History Podcaster and Blue Badge Tourist Guide Marc Zakian takes a quick stroll through the history of Christmas.
“Merry Christmas!” How many times will you say that during December? But have you ever wondered about the origins of this familiar phrase?
The first recorded use comes from a far less cheerful place. In 1534, Bishop John Fisher (pictured above), imprisoned in the Tower of London for displeasing Henry VIII – wrote a letter to Thomas Cromwell: “And this our Lord God send you a mery Christmas.” Needless to say, for anyone locked away in the Tower under Henry VIII, it was not a merry ending.
But what did Fisher mean by “mery”? In Tudor English the word meant prosperous or pleasant, which explains the meaning behind the carol “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen”, first sung in the 1600s.
When we sang it at school, I used to imagine a group of exhausted men needing a good lie-down after Christmas preparations. But in this case the gentlemen don’t need a rest at all – because “rest” meant “to remain”. So the phrase really means: “May you remain prosperous, gentlemen.”
Greetings card, John Callcott Horsley, 1843, England. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
The greeting “Merry Christmas” became widely popular in the 1800s for two reasons. In 1843, Sir Henry Cole produced the first commercial Christmas card, printed with the message: “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You.” And in the very same year, Charles Dickens used the phrase again and again in his most famous tale, A Christmas Carol.
From the Extraordinary Stories of Britain Podcast www.storiesofbritain.com
In Dickens’ story, Scrooge famously sends the Cratchit family a turkey—a changing fashion at the time, because goose had long been the traditional Christmas bird.
Turkeys came from the Americas, but because they arrived on Turkish merchant ships, the British called the bird turkeys. Meanwhile, in Turkey, people thought they came from India and called them “Hindi.”
From the Extraordinary Stories of Britain Podcast www.storiesofbritain.com
Thousands of geese were sold every year at London’s Leadenhall Market. One bird – Tom the Goose – became a London celebrity after repeatedly escaping the Christmas table and making a run for freedom.
Another Victorian tradition was the Christmas tree. It came from Germany, but when an engraving circulated showing Queen Victoria and Prince Albert with their children around a beautifully decorated tree, the fashion quickly swept British homes.
“The word Christmas is younger than many imagine – about 900 years old. It first appears in English as Christes Maesse, meaning ‘the mass of Christ.’ And Xmas, often dismissed as a modern shortcut, is actually centuries old too. The ‘X’ comes from the Greek letter chi, the first letter of Christos and was used as an ancient abbreviation for Christ.”
Merry Christmas!
About the Author
Marc Zakian produces the award-nominated history podcast Extraordinary Stories of Britain. To hear more about the origins of Christmas in Britain and the story of Tom the Goose go to www.storiesofbritain.com You can meet Marc here
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