262 
CHRISTMAS- KEEPING. 
in the dough in the shape of a hay-rack, denoting the manger of the 
infant Saviour, is one of those emblems most commonly in use. The 
younger part of the household hunt the garden for evergreens to 
decorate the interior of the apartments : and the woods are sought to 
bring home the misletoe, which is to be suspended in the room where 
the pleasures of the evening are to take place, and beneath which 
the “ sighing lips,” as Moore calls them, of many a lovely girl still 
continues to be pressed, despite of that coy resistance and those 
blushes, that so much heighten the charms of beauty. — They also paint 
candles of different colours, to be lighted up in the evening; a custom 
perhaps borrowed from ancient Roman practice ; though some ima- 
gine that lighting up houses formed a part of the worship of the 
Teutonic god Thor, being one of the ceremonies observed at Juul-tide, 
or the feast of Thor, from which it was introduced into the Christian 
feast of Christmas. Thus, if some parts of our Christian ceremonies 
was derived from the Saturnalia, another was evidently of northern 
origin. The misletoe was a plant held sacred by the Druids. The 
Christmas-carols also, were, it is probable, Juul or Ule songs first 
sung in honour of the heathen deity ; and the evergreens may be 
ascribed to the same origin. In the evening, the Ule-log, or Christmas 
stock, as at present denominated, is placed on the fire in the princi- 
pal apartment of the house. The company seat themselves round it, 
and the cheerful cup is yet handed about, which often contains 
nothing more than ale, in the cottages of the peasantry. 
What remains to the modern times of Christmas gambols then 
commences, and ancient Christian plays are even still plainly to be traced 
among them. Blindman’s buff, hunt the slipper, the game of the 
goose, snap-dragon, push-pin, and dancing, form the amusements of 
the younger parts of the assemblage, and cards the elder; though 
among the more substantial people, as they are denominated in the 
language of the country-folks, the simpler amusements begin to lose 
their value. But their very simplicity recalls the memory of past 
times : they have a certain charm about them, worth all that is arti- 
ficial, and they would not be bereft of attraction to minds of sensi- 
bility, if they were wholly abandoned to the lowly: for they have that 
in them which is far more endearing than the sordid heartlessness of 
fashionable entertainments, and the formality of high life. Bereft of 
superstition, Christmas is then a season of innocent mirth — a pleasing 
interlude, to lighten and beguile the horrors of our inclement winters. 
It affords a period for the exhibition of hospitable greetings, and 
the pleasing interchange of good offices, of which, in the country, op- 
portunities are rare. How many innocent hearts rejoice there at anti- 
cipating the season and its festivities, whose feelings have never been 
chilled by the artificial, and circulating, and calculating, civilities of 
Metropolitan intercourse. But the humbler ranks have been accused 
of superstition, because the stocking is still thrown, the pod with 
nine peas hid over the door, and all the little ceremonies so admira- 
bly depicted by Burns in his Hallowe’en, still practised. These, how- 
ever, are now generally looked upon as a diversion, and few have faith 
in their efficacy ; for in our days the poor have as good common 
sense as their superiors. — These diversions come to them but once a 
