The progress of the Christmas celebrations has at length brought us up to the immediate threshold of that high day in honor of which they are all instituted; and amid the crowd of festivities by which it is on all sides surrounded, the Christian heart makes a pause to-night. Not that the Eve of Christmas is marked by an entire abstinence from that spirit of festival by which the rest of this season is distinguished, nor that the joyous character of the event on whose immediate verge it stands requires that it should. No part of that season is more generally dedicated to the assembling of friends than are the great day itself and the eve which ushers it in. Still, however, the feelings of rejoicing which properly belong to the blessed occasion are chastened by the immediate presence of the occasion itself; and touching traditions and beautiful superstitions have given an air of solemnity to the night, beneath whose influence the spirit of commemoration assumes a religious character, and takes a softened tone.
Before however, touching upon the customs and ceremonies of the night, or upon those natural superstitions which have hung themselves around its sacred watches, we must take a glimpse at an out-of-door scene which forms a curious enough feature of Christmas Eve, and is rather connected with the great festival of to-morrow than with the hushed and expectant feelings which are the fitting moral condition of to-night.
Everywhere throughout the British isles Christmas Eve is marked by an increased activity about the good things of this life. "Now," says Stevenson, an old writer whom we have already quoted for the customs of Charles the Second's time, "capons and hens, besides turkeys, geese, ducks, with beef and mutton, must all die; for in twelve days a multitude of people will not be fed with a little;" and the preparations in this respect of this present period of grace, are made much after the ancient prescription of Stevenson. The abundant displays of every kind of edible in the London markets on Christmas Eve, with a view to the twelve days' festival of which it is the overture, the blaze of lights amid which they are exhibited and the evergreen decorations by which they are embowered, together with the crowds of idlers or of purchasers that wander through these well-stored magazines, present a picture of abundance and a congress of faces well worthy of a single visit from the stranger, to whom a London market on the eve of Christmas is as yet a novelty.
The approach of Christmas Eve in the metropolis is marked by the Smithfield show of over-fed cattle; by the enormous beasts and birds, for the fattening of which medals and cups and prizes have been awarded by committees of amateur graziers and feeders; in honor of which monstrosities, dinners have been eaten, toasts drunk, and speeches made. These prodigious specimens of corpulency we behold, after being thus glorified, led like victims of antiquity decked with ribbons and other tokens of triumph, or perhaps instead of led, we should, as the animals are scarcely able to waddle, have used the word goaded, to be immolated at the altar of gluttony in celebration of Christmas! To admiring crowds, on the eve itself, are the results of oil-cake and turnip-feeding displayed in the various butcher's shops of the metropolis and its vicinity; and the efficacy of walnut-cramming is illustrated in Leadenhall market, where Norfolk turkeys and Dorking fowls appear in numbers and magnitude unrivalled. The average weight given for each turkey, by the statement heretofore quoted by us of the number and gravity of those birds sent up to London from Norfolk during two days of a Christmas some years ago, is nearly twelve pounds; but what is called a fine bird in Leadenhall Market weighs, when trussed, from eighteen to one or two-and-twenty pounds,—the average price of which may be stated at twenty shillings; and prize turkeys have been known to weigh more than a quarter of a hundred weight.
Brawn is another dish of this season, and is sold by the poulterers, fishmongers, and pastry-cooks. The supply for the consumption of London is chiefly derived from Canterbury, Oxfordshire, and Hampshire. "It is manufactured from the flesh of large boars, which are suffered to live in a half-wild state, and, when put up to fatten, are strapped and belted tight round the principal parts of the carcass, in order to make the flesh become dense and brawny. This article comes to market in rolls about two feet long and ten inches in diameter, packed in wicker baskets."
Sandys observes that "Brawn is a dish of great antiquity, and may be found in most of the old bills of fare for coronation and other great feasts." "Brawn, mustard, and malmsey were directed for breakfast at Christmas, during Queen Elizabeth's reign; and Dugdale, in his account of the Inner Temple Revels, of the same age, states the same directions for that society. The French," continues Sandys, "do not appear to have been so well acquainted with it; for, on the capture of Calais by them, they found a large quantity, which they guessed to be some dainty, and tried every means of preparing it; in vain did they roast it, bake it, and boil it; it was impracticable and impenetrable to their culinary arts. Its merits, however, being at length discovered, 'Ha!' said the monks, 'what delightful fish!'—and immediately added it to their fast-day viands. The Jews, again, could not believe it was procured from that impure beast, the hog, and included it in their list of clean animals."
Amid the interior forms to be observed, on this evening, by those who would keep their Christmas after the old orthodox fashion, the first to be noticed is that of the Yule Clog. This huge block, which, in ancient times, and consistently with the capacity of its vast receptacle, was frequently the root of a large tree, it was the practice to introduce into the house with great ceremony, and to the sound of music. Herrick's direction is:—
"Come, bring with a noise
My merrie, merrie boys,
The Christmas log to the firing;
While my good dame she
Bids you all be free,
And drink to your heart's desiring."
In Drake's "Winter Nights" mention is made of the Yule Clog, as lying, "in ponderous majesty, on the kitchen floor," until "each had sung his Yule song, standing on its centre,"—ere it was consigned to the flames that
"Went roaring up the chimney wide."