Christmas Waits

In addition to the street singers and musicians already described, Nathaniel Hawthorne also wrote in his journals about some of the English Christmas customs. While the family was staying in Southport in 1856 they were entertained by what he termed 'Waits'.

"The Christmas Waits came to us on Christmas eve, and on the day itself, in the shape of little parties of boys or girls, singing wretched doggerel rhymes, and going away well pleased with the guerdon of a penny or two. Last evening came two or three older choristers at pretty near bedtime, and sang some carols at our door. They were psalm tunes, however. Everybody with whom we have had to do, in any manner of service, expects a Christmas-box; but, in most cases, a shilling is quite a satisfactory amount. We have had holly and mistletoe stuck up on the gas-fixtures and elsewhere about the house."


This was a change from Hawthorne's previous Chrismas, spent in a Liverpool lodging house;- "Early in the morning of Christmas day, long before daylight, I heard music in the street, and a woman's voice, powerful and melodious, singing a Christmas hymn. Before bedtime I presume one half of England, at a moderate calculation, was the worse for liquor." However it may be that he was feeling the pain of being separated from his wife who was abroad in Lisbon while he was confined to his Consular duties. Certainly Christmas in 1854 had been a moment of great personal contenment, and Hawthorne then wrote "I think I have been happier this Christmas than ever before,--by my own fireside, and with my wife and children about me,--more content to enjoy what I have,--less anxious for anything beyond it in this life. My early life was perhaps a good preparation for the declining half of life; it having been such a blank that any thereafter would compare favorably with it."

He was struck by the abundance of food in the shops before Christmas; this is London in 1857 - "The shops in London begin to show some tokens of approaching Christmas; especially the toy-shops, and the confectioners',--the latter ornamenting their windows with a profusion of bonbons and all manner of pygmy figures in sugar; the former exhibiting Christmas-trees, hung with rich and gaudy fruit. At the butchers' shops, there is a great display of fat carcasses, and an abundance of game at the poulterers'." Elsewhere in the Passages from the English Notebooks Hawthorne comments on the English fascination with meat on a visit to Skipton Market, "The English people really like to think and talk of butcher's meat, and gaze at it with delight; and they crowd through the avenues of the market-houses and stand enraptured round a dead ox."

Another Chritmas practice that Hawthorne noted was that of kissing under the mistletoe "On Christmas Eve and yesterday, there were little branches of mistletoe hanging in several parts of the house, in the kitchen, the entries, the parlor, and the smoking-room,--suspended from the gas-fittings. The maids of the house did their utmost to entrap the gentlemen boarders, old and young, under the privileged places, and there to kiss them, after which they were expected to pay a shilling. It is very queer, being customarily so respectful, that they should assume this license now, absolutely trying to pull the gentlemen into the kitchen by main force, and kissing the harder and more abundantly the more they were resisted. A little rosy-cheeked Scotch lass--at other times very modest--was the most active in this business. I doubt whether any gentleman but myself escaped. I heard old Mr. S----- parleying with the maids last evening, and pleading his age; but he seems to have met with no mercy, for there was a sound of prodigious smacking immediately afterwards. J-----[Hawthorne's son, Julian] was assaulted, and fought most vigorously; but was outrageously kissed,--receiving some scratches, moreover, in the conflict. The mistletoe has white, wax-looking berries, and dull green leaves, with a parasitical stem."