Christmas dinner

“ One is that you think old Mother Goose is a good friend of yours, and loves you all very much. And you're quite right about that, for I declare, I love every one of you as much as I love—plum pudding. And the second reason why you are all smiling, I guess, is because you think I am going to show you a Christmas Play. And you're right about that, too. I have a play all ready for you, there behind the curtain, and the name of it is "The Christmas Dinner." ”

“ Such a Christmas dinner it was! There was no turkey, and they did not even have a chicken. The menu was corn-bread, ham, and potatoes, and mighty few potatoes at that. There were two children in the family, a girl of six and a boy of five. They were glad enough to get the ham. Their usual bill of fare was composed of potatoes and corn-bread, and sometimes corn-bread alone. My wife had put up a lunch for me, fearing that I might not be able to get anything to eat, in which there was a small mince-pie turnover; and the children had slipped a small box of candy in my bag as a Christmas gift. ”

“ So much for gifts and home decorations, the list of which might be indefinitely extended. The Christmas dinner is always a matter of study—to the young housekeeper sometimes despair. Let it be remembered that on that day everyone from the children to the grandmother has nibbled at candies and nuts, and all tempting Christmas sweets, and that, even if the richest of mince pies and plum puddings seem none too good for the occasion, a simpler dessert of delicate blanc-manges or jellies will leave the eater a clearer head than the heavier mixtures. ”

“ God bless it! and may its genial breath softly waft the incense from every frugal hearth in our land, and rest in love where the poor prepare their humble feast—ay, feast; for the simplest Christmas dinner is a feast sprinkled by the torch of “Christmas Present.” There’s something stirring in the very air, and the bells sound as they do at no other time—they go home to the feelings, and call up from the past the happy emotions planted in our hearts by God; but which a busy life and rude contact with the world have caused to flee away and hide. ”

“ It is also true that when any great king ate well and throve on his dinner, it was by the same magic food. The young and the free and the glad, and all rich men in costly houses, even they have not been well fed without it.
And though we have called it a Bill of Fare for a Christmas Dinner, that is only that men’s eyes may be caught by its name, and that they, thinking it a specialty for festival, may learn and understand its secret, and henceforth, laying all their dinner according to its magic order, may "eat unto the Lord." ”

“ There is to be a boar's head, with, no lack of mustard and minstrelsy, and nothing eatable or drinkable that pertains to Christmas will be wanting. Carols, and waits, and contended tenants; merry chimes and clinking glasses; twanging fiddles and the rush down the middle—nothing is spared and nobody is forgotten. So the hour draws on, the guests pull through the dreary day (for as I have said before, everything on Christmas day gives place to the dinner) , and at last the dinner becomes an absolute fact, something to be apprehended, sat down to, and finally eaten. ”

“ Come along; while I am immortalizing myself, twenty hungry families are waiting for a Christmas dinner they don't expect to get, and their mouths watering for plum-puddings and mince pies that they have not the most distant expectation of"—and the good old soul led the way into the hall, and thence into the court yard, at the entrance of which stood a large covered furniture-cart, filled to over-flowing with the wonderful twenty baskets destined to distribute happiness among as many poor and suffering families, and make their hearts merry on Christmas day. ”

“ They will all want to get down on their hands and knees, Grandfather and Grandmother and all, and crawl under the table. Won't that be funny? They all clap their hands and dance up and down. That's what the magic hazel nuts will make them do, says SANTA CLAUS. And when they have crawled under the table—you see, it's a table that has a Christmas dinner on it, and that makes a difference, of course—well, when they have crawled under the table, then—. ”

“ It is, indeed, an ordeal rather severe, after partaking heartily of Christmas dinner, and, perhaps, generously of wine, to walk about a hot room with a warm boy on your shoulders, and your entire person—head, face, and all—enveloped in a heavy cloak or overcoat, and not a breath of fresh air to be taken under penalty of spoiling the giant. ”

“ The Christmas dinner of modern days is, as most of our readers know, a gathering together of generations, an assembling of Israel by its tribes. In the one before us, the artist has given a pretty extensive muster. We have them of the seven ages and the several professions. Contrast with this modern Christmas dinner, as well as with the high festival of yore, the dreary picture of a Christmas Day and dinner, under the stern prescription of the Puritans, as given in his Diary, by Pepys, the chatty secretary to the Admiralty. ”

“ In the midst of her sport the girl caught a glimpse of my face at the window, and, colouring up, ran off with an air of roguish affected confusion.
The Christmas Dinner Lo, now is come the joyful'st feast! Let every man be jolly, Eache roome with yvie leaves is drest, And every post with holly. Now all our neighbours' chimneys smoke, And Christmas blocks are burning; Their ovens they with bak't meats choke, And all their spits are turning. Without the door let sorrow lie, And if, for cold, it hap to die, We'll bury't in a Christmas pye, And evermore be merry. ”

“ I'm going to have a Christmas dinner, and I'm going to invite every blessed soul in this house to come. They shall be warm and full for once in their lives, please God! And, Katey," she went on breathlessly, before the old man had sufficiently recovered from his astonishment to speak, "go right upstairs now, and invite every one of 'em from the fathers down to Mrs. Parker's baby to come to dinner at three o'clock; we'll have to keep fashionable hours, it's so late now; and mind, Katey, not a word about the money. ”

“ Profusion of food at this season is traditional, and has been handed down from generation to generation. A Christmas dinner must, if possible, be every one's portion, down to the pauper in the workhouse, and even the prisoner in the gaol. ”

“ Even the Christmas dinner has its special observances. In many an English hall the stately custom still survives of bearing in a boar's head to inaugurate the meal, as a reminder of the student of Queens College, Oxford, who, attacked by a boar on Christmas day, choked him with a copy of Aristotle and took his head back for dinner. The mince pie, sacred to the occasion, is supposed to commemorate in its mixture of oriental ingredients the offerings made by the wise men of the East. As for turkey and plum pudding, they have a deep significance, but it is clearer to the palate than to the brain. ”

“ It is the Christmas feast that justifies all feasts, as the bread and wine of the Communion are the essence of all bread and wine, of all strength and rejoicing. If the Christianity of eating is lost—I will not say forgotten—the true type of eating is to be found at the dinner-hour in the Zoological Gardens. Certain I am, that but for the love which, ever revealing itself, came out brightest at that first Christmas time, there would be no feasting—nay no smiling; no world to go careering in joy about its central fire; no men and women upon it, to look up and rejoice. ”

“ You boys, Denny and Terence, slip across to the pile of lumber handy on the tow-path, and bring me back three wide boards. We'll borry them for a table, and take them back when we're done. My family is all going to sit down to once to their Christmas dinner, the same as them rich folks do on the avenue. And there'll be a place for me poor Michael, that was and isn't. Run along now, boys, and pick clean ones, and you, Katy and Norah, wash the dishes, and when the table is fixed you can all go on the avenue and look in the windys, but mind you're home when the bells are ringing for twelve. ”

“ However, if one has no relatives to invite him to a feast, it is an easy matter to secure a Christmas dinner on the streets, where men are ready to cook for him over their braseros of charcoal and venders are near at hand to offer preserved fruits, the famous almond rock, almond soup, truffled turkey, or the most desirable of the season's delicacies,—sea-bream, which is brought from Cadiz especially for Christmas use, and which is eaten at Christmas in accordance with the old-time custom. Nuts of all kinds are abundant. ”

“ I look for the time when we shall wish one another a Merry Christmas every morning; when roast turkey and plum pudding shall be the staple of our daily dinner, and the holly shall never be taken down from the walls, and everyone will always be kissing everyone else under the mistletoe. ”

“ As for the other sweets, they may be anything that fancy and skill together can achieve; and it is in this ornate department of the Great Supper that genius has its largest chance.
But it was the making of the Christmas dinner that mainly occupied Misè Fougueiroun's mind—a feast pure and simple, gov [36] erned by the one jolly law that it shall be the very best dinner of the whole year! What may be termed its by-laws are that the principal dish shall be a roast turkey, and that nougat and poumpo shall figure at the dessert. ”

“ I am sure no family in England could have been looking forward to their Christmas dinner with more pleasing anticipations than we five. As soon as church was done we hastened home, and sat down with no great relish to our ordinary school dinner. It seemed lucky for us that we had something better in view, for all that was on the table was a dish of potatoes and some scraps of cold mutton. Neither the Doctor nor Mrs. Lickemwell made their appearance ”

“ One of the principal features of the holiday is the grand Christmas dinner, which begins early and lasts late, so that Christmas-night in Italy is fairly entitled to the not very elegant epithet of Vollbauchsabend as applied by the Holsteiners to their Christmas meal after the midnight mass. The rich feast right royally, and the poor, who can afford to eat meat but once a year, must have it for the Christmas dinner. ”

“ Man's house, so they had the finest Christmas dinner that you can think of, and plenty for the next day when it would be even better, because chicken and turkey and dressing and such things are always better the next day, and even the third day, with gravy, than they are when they are first cooked. ”

“ The absence of trees and presents is only a small part of their loss. For only those who have eaten a Christmas dinner in England can understand what Christmas day is without the feast. The great roasts are simmering and crackling on the spits, while the vegetables of potatoes, chestnuts and peas are boiling. ”

“ And yet those Christmas Eves, with Mother's gentle eyes forever inseparable from them, and with the glad cries of Merry Christmas ringing all about, have left a touch of sweet peace in my heart which all the years have not effaced, nor ever will.
At home the great dinner of the year was waiting for us; roast goose stuffed with apples and prunes, rice pudding with cinnamon and sugar on it, and a great staring butter eye in the middle. The pudding was to lay the ground-work with, and it was served in deep soup-plates. It was the dish the Nisse came in on, and the cat. ”

“ Is there no poor relative, or neighbour, or friend, with whom we can share the good things that have fallen to our lot?
Our own Christmas dinner will taste all the better if we have helped some one else to happiness or comfort, our own festal rejoicing will be tenfold more full of merriment and real joy, if we have helped to spread the festal joy into dark and gloomy places.
'Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry ”

“ The duck was pronounced excellent; the only fault was that there seemed to be so little on it after all; and when it and the potatoes were finished, and the bones licked clean, we turned our attention to the less substantial portion of the entertainment. Didn’t we make short work of the apple tarts and Saunders’ cake, washing them down with lemonade, made out of two lemons and some sugar, which we had coaxed out of the housekeeper! All the while we were talking and laughing, as well as eating as fast as we could, and agreeing that it was the jolliest Christmas dinner we had ever had. ”

“ Any man or animil that be in want of vict'als or garments [Pg 81] is invited to come on Christmas day—which be next week Thursday—without furder axin', to John Norton's cabin, on Long Lake, to eat Christmas dinner. Vagabonds included in this invite. ”

“ The Shakers observe Christmas by a dinner at which the men and women both sit down at the same table. This custom of theirs is the thing that serves to make Christmas different from any other day among the Shakers. During all the rest of the year the men and women eat their meals at separate tables.
At sunset on Christmas day, after a service in the church, they march to the community-house, where the dinner is waiting. The men sit on one side of the table and the women on the other. ”

“ The boarders were dropping hints as to the kind of dinner they'd like to have on Christmas Day. But the landlady was astute. "What's the difference," she asked the solemn man at the end of the table, "between a turkey dinner and a mess of stewed prunes?"
"I don't know," he answered, suspicious of some entangling conundrum.
"Does nobody know?" she asked, looking round the table.
They all professed ignorance. "In that case," she said, "I may as well serve prunes at Christmas and save money." ”