Shawinigan, Québec, Canada (St-Boniface-de-Shawinigan)
1930 - Where our Christmas Customs came from

Have you ever stopped to wonder why, at Christmas time, people put gaily decorated pine trees in their homes, bedeck their rooms and windows with mistletoe and holly, send greeting cards to friends, and finish off their feasting with good mince pie?

These and other Christmas customs that seem so natural and ageless to us, all had a beginning somewhere, and the origin of most of them are very interesting.

The practice of putting up evergreen trees, for example, was originally an ancient Roman custom and was once roundly denounced by Tertullian, an early Roman writer. In the Rome of the Caesars, the pagan citizens adorned their house with sprigs of evergreen at the time of the New Year festival. In Germany and Holland began the custom of decorating evergreen trees during summer festivals, and in ancient Alsace, the celebration of the New Year was marked by the erection of an evergreen tree in fountains and public squares. These trees were decorated and were kept in place the entire year. Gradually, the custom was adopted for Christmas and the tree became a "Christmas tree." Scandinavian and German countries were the first to make much of the Christmas tree, and in those countries it was first lighted with candles.

In winter, most plants are leafless, sapless, brown and dead. But not mistletoe and holly. These plants are not only green in wither; they bear fruit also. Hence it was only natural that our forebears should have used them, as symbols of life and fertility, to decorate their homes first for New Year festivities, then for Christmas.

Kissing under the mistletoe is an old English custom and began with a kiss for every berry until the berries were gone.

In old England, mince pie, when eaten in a different house on each of the Twelve Days brought a happy month for each day. From this old belief dates the popularity of these pies as part of the Christmas dinner.

Christmas greeting cards came into popularity much later. So far as is known, the first cards were printed in London in 1846. Up to this time, ordinary visiting cards with "A Merry Christmas" written upon them had been used. The new cards bore Christmas scenes, and picture of robins.

New Christmas customs are probably developing among us today. New ways lead to new habits, new habits to new traditions. Banks, for example now ask us to join Christmas Clubs to which we pay a sum each week and at holiday time get back more than we put in. New kinds of gifts are taking place of old. Our group insurance, too, is in this sense a gift - not always a Christmas gift, of course, but a real give, nevertheless the kind that comes when it is most needed.

La Revue de Shawinigan Falls
Shawinigan Falls, Quebec, Canada
December 25, 1930

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