What put the box into Boxing Day?

Despite the fact that I’ve had more Christmases on this planet than I care to admit (at least 29), I’ve never really thought about why Boxing Day is called Boxing Day. Christmas Eve – makes sense. Christmas Day – obvious. Boxing Day – say what?

I’ve done a bit of research, and it turns out there are a couple of theories as to where the box comes from. And I’m pleased to say that both are to do with the cardboard (or wood) kind of box, not the punching-people-in-the-face type. Theory 1 takes us back to the Victorian day (that’s the 1800s), when the rich used to give Christmas gifts to the poor. The day after Christmas Day (I’m not sure what they called it before it became Boxing Day – actually, probably just ‘26 December’) was traditionally a day off for servants, and also when they got those Christmas boxes from their masters. Hence, Boxing Day.

The Stoning of St Stephen. Not the fun kind of stoned either

Theory number 2 is a bit older, and takes us back to medieval times. This one relates to the collection box in churches. These were opened up on Christmas Day, and divvied out to the deserving the following day. Hence, again (I double-henced you, sorry), Boxing Day.

Boxing Day is called Boxing Day here (obviously) and in lots of other countries that were once part of the British Empire. But what does everyone else call it? Well, in some parts of Europe, including (deep breath) Spain, the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Hungary, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Norway and Ireland, the 26 December is called St Stephen’s Day.

St Stephen has the dubious honour of being the first martyr of Christianity, having been stoned to death in 36AD, poor bugger. And in Wales, his feast day used to be celebrated by bleeding livestock, and beating late risers and female (of course) servants with holly branches, all in the name of good luck. Happy Christmas!

Xplaining Xmas

It’s that time of year again. Yay! I bloody love Christmas. But I never call it Xmas (unless it’s on a really small gift tag and I can’t fit the whole thing in) because of an innate wordy snobbery against modern, lazy abbreviations (IMO). I’m not the only one – ‘Xmas’ has long been vilified by writing style guides including the BBC, The Times and The Guardian. In fact, the latter says this: ‘Christmas is preferable unless you are writing a headline, up against a deadline, and desperate (or quoting Slade's Merry Xmas Everybody)’. Ouch. And one Millicent Fenwick (who I’d never heard of, but I’ve since realised is pretty darn awesome) said that it ‘should never be used’ in greeting cards in Vogue’s Book of Etiquette (published in 1948).

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.

Another reason people don’t like the word ‘Xmas’ is because it’s seen as an evil secular attempt to take the religious stuff out of Christmas (as it removes the ‘Christ’ bit) and commercialise it even more than we do already. Those secular bastards.

But, after doing my usual not-at-all in-depth research, it turns out this is all a load of Christmas balls – ‘Xmas’ does have a religious backstory, and it isn’t a modern abbreviation, as it dates all the way back to the 16th century.

Unwrapping Christmas

Before we get into the ‘x’, let’s start with the word ‘Christmas’. It’s a pretty straightforward one – it’s a concatenation (which is a fancy-dancy way of saying that it’s two words smooshed together) of Christ (as in the big JC) and mass (I don’t know what happened to the second ‘s’). Simple. So when did the ‘x’ sneak in? The answer to this is, a frickin’ long time ago.

My big fat Greek Christmas

In the Greek alphabet, X is the symbol for the letter ‘chi’. ‘Chi’ is the first letter of the Greek word for Christ which is Χριστός (or Christós, which is a bit easier on the eye). So Xmas still means Christ’s mass. It’s basically the same as when Christina Aguilera started calling herself ‘Xtina’, but with less assless chaps.

Early Christians used an ‘X’ to identify each other when they were being persecuted (vague, I know), and it also appears on several Orthodox Christian religious icons. And it’s used as an abbreviation for Christ in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (a collection of annals – stop it – in Old English which tell the history of the Anglo-Saxons) way back in 1021. So it’s deffo not new.

(Oh, and apparently people also used to use the abbreviations ‘Xtemass’ and ‘X’temmas’ for Christmas. But it looks like those ones never caught on, thank god.)

Still not convinced?

19th century pin-up Lord Byron (swoon) used the term ‘xmas’ in 1811, as did Samuel Coleridge (in 1801) and Lewis Carroll (1864). And even if it is Christmas, the traditional time for drunken fights, who am I to argue with them?

A very happy Xmas (dammit, I still don’t like it) to you and yours. See you in 2020.

A rumball in the bummock

This time last year I wrote about the origins of six well-known Christmas words. And because I’m not terribly imaginative, this year I’m doing much the same thing, except with obscure ones. So here are six festive words that have fallen out of favour. Unsurprisingly, a lot of them relate to overeating and boozing. Well, that’s what Christmas is all about, right?

1. Ramracketting

To ramracket is to run or jump about playfully at Christmas time. The English Dialect Dictionary defines it as ‘Christmas gambols’. I don’t know about you but I shall be ramracketting like a demon on Christmas day after a couple of shandies.

2. Yulestarn

This is a Scottish dialect word for a bright star in the sky on Christmas night. I realise it just looks like I’ve spelled ‘star’ wrong then stuck ‘Yule’ in front of it, but it’s a real word, honest. You can buy a Yulestarn hamper from Debenhams, if you’re the type of person who does things like that. Apparently it will ‘illuminate your festive celebrations’ just like ‘the Yulestarn star brightens the sky on Christmas night’. #overenthusiastic-copywriter

3. Rumball

Rumball Night is an 18th-century nickname for Christmas Eve. That’s because a ‘rumball feast’ is a big ole meal served the day before Christmas.

There’s also a Rumball Night hamper at Debenhams (I promise I’m not sponsored by Debenhams). Somebody who works at Hampers of Distinction obviously went to a lot of the same websites as I did for this blog post.

4. Bummock

Stop sniggering. This is another old Scottish word. A bummock is a large quantity of booze made for Christmas (although a bummock’s not just for Christmas – you can also make them for other special occasions). A bummock is also an old name for a Christmas party given by landlords for their tenants. I don’t know why. And I’m not sure I want to. 

You probably won’t be surprised to hear that there isn’t a bummock hamper on Debenhams’ website.

5. Bubblyjock

Yet another Scottish one. A bubblyjock is a male turkey. Unlike pretty much all the other words on this list, I’ve managed to find some actual etymology for this one. ‘Bubbly’ apparently refers to the noise a turkey makes, while ‘jock’ is an old word for ‘clown’ (apologies to anyone called Jock who might be reading this). I guess maybe because turkeys are a bit comedy looking…? (Apologies to any turkeys who might be reading this.)

Here’s a poem about a bubblyjock. Don’t say I never give you anything.

6. Crawmassing

Picture the scene. You’ve just finished Christmas lunch (which, if you’re anything like my family, means it’s probably early evening). You’ve eaten your body weight in roast food, and loosened your belt buckle a notch. Okay, two notches. But then you notice that there’s a particularly nice-looking roast potato left on your sister’s plate. And a whole pig-in-a-blanket on your dad’s. So you grab them, add some gravy, and polish them off. This going through the remnants of a Christmas meal is called crawmassing (we got there eventually).

(It’s also used to describe people who beg for gifts at Christmas, but that doesn’t paint such a cheery picture.)

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So, there you go. Happy Christmas lovely reader. I hope your festive season is chock-full of bummocks, rumballs and lots of ramracketting.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in 2019.

A partridge in a pear tree? I’d rather have a blog on etymology

I blimmin’ love Christmas. I put my decorations up on 1 December every year without fail, then I get really depressed on Boxing Day because it’s ALL OVER. So, before that happens, here’s my Christmas gift to you – six Christmassy words and their etymology (I was going to do 12 – as in the 12 days of Christmas – but it was too many and I ran out of steam. Sorry).

1. Eggnog

Yum, eggy booze. Who on earth thought that sounded nice? Maybe that’s why we only drink it once a year. Anyway, the ‘nog’ bit of ‘eggnog’ is a 17th-century word for strong beer (looks like the English have always been lager louts) from Norfolk. And the ‘egg’ bit? Well, you can probably work that out for yourself. 

2. Carol

Nothing to do with Vorderman or King, we used to use the word ‘carol’ to talk about any celebratory song. It was the Tudors who started using it for Christmas songs only. We nicked the word ‘carol’ from our Gallic friends across the channel in the Middle Ages – a carole was French for a circle dance accompanied by singers. And they probably got it from the Italians (carola), who took it from the Latin (choraulēs – ‘flute player accompanying a chorus dance’), which came from the Ancient Greek word khoraulḗs (‘one who accompanies a chorus on the flute’). That has its roots in Proto-Indo-European language, but as you probably stopped reading a while ago, I won’t go into that.

3. Mistletoe

This one’s a bit of a mystery (a mistle-tery? Nope?). Well, ‘mistle’ is – the ‘toe’ bit’s fairly straightforward, as it comes from ‘tān’, which is an Old English word for ‘twig’. But no one’s really sure where the ‘mistle’ part came from. Wikipedia just says it’s ‘from Proto-Germanic *mihstilaz (“mistle”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃meyǵʰ- (“to urinate”)’ which I feel merits more explanation, but sadly, doesn’t give any.

Mistletoe’s a parasitic plant, which means it sucks the nutrients out of other plants, either stunting their growth or killing them (which is why it stays green all year round, the bastard). And some of it’s poisonous. Kissing under the deadly parasitic twig doesn’t seem quite so romantic now, does it?

4. Poinsettia

The poinsettia is a Mexican plant which the ancient Aztecs called ‘cuetlaxochitl’. Presumably because no-one could pronounce that, when American ambassador Joel Roberts Poinsett bought one back with him from Mexico to the US of A they decided to name it after him. The association with Christmas comes from an old Mexican legend (which I was in a production of at primary school). You can read it here (the myth, not my primary school production).

5. Tinsel

Beloved of 80s Christmas trees, ‘tinsel’ was originally the name for a cloth that was woven with gold or silver thread. It comes from the Middle French word estincelle which means ‘spark’ or ‘spangle’.

Tinsel was invented in Nuremberg in the 17th century. Originally made from real silver, apparently it’s supposed to mimic the appearance of ice. I never knew that, even though now I do it seems blindingly obvious.

I like saying the word ‘tinsel’.

6. Yule

Like a lot of stuff to do with Christianity, this one was stolen from paganism (technically called ‘Christianised reformulation’ fact fans). It comes from the word jól, the Norse name of a pagan festival which took place in the 12 days leading up to 25 December. It’s connected with the myth of the wild hunt (which is a pretty frickin’ awesome myth). We nicked the word jól and added it to Old English as ġéol, which morphed into ‘yule’ some time in the middle of the 1400s. I’m not really entirely sure what we use it for these days, except for making bad puns (‘yule love this festive blog post!’) and the yule log. I totally thought a yule log was a cake, but it’s an actual log which also has pagan roots (BOOM BOOM).

If you’d like to find out more about the yule log (and why wouldn’t you?), have a look at this article on ManyEats.com.)

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So, there you have it. A little bit of Christmas cheer, in blog form. Oh, and thanks for reading my word-based musings this year – here’s to plenty more in 2018.

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.