Fourth Day of Christmas: Feast of the Holy Innocents

Four days into the Twelve Days of Christmas, and I'm stymied with how people handled this specific day. It's a feast day, alright, but the designation is in recognition of a rather somber occurrence: the Feast of the Holy Innocents. How does one celebrate an event as macabre as that?

As it turns out, not only is this one of the designations for the Twelve Days, but it became the inspiration for one of the older tunes you might recognize from the Christmas season: the Coventry Carol. Admittedly, a lullaby for babies about to be murdered is a non-starter, despite being set to a tune which is hauntingly beautiful.

So how does one go about celebrating the occasion of a jealous king hell-bent on eliminating all competition? The mass murder of infants seems so senseless, even in the context of biblical scripture. The Catholic Church—of which I am not even a member, much less a theological analyst—depicts the Innocents' loss of life as martyrdom. But a feast?

I had to go looking for examples of how the day was historically celebrated among those in my ancestry. You can be sure, if the carol commemorating the event is over four hundred years old, the activities associated with the day would be much more ancient. Once known as Childermas, the day's roots reach back, in western Christian denominations, to the fifth and sixth centuries. Naturally, over the many years between then and now, the day has evolved greatly.

I was surprised to learn of the customs which have now sprung from that day. It would seem natural to see this day as a day of sadness, but over the generations, the day was once marked by strange caricatures of the remembrance of mourning. In medieval England, for instance, parents would remind their children of the mournfulness of the day by whipping their children in bed, first thing in the morning.

Thankfully, the viewpoint on how to "celebrate" the day has changed, but don't think the pendulum didn't swing wildly in the other direction. Eventually, the original tragic day got turned on its head, as it became one in which the youngest in the family got to "rule the day." The "baby" of the family gets to choose what foods to eat that day, what music will be listened to, or what things the family will do for fun. In Spain and some of its former colonies, Childermas is treated as a kind of April Fool's Day in which the one tricked is called "Innocente!" Often, it is the young playing tricks on their elders, who must then pay a ransom to escape being tricked.

A logical extension of the origin of the event is the custom some parents have of making the day one in which they specifically bless their children. No matter how sweet or innocent those children may be, every parent is reminded that, despite their young age, no child has a guarantee of a future of good health and long life.

Being reminded of that brings to mind some experiences we've had in our own family. This past year has been particularly difficult for my husband's cousin's daughter, who had one four year old child undergo surgery for a brain tumor (and the ensuing months of chemo treatments), while upon the heels of that ordeal, had to see that child's twin sister through cataract surgery to restore her sight. I'm sure you can also think of similar situations which have been endured in your own extended family.

And though it certainly didn't occur this year, my sister-in-law recalled that the only other son in our Stevens family—my husband's only brother—lost his life unexpectedly in a car wreck when he was still a teenager; his sixty-eighth birthday would have been yesterday. No matter how long these young people have been gone, we still remember them. Perhaps for their innocence. But also because they were family.   

Third Day: A Day for Saint John

Do you ever face researching a family tree in which many of the ancestors were all bestowed with the same given name?

In my husband's very Irish and definitely Catholic family history, that was the case for the name John. Both of my father-in-law's grandfathers were named John. On the Stevens side, John Stevens was a name carried for a few generations in a row—perhaps longer, though I can't break through the Irish paper silence before the Tithe Applotments to determine that, as yet—and the John Stevens streak was only varied by the insertion of a mother's maiden name to yield John Kelly Stevens, a name likewise repeated for at least three generations. In fact, the addition of Kelly represented yet another John—John T. Kelly—from early 1800s Ireland.

Not to be outdone, my mother-in-law's less Irish but definitely Catholic forebears provided a few namesakes for Saint John, as well, including her own father's first name. In fact, of all the people in my mother-in-law's tree—now at 15,816 names—562 of that extended family hold the given name of John. Of the 1,514 in my father-in-law's tree, ninety three of them claim John as a first name.

Being Catholic, each of these family members named John likely were named after not only an ancestor, but also a saint. But which Saint John is the question.

Researching the saint being honored on the third day of Christmas requires attention to that same particular detail: which saint? Saint John the Baptist has his feast day on June 24, hardly part of Twelvetide, the Christmas season's celebration in the old European tradition. The saint celebrated on the Third Day of Christmas is a different Saint John: the one known as the Beloved Apostle, the one to whom authorship of the Gospel of John, as well as three epistles and the book of Revelation, has been credited.

Even getting the right person correctly identified can be a challenge when it comes to saints named John. Our Third Day honoree is officially designated as "Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist" by the Catholic Church, but called "Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist" by the Anglicans and the Lutherans. It may all come down to a comma and a definite article, apparently.

No matter what the case, those in my husband's family, whether in Ireland or the Alsace-Lorraine regions where I suspect his mother's family originated, likely spent the Third Day of Christmas going to mass to honor that day's specified saint. And if this is the Saint John for whom our family's many ancestral men named John were called, the day likely held even more significance for their families. 

Second Day: Boxing Day

How did the second day of Christmas—in western tradition, the feast of Saint Stephen, first Christian martyr—come to be identified with both a tradition in England and a king in Bohemia? I can't say; some things just happen. Correlation does not signify causation. It's just how the western Catholic church has traditionally designated the day.

The tradition, somehow, has become intertwined with the custom of giving gifts to the poor on the second day of Christmas. Particularly in the United Kingdom—Great Britain, in particular, and many of the countries once associated with the British Empire—this day is designated as Boxing Day. Just as you might have boxed up a gift to give to a loved one on Christmas morning, this second day of Christmas became the time to box up alms and gifts for the less fortunate.

Though no one seems to know the true origin of the Boxing Day custom—and there are many versions explaining that origin, from the myth-busting Snopes to the mirth-eliciting New Yorker, and many variations in between—it is generally thought to have had its roots in the custom of the British upper class, having required their household servants to work during Christmas Day festivities, to release them for their own celebrations at home the day following. And, in the tradition of the feast of Saint Stephen, that day off was often accompanied by generous gifts from the well-off for those less fortunate than they.

Somewhere along the way, the feast of Saint Stephen became the inspiration for a Christmas carol—one musical commemoration of the Christmas season, in fact, in which there is no mention whatsoever of the Nativity.

Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even....

For those of us who are avid collectors of traditional Christmas carols, you immediately may have recalled the tune that starts with those lines. The carol tells a story which is set on this very day: December 26 (at least in the western church calendar).

Only problem is: the good king wasn't exactly a king; he was likely a tenth century duke of Bohemia, also known as Vaclav the Good. As the history of the era goes, Vaclav the Good had a brother, known as Boleslaw the Bad (or, if you prefer, Boleslaus the Cruel). And an ambitious mother who, after her mother-in-law assumed power upon the death of her son (the previous duke of Bohemia), had the woman disposed of and assumed control of the land, herself.

It was in this scene, with his mom in charge as regent and taking vindictive action against the local Christians, that the young Vaclav came of age and took control of the government, exiling his mother.

It just so happens that Wenceslas Vaclav had spent much of his brief life, going out and doing deeds that likely ran afoul of the typical drama you'd expect in conflicts among the nobility. At least according to the legend preserved in the carol bearing his name, Vaclav honored the tradition of giving alms to the poor—in the case of this carol, on the very day of the Feast of Saint Stephen.

There must have been more to the story, because barely fourteen years into his reign, his brother—remember, I told you there'd be drama here—the evil Boleslaw the Bad invited Vaclav to attend a feast. That gesture, of course, was merely a pretense. Before this event, Boleslaw had arranged for three of his accomplices to assist him in a plot to kill the duke. As the three fell on Vaclav and stabbed him, his brother ran him through with a lance.

Following his death, there was a move to venerate Vaclav as a martyr. During this collective effort to have him declared a saint, writings about the duke attested to his acts of benevolence. Interestingly, his fame was not only asserted in Bohemia, land of his rule, but also in England, the country where the Carol that bears his latinized name was written, many centuries later. Perhaps the prevalence of the Boxing Day tradition in England found its resonance in the hymn praising the acts of the martyred duke of Bohemia.

Now that we know about the history and tradition of this second day of Christmas in the lands of our roots, how can we apply any of this knowledge to our understanding of our own family history? Well, for those who have roots in the British Isles, the answer is self-evident: that is what our forebears did on the day following December 25.

That, however, is not a useful answer for someone with a tree like mine. I went back to my most recently-revised version of my ethnicity results from AncestryDNA to check out just how British my family once was. Not very, according to the readout.

Though a quarter of my genetic makeup comes from the broadly-painted category of "England, Wales, and Northwestern Europe," there is little personal awareness of any English traditions in my history. That part of my family may have originated there, but that memory could be as recent as the 1700s, and in some cases, back as early as 1620. With a near-match of twenty two percent from Eastern Europe, I may have more of an affinity for the duke from Bohemia than any lords of English manors.

And yet, I discover that that very same day—December 26—comes with yet another designation in other parts of the European sphere. In Ireland, for instance, that same day is called Wren Day. While a day set aside for young men to go out and kill little birds may seem an unlikely platform on which to build a holiday which resonates with the populace, there is, of course, more to this story. Part of it, conveniently, links to the broader purpose of the Feast of Saint Stephen: the giving of gifts to people less fortunate. In the case of the Irish Wren Day, in modern times, the money collected to "bury the wren" is often donated to a selected charity.

What was interesting about learning of this to-me unheard-of historic festivity was to see that, even now, Wren Day is still celebrated in pockets of Ireland, mostly in County Kerry and County Limerick, two locations from which my husband derives his own Irish heritage. In addition, not only was Wren Day an Irish custom on December 26, but similar events have been re-enacted in parts of Britain and France, as well as the Isle of Man. More to the point is the detail I discovered about a version of this day as it is honored in Wales, a region represented in my own maternal grandfather's heritage—though there in Wales, the tradition is held on Twelfth Night.

All told, while it was interesting to learn what variations there have been in the Christmas-time celebrations over the centuries and across the continent of my roots, it is apparent why none of these traditions have had enough staying power to be passed down to my generation. For one thing, my forebears have been separated from any memory of those festivities for well more than two centuries—in some cases, by nearly four hundred years, and even in the case of the Irish Wren Day tradition, over one hundred fifty years. For another thing, these were often events that were reinforced by community involvement—a church boxing up alms donated by their community, or a group of neighborhood boys collecting donations to "bury the wren"—something requiring a large number of people living in close proximity and holding to the same custom.

Above all, though, the realization drives home the main point: as fond as Americans may be of reveling in the great variations in their ancestral makeup, we are, above all other hyphenated designations, more American than we claim to be.   

On the First Day of Christmas

American custom is such that we are all in a tizzy over the season by the time the actual day, December 25, gets here, but a long-standing tradition had those twelve days of Christmas fixed so that the sequence began on that very day. While we may be over with the merrymaking after the close of the day today, our ancestors may have just begun.

I was curious to see what the traditional holiday sequence of the twelve days of Christmas might have included. After all, for those of us with European roots, knowing that would bring us closer to understanding just how our ancestors celebrated the event. Of course, the phrase, "twelve days of Christmas" immediately brings to mind the carol by that title. Along with the long-winded ditty's many parodies—and even hoaxes—the custom of the twelve days itself has its explanations shared online, too, both lightweight and serious.

Terms like Boxing Day, or the Feast of the Innocents, have remained tucked away in the far reaches of my memory. I recall hearing such terms, and associating them with some fuzzy link to the Christmas season, but never thought to follow the trail back through my own generations to see if any of my ancestors might have held such traditions in our own family lines.

True to form as your Genealogical Guinea Pig, I thought I'd take this Christmas week to see what I could find, and hope you will join in on this lazy researcher's casual tour of the official names for each of the Twelve Days of Christmas. While I am far from being equipped to report on what my kazillionth great grandfather might have been up to on the twelfth century rendition of the Feast of Saint Egwin, at least we can surmise what the Christmas season was like for those ancestors for whom we have at least a hazy picture of their life's ups and downs.

In the meantime, in whatever holiday traditions your family has handed down to you and yours, may you have a peaceful holiday season with those who mean the most to you.

Above: "Adoration of the Shepherds," oil on canvas by seventeenth century Dutch Golden Age artist, Gerard van Honthorst; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

On Christmas Eve

It's the twenty-fourth day of December. By now, most Americans who have prepared for the upcoming holiday are likely suffering from Christmas fatigue. Whatever happened to enjoying the Christmas ambience starting with the celebration on the twenty-fifth?

In searching for artwork to include in this post, I paused for a while to consider an artist's illustration of the Bavarian market where cut evergreen trees were being sold for Christmas. Not likely anyone now can relate to that concept at this late date—we've long since put up our tree decorations, wrapped our packages and munched those holiday treats.

Still, I can remember, not that long ago, going home for one Christmas vacation and discovering that my mother had just the day before put up her fresh-cut tree. She had been so busy during the prior week—at the time, she worked as a substitute teacher for two school districts where, I imagine, there were lots of "sick" calls placed that last week before the winter recess—that she hadn't been able to go find a tree.

It was a challenge, trying to find a place where trees were still being sold at that late date, but she managed to find one—the last tree on the lot. The relieved proprietor sold it to her at a discount, making both of them happy for the transaction. And home she scurried, to put all the traditional trinkets in their accustomed places before our arrival.

Now, at least around here, it is the rare person who dares to attempt purchase of a live tree any time beyond the Thanksgiving weekend. Quite the turnaround from a season whose iconic children's story— portrayed in the ballet which has since served to provide forty percent of many companies' annual ticket revenue—was based on a story which opened with the Christmas Eve decorating of the family's tree.

No matter how much Christmas traditions have morphed over the generations, many of them still have their long-held roots in history. Whether you tend to agree with the recent articles declaring the Tudor reign to be the source of all modern Christmas customs, or prefer the versions—either American or British—seeing holiday nostalgia as an outgrowth of the horrors of the American Civil War, we all can link the traditions we will keep tonight and tomorrow to some point in our genealogical and geographical past. The interesting part, at least for us family historians, will be to determine just where our forebears got those traditions we are keeping today.

Above: "Glade Jul," 1891 oil on canvas by Danish artist Viggo Johansen; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

In Those Shortening Days of Winter

In the rush of Christmas shopping, it's likely that barely anyone noticed we've already passed the winter solstice. We can now cheer that the gloomy days of winter will be growing longer, if only by a minute at a time. It will, however, be a long time until that shift in daylight will bring us the type of weather to encourage outdoor activity.

While the temperatures in a place like southern California—where our family spent last week enjoying an early holiday treat in seventy degree weather—may not inspire residents to hunker down and warm themselves by the fire as they take a virtual spin through their genealogical database, the rest of our genea-nation may find these hardy weather conditions perfectly suited to some online research in the comfort of our own cozy home. I know that is what I'll be tempted to do, once all the holiday festivities have drawn to a close for the winter.

In the past few years, I've attempted to make the shift to goal-based research. In 2018, especially since I am preparing for a class in southern U.S. research at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy, I have tried to focus only on working on my mother's family tree. With ancestors in many of the southern states—everywhere from the Virginia and South Carolina colonies of the 1700s and earlier to the newer southern frontier of Texas—I've had my research work cut out for me for the last several months.

That's not to say I don't have much more work to do. On the contrary, not only is a genealogist's work never done, but a southern researcher's work is not in much better condition. Beyond census records, wills and probate cases, church records, property records, and even newspaper mentions, I need to delve into the world of manuscripts to find the full story of some of my ancestors. Achieving all that will be a research workout. Some of that might be done before the January SLIG class begins. Hopefully, some will be done on site at the Family History Library as I learn of new research resources and techniques. Undoubtedly, much will be accomplished after class is over, especially considering our family's upcoming plans to travel to Florida, home of my mother's McClellan, Charles, Tison and Townsend lines' heritage.

Whether that becomes my research goal for 2019, though, I'm not sure. It is possible to burn out on one focus, carried out for too long—or leading into the realm of skidding wheels when much effort is expended in an area yielding little results. I'm not sure how things will turn out, as the old year slips into the new.

All that to say I'm already entertaining thoughts of New Year's plans. Not resolutions, mind you—the thought is anathema to me—but the matter of choosing a new research direction. Sometimes, a researcher just needs a breath of fresh air, and a different topic selection may be just the antidote. After all, the one good thing about a genealogist's work never being done is that we can always revisit an old focus in another calendar year. The pluses to that option are multiple, among them the possibility of new record sets being digitized and added to the mix on the multiple genealogy websites now at our fingertips.

As the days of winter grow imperceptibly longer, I'm already longing to try my hand at a new research task for my family history.

Above: The 1901 oil on canvas by Scottish painter Joseph Farquharson entitled "The Shortening Winter's Day is Nearing a Close," which has also been called "Beneath the Snow Encumbered Branches" and adapted for use as a much beloved Christmas card over the years; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

That Home for the Holidays Feeling

The month of December is racing to a close, pausing just long enough to let us take a breather and celebrate Christmas. Naturally, my mind turns back to all those times when Christmas was a time to head home to family. Now, much of that family seems to be on the pages of my genealogical research projects. Still, that doesn't keep me from wishing to recreate that magical holiday feeling.

The holidays will be a little different for our family, this year. We're actually celebrating Christmas today, as travel plans will take one of our family members away from home for December 25. I guess I've done my fair share of that sort of holiday celebrating, as well—like when my husband's twenty-four/seven work schedule required somebody to be on duty, even on holidays when he'd rather be home on daddy duty as father of a bright eyed youngster. Still, we learned to be flexible; the wonder of Christmas can be even as bright for a child when the holiday dinner is served at a fire station and the other on-duty personnel (and their families) are invited to join in.

Remembering all these Christmases past prompts me to think of just what my ancestors might have been up to during the year-end holiday season. Life can often be messy, and I imagine our ancestors learned to be flexible, too. I know Christmas after The Crash was probably a much more modest event for the preceding generations in my family—not to mention the restraint demanded of our ancestors who chose the path of migrating to a new life, whether it was across the prairie or across an ocean.

Over this weekend, I imagine there will be many people who will not only get that nostalgic home-for-the-holidays feeling, but will take action, jump in the car, catch a train, or fly home for the week. While we were down in southern California for our early holiday festivities, I noticed signs posted on the freeway, warning everyone of the impossible traffic to come, starting this weekend. There are a lot of us who want to head home for those holidays, and there are likely as many reasons for that desire as there are families. No matter what the reason, though, there is no place like home, when that is where our family is.

Above: "Christmas Eve," 1880 lithograph by J. Hoover of Philadelphia; courtesy of U. S. Library of Congress via Wikipedia; in the public domain.