Christmas: Its Origin and Associations / Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries

by W. F. Dawson

An English writer who spent a Christmas in Naples a few years ago, says:—

In the south Christmas is bright and gay, and in truth noisy. The festa natalizie, as it is called in Naples, is celebrated by fairs and bonfires and fireworks. In the Toledo, that famous street known to all the world, booths are erected beside the shops, flaming in colour, and filled with all sorts of tempting wares. Throughout Christmas Eve an immense crowd of men, women, and children throng this street, nearly a mile in length. The vendors shriek at the top of their voice, praising themselves and their goods, and then, with merry peals of laughter, exhibit with Neapolitan drollery all the arts of their trade. The crowd catch the contagious spirit of fun, and toss witticisms to and fro, until the welkin rings with shouts and laughter. A revolution in Paris could not create greater excitement, or greater noise, than the Christmas fair at Naples, the largest, and certainly the merriest, in the world. As night draws on the mirth grows uproarious; improvisations abound. Pulcinello attracts laughing crowds. The bagpipes strike with their ear-piercing sounds, and arise shrill above universal din. Fireworks are let off at every street corner, flaming torches carried in procession parade the streets; rockets rise in the air, coloured lamps are hung over doorways, and in the midst of the blaze of light the church bells announce the midnight Mass, and the crowd leave the fair and the streets, and on bended knee are worshipping.

Luis de Vargas 1502-1568 Seville Cathedral

Christmas in Spain.

Spain in winter must be divided into Spain the frigid and Spain the semi-tropic; for while snow lies a foot deep at Christmas in the north, in the south the sun is shining brightly, and flowers of spring are peeping out, and a nosegay of heliotrope and open-air geraniums is the Christmas-holly and mistletoe of Andalusia. There is no chill in the air, there is no frost on the window-pane.

When Christmas Eve comes the two days' holiday commences. At twelve the labourers leave their work, repair home, and dress in their best. Then the shops are all ablaze with lights, ribbons and streamers, with tempting fare of sweets and sausages, with red and yellow serge to make warm petticoats; with cymbals, drums, and zambombas. The chief sweetmeats, peculiar to Christmas, and bought alike by rich and poor, are the various kinds of preserved fruits, incrusted with sugar, and the famous turrni. This last, which is of four kinds, and may be called in English phraseology, "almond rock," is brought to your door, and buy it you must. A coarse kind is sold to the poor at a cheap rate. Other comestibles, peculiar to Christmas, are almond soup, truffled turkey, roasted chestnuts, and nuts of every sort.

Before the Noche-buena, or Christmas Eve, however, one or two good deeds have been done by the civil and military authorities. On the twenty-third or twenty-fourth the custom is for the military governor to visit all the soldier prisoners, in company with their respective defensores, or advocates; and, de officio, there and then, he liberates all who are in gaol for light offences. This plan is also pursued in the civil prisons; and thus a beautiful custom is kept up in classic, romantic, Old-world Spain, and a ray of hope enters into and illuminates even the bitter darkness of a Spanish prisoners' den.

It is Christmas Eve. The poor man has his relations round him, over his humble puchero (stew): the rich man likewise. Friends have not come, "for it is not the custom." In Spain only blood relations eat and drink in the house as invited guests. Families meet as in England. Two per cent. of the soldiers get a fortnight's leave of absence and a free pass; and there is joy in peasant homes over peasant charcoal pans. The dusky shades of evening are stealing over olive grove and withering vineyard, and every house lights up its tiny oil lamp, and every image of the Virgin is illuminated with a taper. In Eija, near Cordova, an image or portrait of the Virgin and the Babe new-born, hangs in well-nigh every room in every house. And why? Because the beautiful belief is rooted in those simple minds, that, on Christmas Eve, ere the clock strikes twelve, the Virgin, bringing blessings in her train, visits every house where she can find an image or portrait of her Son. And many a girl kneels down in robes of white before her humble portrait of the Babe and prays; and hears a rustle in the room, and thinks, "the Virgin comes: she brings me my Christmas Eve blessing;" and turns, and lo! it is her mother, and the Virgin's blessing is the mother's kiss!

In Northern Andalusia you have the zambomba, a flower-pot perforated by a hollow reed, which, wetted and rubbed with the finger, gives out a hollow, scraping, monotonous sound. In Southern Andalusia the panderita, or tambourine, is the chief instrument. It is wreathed with gaudy ribbons, and decked with bells, and beaten, shaken, and tossed in the air with graceful abandon to the strains of the Christmas hymn: