Tag Archives: christmas
Holiday Food Traditions 2020 edition
Grab a cup of cocoa, put your feet up and enjoy a little bit of the season’s history with a look at Christmas foods!
Continue reading →Christmas Post Index 2020
After writing 7 (!) Christmas books, I’ve managed to fill Random Bits of Fascination with a plethora of Regency era Christmas treats. Here’s a Christmas Post Index of the offerings for your holiday reading pleasure.
Continue reading →Kissing Boughs and Mistletoe
Did Jane Austen hang mistletoe for the Yuletide season? On Christmas Eve, decorations and greenery were put up throughout the house—not before as that was bad luck. Traditional greenery included holly, ivy, rosemary, evergreen, hawthorn and, bay leaf, laurel, and hellebore (Christmas rose). Boughs, garlands and sprigs decorated windows, tables, mantles and stairways with the scents and colors of the season. For those who could not go out and cut their own, greenery could be … Continue reading →
Regency era Holiday Gift Giving
Gift giving in Jane Austen’s Day. What might she have given or received for Christmas? Though gift giving was not the primary focus of the Christmastide season, gifts were commonly exchanged. St. Nicholas Day, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and Twelfth Night were the most likely days for gift exchange. Old traditions called for gifts to be exchanged on New Year’s Day. Many gifts exchanged were gifts of obligation between unequal parties. Landowners and the well-off … Continue reading →