The Creation of Christmas: Two Thousand Years of Collective Creativity

[@writer1990]

I found another fascinating wassail song, appropriately called "Wassail, Wassail!" and the lyrics show what a crazy scene wassailing was. These lyrics would fit great in this episode: "Come butler, come fill us a bowl of the best. Then we pray that your soul in heaven may rest. But if you do bring us a bowl of the small, then down shall go butler, bowl and all." In other words, don't give us the cheap stuff, or you'll be sorry! Here's the next verse, and I'm having trouble understanding the full scenario: "Here's to the maid in the lily white smock, who tripped to the door and slipped back the lock, and pulled back the pin, for to let these jolly wassailers in." Does it mean that the rich master told her to "lock them out," and then the maid snuck back to let the wassailers in, presumably without the master noticing? Both verses make it clear, like it says in this podcast episode, that the wassailers made a point of going to the rich peoples' houses. The original lyrics were in Old English and this is a modernized version, according to my caroling book.

[@writer1990]

There's a lot that I didn't know in the history of the Christmas traditions! I'd heard that Santa was based in a Coca-Cola commercial, but that was about it. It turns out that that was really a small part of the story. I was particularly surprised by the wassailing, so I looked into it (I asked ChatGPT, to be honest) and, sure enough, everything in this episode is historically accurate.