Christmas in Great Britain

Christmas (shortened: Xmas) is an annual church festival kept on December 25. It is a day of special gifts and greetings. People usually wish "A merry Christmas to you", and the reply is "The same to you". Everybody tries to prepare gifts for the family, friends and dearly loved. English children hang up their stockings at the foot of their bed on Xmas Eve and expect to find them in the morning filled with toys and sweets.

On Christmas English families decorate their rooms not only with Christmas tree. They often use different evergreens such as holly, ivy and mistletoe. Holly is a beautiful evergreen with red berries. Mistletoe is usually hung in the doorway or in the middle of the room.

Crackers, streamers and Chinese lanterns are part of the fun. During Christmas dinner the traditional "cracker" ia laid beside each plate. Those seated next to each pull the ends of each other's crackers, which make a loud bang. Inside there is a paper hat and a trinket.

Pantomimes have been  of the British Christmas for 200 years or more. Pantomime in England is a Christmas performane, usually based on a story, providing entertainment and amusement for both young and old. The most popular pantomime characters are Robinson Crusoe, Cinderella, and others from legends and fairy-tales.

The Christmas festivities and tea-parties go on until Twelfth Night (January 6th).

On the 26th of December is so called BOXING DAY. It has taken the name for small earthware boxes that tradespeople and civil servants usually carried around to collect tips. Boxing Day was traditionally the day on which householders gave presents or Christmas boxes to servants and tradespeople. It is now simply a leisure day, a day for relaxing and visiting friends. Many offices, but not shops close for all the period from Christmas to New Year.

The Origin of Christmas Traditions

Many of current Christmas traditions derive from the English Victorian Christmas, such as caroling, gifts, feast, and the wishing of good cheer to all. These ingredients create that special Chrismas atmosphere.

The custom of gift-giving on Christmas dates only to Victorian times. Before then it was more common to exchange gifts on New Year's Day or Twefth Night.

Santa Claus is known by British children as Father Christmas. Father Christmas, these days, is quite similar to the American Santa, but his direct ancestor is a certain pagan spirit who regularly appeared in medieval pantomimic plays. The old-fashioned Father Christmas was depicted wearing long robes with sprays of holly in his long whire hair.

Children write letters to Father Christmas detailing their requests, but instead of dropping them in the mailbox, the letters are thrown into the fireplace. According to the legend the letters turn into smoke which comes out through the chimney, and theoretically, Father Christmas reads the smoke. Gifts are opened Chrismas afternoon.

From the English there is a story to explain the custom of hanging stockings from the mantelpiece. Father Christmas once dropped some gold coins while coming down the chimney. The coins would have fallen through the ash grate and been lost if they hadn't landed in a stocking that had been hung out to dry. Since that time children have continued to hang out stockings in hopes of finding them filled with gifts.

The custom of singing carols at Christmas ia also of English origin. During the middle age, groups of serenaders called "waits" would travel around from house to house singing ancient carols and spreading the holiday spirit. The word "carol" means "song of joy". Most of the popular old carols were written in the nineteenth century.

The hanging of greens, such as holly and ivy, is a British winter tradition with origin far before the Christmas era. Greenery was probably used to lift low winter spirits and remind the people that spring was not far away.

The decorating of Christmas trees, though primarily a German custom, has been widely popular in England since 1841 when Prince Albert had a Christmas tree set up in Windsor Castle for his wife Queen Victoria and their children.

The celebration of Boxing Day (december 26), the feast of St. Stephen, is a part of the holiday season unique to Great Britain.

Tradiotionally, it is on this day that the alms box at every English church is opened and the contents are given out to the poor.

Also, this is the day that servants traditionally got the day off to celebrate with their families. It became traditional for working people to break open their tip boxes on this day.

Boxing Day began in the mid-nineteenth century when the custom of tipping by rich persons to persons in service positions had spread widely. Children and others pretended to be in the trades and asked for tips. The custom was expanded to giving to anyone and everyone who had less money than you did, and soon the streets at Christmastime were full of aggressive beggars of tips. To stop the disgraces "Boxing Day" was chosen as the one day for giving to the less fortunate.

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