b-uncut

Aesthetics of Christmas Past

// December 21st, 2011 // b-legendary, featured // Katherine Sola

Deck the halls with boughs of holly fa la la la la la la la…… What makes you feel Christmassy? Is it the transformation of familiar space into a winter wonderland? Decorating the tree, putting up lights, hanging a wreath, making paper chains – these are the rituals of Christmas, the traditions that centre us down the years. The whole family or office or class participates in making over their surroundings, bonding as they do. Then there’s the food. To you, Christmas might taste of mince pies and turkey. It might smell like pine. It could feel like an itchy jumper. Christmas is a familiar feast for the senses.

But the sensual worldof a 21^st century Christmas is a rather new invention. What told the Jacobeans or the Georgians that it was the most wonderful time of the year? What were their traditions? Neon reindeer and the X Factor single didn’t feature. A seasonal show at the Geffrye Museum of the Home celebrates British Christmas traditions in Christmas Past: 400 Years of Seasonal Traditions in English Homes. The museum’s eleven period rooms are painstakingly decorated and marvellously evoke long gone Christmas aesthetics.

One room shows a feast in the hall of middle class London family in 1630.  The table’s set with the second course, comprising sweet and savoury foods. Sugar was an expensive commodity in the 17^th century, so the family might have looked forward to this meal all year. Some sweets were made to look like boiled eggs, bacon and walnuts instead. You can also see crystallized fruit and a silvery chequerboard of leach, a milk jelly sweet not unlike Turkish Delight. Ancient pagan traditions still informed many of the major Christmas celebrations at this time. For example, Britons used to celebrate the end of Christmas at Twelfth Night with elaborate games and role-reversal. Cooks would prepare a Twelfth Night cake containing a bean and a pea. The lucky man and woman who discovered the hidden prizes became the King and Queen for the night, served by the other revellers.

The 1695 room looks rather different. Christmas was banned by the Puritans between 1644-60 and many ancient customs had fallen out of favour. Celebrants munched anchovies and olives and drank punch as they listened to flute music. One pagan symbol of eternal life had survived the Puritans – decorating with evergreen branches.  By 1745, Christmas was still an austere affair. People drank cordial, received guests and went to church instead of holding raucous feasts. Christmas presents became popular during this time, supplanting the earlier practice of giving alms to the poor. A 1790s parlour is also on display, but with no turkey and stuffing in sight. The traditional Christmas meal of this period was roast beef served alongside plum pudding.

In the 1830 room, you can tell that the Victorian era saw a revival of the old customs. For example, there’s a pack of Twelfth Night cards. Celebrants picked a card at random and played the character on it, turning the role-reversal into a game similar to today’s charades. The Twelfth Night cake has become an elaborate Christmas cake, decorated with a sparkling crown and plaster of Paris.

Then you come to the 1870 room, which the viewer recognizes immediately. Many of our modern-day Christmas traditions come from the Victorian era. Although Britons had always decorated with evergreen, it took Queen Victoria’s German husband to popularize Christmas trees. Christmas cards are often on display, written in beautiful copperplate handwriting. Parents used to send them out as proof of their children’s penmanship, not unlike today’s parents displaying their charming offspring in card form. It would take another thirty years for the Dutch tradition of leaving out stockings to reach Britain by way of America.

Christmas Past is a fabulously nostalgic exhibition. As we bustle into the next few days of chocolate and Downton Abbey, it’s interesting to look back on how much we’ve changed. Merry Christmas from blur. And if you want a historically aware piece of artwork, you could be choosing pitches before Twelfth Night if you brief the Exchange.