Gifts are about as Christmasy a tradition as one can have — to give and share is at the heart of the enterprise (be it Dickensian or Coca-Colanian). But what is the appropriate juncture at which said gifts and sharables are to be gifted and shared? For most of the Anglophone world, the answer might seem obvious — the morning of the 25th, of course! Was it not at this hour that Ebenezer Scrooge awoke a changed man? Was it not well past 10 or 11 ante-meridian when the goose was bought and the shillings de-pouched? And yet, dear reader, what would you say if I were to tell you that had Messrs. Scrooge and Marley had been born Herren Skrobotz und Müller, then the former would have been altogether too late with his offerings, though they be proffered on Christmas Morn (also, Tiny Tim would, in all likelihood, be safely stowed away in Krampus’s sack).
The difference is not one which is foundational to the festival — both Angle and Teuton agree that Protestantism is the way to go, and that the 25th is the actual ‘feast day’. Rather, the difference depends on which side of the midnight line one places the Christ Child/Christkind. It is a small distinction, certainly, but it dictates whether one attends Midnight Service cold and sleepy or flushed with presents, and whether one sees Home Alone as a charming tale of family and love, or a series of bizarre American traditions capped with a parable about xenophobia.
Perhaps such fine-grained changes can be fully appreciated only by twins born 10 minutes apart at 11.55pm on the 31st of December, but out of small cracks grow peculiar traditions. Note, for instance, that the Germanic tradition pervades much of the Church of South India, which is a firm fixture of the Anglican Communion. It is a church built on three-hundred years of Protestant tug-of-warring, beginning with the Lutheran-Pietists (from whence came the 24th as gift day), into the whacky world of British Evangelicalism, and finally into the full communion of High Church Anglicanism (maybe).
At each stage, the little protestant communities accrued a little kit of traditions that eventually coalesced into the ornate Church of South India. Today, with ecumenism of every sort being questioned relentlessly, it pays to remember that traditions are rather knotty things – they spring up where we least expect them. With a little bit of curiosity and openness, we may well be at the cusp of a new Victoriana with Christmas Traditions ripe for the making!
doinghistoryinpublic.org 