As the Christian faith was carried into northern Europe, important festivals celebrated by the indigenous Germanic and Celtic peoples found their way into the celebration of Christmas. November was the traditional time for slaughtering food animals which could not be supported during the long winter. In December, 10 to 12 days were set aside for celebrating the Julemond. In the celebration of Jul, wheat was worshiped and its products, bread and liquor distilled from the grains of the field, were exchanged as gifts and heavily indulged in. In midwinter, the idea of rebirth and fertility were tremendously important. In the snows of winter, the evergreen was a symbol of the life that would return in the spring, so evergreens were used for decoration. The boar, which was the symbol of Frey, a god of regeneration, was killed and eaten. Light was important in dispelling the growing darkness of the solstice, so a Yule log was lighted with the remains of the previous year’s log.
Christian missionaries found these deeply entrenched rituals and traditions as they moved north during the Fifth century. As before, regional traditions were swallowed up into the practice of the new faith. The various saint’s days festivities throughout November and December took on the aspects of the harvest feasts, and Christmas absorbed the characteristics of Jul. By the end of the 9th century, Christmas was observed throughout Europe with feasting and celebration, the giving of presents, decorating with evergreens, light and noise. As many customs lost their religious reasons for being, they passed into the realm of superstition, becoming good luck traditions and eventually merely enjoyable customs without rationale. Thus the mistletoe was no longer worshiped but became an excuse for nonreligious activities.

The celebration of the 12 Days of Christmas sprung quite naturally from Julemond, and became our Yule celebration. The Twelve Days of Christmas were a merry and boisterous time in Medieval Europe, and a time to call the court together and indulge in unequaled revelry. Kings and bishops vied to outdo each other in the splendor of their retinues apparel, the elaborateness of their entertainments, the pageantry of their tournaments and the groaning bounty of their banquet tables.

Gift giving at the winter solstice goes back to the Roman Saturnalia and Kalends, and the Teutonic Jul gifts. To the early Church, gift giving was a pagan holdover, and therefore severely frowned upon. However, the people would not part with it, and some Christian justification was found in the gift-giving of the magi and later figures such as St. Nicholas. By the Middle Ages, gift giving was accepted, and in some cases carefully regulated. In the mid-thirteenth century, Henry III closed the shops for two weeks until the merchants agreed to come up with the stipulated two thousand pounds.

Gambling was very popular at Christmas. It was considered quiet sport, and therefore more suitable court activity than some of the rowdier entertainments popular among the common people. Edward IV passed an act restricting card play to the twelve days of Christmas, and tradition holds that Elizabeth I’s courtiers gave her loaded dice to play with so that she would always win!

Mumming was popular in England, and is a broad term covering every kind of dressing up and acting out or dancing or performing that people chose to do at Christmastime. Mumming can be traced back to the rowdy bands that roamed pre-Christian Rome during Saturnalia dressed as animals or women and carousing in the streets. In the Middle Ages these activities remained popular, and sometimes bands would break into churches and disrupt the service with their “geese dancing” (a corruption of “guise dancing”). An empty wassail bowl or beaker might be carried round, and a drink extorted from the homeowners so entertained. This was part of the approved begging at Christmas-tide, based on the mixed traditions of sacred feasting and Christian charity. In the courts, there was usually appointed a Lord of Misrule who governed the mumming, and was responsible for arranging the masques, processions and other entertainments. The Abbot of Unreason was particularly popular in Scotland, and performed the same functions as the Lord of Misrule except that he was dressed in clerical robes. Modern Christmas pageants are vestigial remnants of medieval mummery.

The wassail bowl was served in households either as a convivial drink, or, according to very old tradition, passed from lip to lip in the ancient manner of communion with the vegetable spirit of its content. Wassail is another of the ancient pagan customs which put on a new face, as victorious Saxons quaffed ale from the skulls of their conquered enemies. Wassail became the formal affirmation of non-emnity or friendship, as its meaning - ‘good health’ or ‘be whole’ (Anglo-Saxon wes hal) implies. The bowl is traditionally decorated with evergreens, holly and mistletoe, and is filled with a mixture of hot ale, sugar, nutmeg or ginger, but those who could afford it used rich wine highly spiced and sweetened. Sometimes apples were floated on the top, resulting in the name “lamb’s wool’.
The Twelve Days of Christmas ends with the feast of Epiphany, which was established at the Council of Tours in 567. Epiphany was originally celebrated by the 2nd century Basilidian Heretics; the Catholic Church eventually took up the celebration, and it is also referred to as the “Celebration of the Adoration of the Magi”.

YULETIDE WASSAIL
6 apples, peeled and cored
sugar
1/2 t. ground cinnamon
1.2 t. ground ginger
1/4 t. ground nutmeg
1 1/2 quarts ale or beer
2 t. grated lemon peel
3/4 c. sherry, or any sweet red or white wine

Place the apples in a buttered baking dish, and fill the center of each apple with sugar. Bake the apples in a preheated 350* oven until tender, about 30 minutes. Let the apples cool. Add the spices and 3/4 c. sugar to 2 cups of the ale or beer, and let it stand where it will get hot, but not boil, stirring occasionally. When the mix is hot, add the lemon peel, the remaining ale or beer and the wine. Stir the wassail occasionally again until it is very hot; add the baked apples and serve the drink from a big bowl. Makes about 14 - 1/2 cup servings.

There's one for each of the 12 Days of Christmas - Enjoy!