For background purposes, it’s important to know that the Christmas holiday used to be downright miserable.
Unless you were in the 1%.
Rowdy celebrations were one result.
An antiauthoritarian strain ran through these winter rituals.
At this time the wealthy were expected to provide food and drink for common folk.
The ritualized disorder provided a kind of annual safety valve against smoldering class resentments and grievances.
This play would mark the first literary appearance of the prototype of Santa Claus, called Father Christmas.
In this it failedwithin a generation the monarchy would be overthrown, to be replaced by the religious extremists.
The Puritans were a really lame bunch.
They hated anything even slightly resembling fun.
They came to power through majority and put the kibosh on all things Christmas.
Including the very popular festivity of “cross-dressing” and “role-reversal”.
Through this going house to house and causing a ruckus, “caroling” was born.
Except it wasn’t known as caroling back then.
Like any great American tradition, it was born out of rebellion.
This detestation for being forbidden from celebrating the holiday led to backlash, and “wassailing”.
Wassailing was the official term for early caroling.
As things became more and more repressed around winter and holiday season, the people turned bitter and outraged.
Christmas carolers aka wassailers, laid down the law and asserted their right to celebrate by threatening violence.
So yes, believe it or not, the first “Christmas carols” were not merry and bright.
They were violent and menacing.
This quickly evolved in full-blown shakedowns of the rich.
And not just ordinary stuff.
They wanted to top shelf booze and the finest cuts of meat.
After his refusal, he testified, they threw stones, bones, and other things …
They continued to throw stones for an hour and a half with little intermission.
Mentalfloss- By the 19th century, wassailing would mellow.
As the custom of caroling became the dominant door-to-door pastime, alcohol-fueled begging dwindled.
For starters, ask for beer.
Our wassail cup is made
Of the rosemary tree,
And so is your beer
Of the best barley.
Call up the butler of this house,
Put on his golden ring.
Let him bring us up a glass of beer,
And better we shall sing.
-there’s a group in Western England trying to bring old-school wassailing back.
p.p.s.- Merry Christmas everybody!
