Though in some isolated sections of the Blue Ridge, say in parts of the
Unakas, the Cumberlands, the Dug Down Mountains of Georgia, there are
people who may never have heard of the Gregorian or Julian calendar, yet
in keeping Old Christmas as they do on January 6th, they cling
unwittingly to the Julian calendar of 46 B.C., introduced in this
country in the earliest years. To them December 25th is New Christmas,
according to the Gregorian calendar adopted in 1752.
They celebrate the two occasions in a very different way. The old with
prayer and carol-singing, the new with gaiety and feasting.
To these people there are twelve days of Christmas beginning with
December 25th and ending with January 6th. In some parts of these
southern mountain regions, if their forbears were of Pennsylvania German
stock, they call Old Christmas Little Christmas as the Indians do. But
such instances are rare rather than commonplace.
Throughout the twelve days of Christmas there are frolic and fireside
play-games and feasting, for which every family makes abundant
preparation. There is even an ancient English accumulative song called
Twelve Days of Christmas which is sung during the celebrations, in which
the true love brings a different gift for each day of the twelve. The
young folks of the community go from home to home, bursting in with a
cheery "Christmas gift!" Those who have been taken unaware, though it
happens the same way each year, forgetting, in the pleasant excitement
of the occasion, to cry the greeting first, must pay a forfeit of
something good to eat--cake, homemade taffy, popcorn, apples, nuts.
After the feast the father of the household passes the wassail cup,
which is sweet cider drunk from a gourd dipper. Each in turn drinks to
the health of the master of the house and his family.
Throughout the glad season some of the young bloods are inclined to take
their Christmas with rounds of shooting into the quiet night. Some get
gloriously drunk on hard cider and climbing high on the mountain side
shout and shoot to their hearts' content.
However, when Old Christmas arrives, even the most boisterous young
striplings assume a quiet, prayerful calm. The children's
play-pretties--the poppet, a make-believe corn-shuck doll--the banjo,
and fiddle are put aside. In the corner of the room is placed a pine
tree. It stands unadorned with tinsel or toy. On the night of January
6th, just before midnight, the family gathers about the hearth. Granny
leads in singing the ancient Cherry Tree Carol, sometimes called Joseph
and Mary, which celebrates January 6th as the day of our Lord's birth.
With great solemnity Granny takes the handmade taper from the
candlestick on the mantel-shelf, places it in the hands of the oldest
man child, to whom the father now passes a lighted pine stick. With it
the child lights the taper. The father lifts high his young son who
places the lighted taper on the highest branch of the pine tree where a
holder has been placed to receive it. This is the only adornment upon
the tree and represents a light of life and hope--"like a star of hope
that guided the Wise Men to the manger long ago," mountain folk say.
In the waiting silence comes the low mooing of the cows and the whinny
of nags, and looking outside the cabin door the mountaineer sees his cow
brutes and nags kneeling in the snow under the starlit sky. "It is the
sign that this is for truth our Lord's birth night," Granny whispers
softly.
Then led by the father of the household, carrying his oldest man child
upon his shoulder, the womenfolk following behind, they go down to the
creek side. Kneeling, the father brushes aside the snow among the
elders, and there bursting through the icebound earth appears a green
shoot bearing a white blossom.
"It is the sign that this is indeed our Lord's birth night, the sign
that January 6th is the real Christmas," old folk of the Blue Ridge bear
witness.