A typical Christmas night in eighteenth-century America did not go as one might expect. The Christmas season today brings many nostalgic memories of cozy drinks, opening presents, and time spent with loved ones. This wasn’t the Christmas of colonial and revolutionary America, where the potential of rowdiness and drunkenness filled the streets.
In North Carolina, some colonists celebrated Old Christmas around January 5th, a result of the adoption of the Gregorian calendar by the British Empire in 1752. The holiday involved dancing, feasting, exchanging gifts, and other common practices that had no special Christian meaning. In Stumpy Point (Dare County) and elsewhere, girls and unmarried women sometimes set out a meal at a "dumb table" on the eve of Old Christmas, hoping to glimpse the apparitions of their future husbands hovering over the empty places. On Hatteras Island, loose bands went from house to house, often in disguise, soliciting food and drink and making raucous music. Read more about other ways colonists celebrated Christmas in America below!
Silent night?
Many colonists celebrated Christmas with excessive drinking and general rascality. Wealthier colonists held extravagant parties that featured performances from skilled Black musicians, tight-rope walkers, acrobats, or jesters. Additionally, Christmas mornings were not filled with the sound of excited children waking up parents to open presents but with traditional firing of guns.
A sparse event
Decorations weren’t common, but some homes had evergreen tree branches and mistletoe (and yes, they kissed under it then, too!). The first Christmas tree wasn’t documented until 1842, when a German refugee named Charles Minnigerode brought the tradition to Virginia.
No presents under the tree
Most children did not receive presents. Only some wealthy children received gifts, such as books or candy. Many accounts of early Christmas celebrations don’t even mention children, quite different from today’s child-centered holiday. Christmas traditions of gambling, drinking, shooting guns, and fox hunting, were not exactly kid friendly.
The season of giving, but not for all
People were friendly to each other, and it was custom to tip servants, apprentices, and enslaved people. Tips were often collected in a “Christmas-box” and could end up accruing into a small fortune. Some enslaved people were granted extra rations at Christmas and time off, but for others the holiday meant extra work serving guests. Still, other enslaved people utilized unsupervised time to emancipate themselves or fight back against their enslavers.
Christmas wasn’t always Church approved
Christmas was rarely celebrated in church, and some religious groups didn’t even recognize it as a holiday. Christmas' connection to drinking, folly, and general mischief made some Christians weary of the holiday and avoid it altogether.
No one home for Christmas
Unlike today, Christmas didn’t happen at home. People celebrated Christmas with their community, rather than alone with just their family. Dancing, food, music, and games drew households together.
Sources:
“The Twelve Myths of Christmas (in early America).” December 20, 2023. Colonial Williamsburg. https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/learn/deep-dives/the-twelve-myths-…. Accessed: December 9, 2024.
Dough, Wynne. “Old Christmas.” January 1, 2006. Encyclopedia of North Carolina. https://www.ncpedia.org/old-christmas. Accessed: December 9, 2024.