All Souls', St. Clement's, and St.
Thomas's. As for the name "Christmas box," it would seem to have come
from the receptacles used for the gifts. According to one account
apprentices, journeymen, and servants used to carry about earthen boxes
with a slit in them, and when the time for collecting was over, broke
them to obtain the contents.{73}

The Christmas card, a sort of attenuated present, seems to be of quite
modern origin. It is apparently a descendant of the "school pieces" or
"Christmas pieces" popular in England in the first half of the nineteenth
century--sheets of writing-paper with designs in pen and ink or
copper-plate headings. The first Christmas card proper appears to have
been issued in 1846, but it was not till about 1862 that the custom of
card-sending obtained any foothold.{74}

|280|

[Illustration:

CHRISTMAS MORNING IN LOWER AUSTRIA.

_By Ferdinand Waldmuller (b. 1793)._]

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CHAPTER XII

CHRISTMAS FEASTING AND SACRIFICIAL SURVIVALS

Prominence of Eating in the English Christmas--The Boar's Head, the
Goose, and other Christmas Fare--Frumenty, Sowens, Yule Cakes, and
the Wassail Bowl--Continental Christmas Dishes, their Possible
Origins--French and German Cakes--The Animals' Christmas Feast--Cakes
in Eastern Europe--Relics of Animal Sacrifice--Hunting the
Wren--Various Games of Sacrificial Origin.

FEASTING CUSTOMS.

In the mind of the average sensual Englishman perhaps the most vivid
images called up by the word Christmas are those connected with eating
and drinking. "Ha piu da fare che i forni di Natale in Inghilterra,"[108]
an Italian proverb used of a very busy person, sufficiently suggests the
character of our Christmas.[109] It may be that the Christmas dinner
looms larger among the English than among most other peoples, but in
every country a distinctive meal of some kind is associated with the
season. We have already seen how this illustrates the immemorial
connection between material feasting and religious rejoicing.

Let us note some forms of "Christmas fare" and try to get an idea of
their origin. First we may look at English feasting customs, though, as
they have been pretty fully described by |284| previous writers, no
very elaborate account of them need be given.

The gross eating and drinking in former days at Christmas, of which our
present mild gluttony is but a pale reflection, would seem to be
connected with the