edgar dressed as Santa to greet children in the aisles of his Brockton, Massachusetts, department store. 

This is a trend still seen in almost every country in which Christmas is celebrated and, one I recall with such fondness from my own childhood. 

Electric Christmas lights are based on the tradition of Germans placing candles on their trees.

American Thomas Edison, inventor of the lightbulb, is credited as the inventor of the first strand of lights. In 1882 his business partner, Edward H. Johnson, used coloured lights for the first time to decorate a Christmas tree. 

Celebration occurring close to the winter solstice has constantly adapted to suit changing circumstances.

Celebration of Christmas will continue to change as new traditions emerge to become the norm.

Peace and goodwill to all men, women and children, including making donations to charities dedicated to looking after those less well off, regardless of whether you believe in religion or not, has a long tradition.

Dr Steve McCabe

Steve is Professor and Pro Vice Chancellor, DoctorateHub.

Previously, having worked for Birmingham City Council, he spent the last 35 years as an academic at Birmingham City University teaching and researching economics, management and business. Additionally, he has written extensively for edited texts examining economics and politics.

He regularly writes and comments regularly in the national and international media on politics and the economy and has published texts on quality management, benchmarking, ‘Brexit’ and its economic and social impact, the green economy and manufacturing, house prices and India’s progress since independence. Steve’s latest book on Net Zero will be published next February by Emerald.