You may think I’m beginning a bit early to think about the Christmas meal, but I’m right on time according to British tradition. I’m writing this on the Thursday before Stir-up Sunday (this year on November 22nd), which is the day everyone in Regency England would have been “stirring up” their Christmas plum pudding. I’m sure plenty of you already know this, but British plum pudding is more like our U.S. fruitcake in its consistency and ingredients. What we call pudding is what the Brits would call custard or blancmange … but I digress. Stir-up Sunday always falls on the Sunday before Advent Sunday. There’s a complicated reason for why it’s called Stir-up Sunday, having to do with the Anglican liturgy, but the upshot of it is that plum pudding has to be prepared and cooked well in advance, and apparently it takes a lot of people to stir it up. (It sounds a bit like churning butter to me, and that’s hard.) After all, you need to have some strength left in your arm for hauling Yule logs and a Christmas tree!

The Dickensian Christmas is pretty close to how a Regency Christmas was, since Dickens was born early in the Regency period. There are no trees or stockings in A Christmas Carol, just lots of food, dancing, Christmas carols, and party games as well as greenery. Much of what we think of as an English Christmas did not come into being until the Victorian age. Christmas trees come from Germany, and the Dutch brought Sinterklaus to America long before Santa ever showed up in London.

That’s true of stockings as well, which is why I showed them as an anomaly in ’Twas the Night After Christmas (set in 1826). After Lady Devonmont reads the American poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (aka “’Twas the Night Before Christmas”), she decides it would be great fun to make stockings. But the custom of hanging them was practiced in America long before it started being practiced in England, because it was brought there by Dutch and German immigrants. The first reference I can find to it in England is in 1854. Eventually it became a big part of a Victorian Christmas.

The whole “Twelve Days of Christmas” song comes from the twelve days between Christmas Day and January 6^th (Epiphany). In the Regency, Christmas was more of a religious celebration but Twelfth Night (either January 5^th or January 6^th—no one seems to agree which “night” it is) was a party. They had Twelfth Night Cake or what we call “king cake” in New Orleans. There were parlor games and balls, and a good time was had by all. Maybe that’s why the last four days of the song are about lords leaping, ladies dancing, pipers piping, and drummers drumming. Partay!!

For Twelfth Night in Regency England, the custom of choosing a king and queen from whomever got the bean and pea in the twelfth-cake evolved into choosing characters out of a hat to pretend to be for the evening, a sort of masquerade. In some cases, they wore masks and the person was required to remain in character the entire night. Sounds like fun to me.

One Mardi Gras custom that New Orleanians have in common with the people of Regency England is that of the King Cake. In the Regency it was served on Twelfth Night (January 5th), the night before Epiphany (January 6th), but in New Orleans it’s served on Epiphany/Kings’ Day (or as it’s called in some Catholic countries, Three Kings’ Day, for the Three Wise Men). In both Regency England and modern-day New Orleans, the cakes have something hidden inside—a bean or a coin for Twelfth Night cakes and a plastic baby for King Cakes. If you get the slice of a Twelfth Night cake containing the bean or coin, you’re designated king for the party. If you get the baby in a New Orleans King Cake, you have to bring King Cake to the next party (in offices, someone generally brings a King Cake every Friday, and sometimes every day, beginning on January 6th and going until Mardi Gras!). After Mardi Gras comes Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. As you might imagine, after living in New Orleans for years, I felt quite at home with Regency England’s celebration of Twelfth Night and Epiphany!

The term “Boxing Day” actually shows up during our period, but the concept of giving a “box” to the poor or to those in service began much earlier, at least as far back as the Middle Ages. I read an account from the mid-18^th century that described a man with a comfortable income giving anywhere from a shilling to a half-a-crown to servants and several merchants he had dealings with. On a large estate, the owner might give boxes of food and other gifts to each tenant and servant. It mirrors the American practice of offering Christmas gifts to public servants or business associates, except that in countries which practice it, it occurs the day AFTER Christmas.