Okay, here is my Anti-Establishment Santa Claus rant (all about Belsnickling)

[capri0mni]

First of all, I trust readers of this LJ (especially those on my f'list) to be culturally literate to know that much of what we, today, recognize as aspects of the "Traditional Christmas" were actually revived, and (perhaps more important) reimagined by Charles Dickens, with his little novella A Christmas Carol, and that between the Cromwellian Revolt (Mid-1600s) and Dicken's day, the festival of Christmas had all but been forgotten, except by a few nostalgic and romantic souls.

The writings about this are all over the place, and I am too tired and cranky, right now, to sift through online sources to find the best of them and pick out the best quotes. So here is a page of Google hits for: "A Christmas Carol", "Charles Dickens", History-- happy web-surfing!

Okay, so I'm just going to skip past all the citing of sources for all of that background stuff, and just make blanket claims, with the blanket statement of: "trust me; I've read all this stuff in history- and folklore-type books; I didn't just make this up in my own head."

Back in the "Olden Days," Christmas was a raucous affair, with people going from wealthy house to wealthy house, singing off-key, and refusing to leave until they were paid off with a round of drinks, and a taste of all the best food on the rich folks' tables. This is one reason why, even after the Monarchy was reestablished in the Post-Cromwellian times, Christmas was not: it just did not fit with the Protestant-proto-industrialist view of how Society should work. Suffice it to say that, at the time of A Christmas Carol's publication, Scrooge was the voice of the "sensible majority," and most of the readers would have agreed with him. Part of what Dickens did, to "sell" the idea of bringing back Christmas celebrations, and making it a time of charity, was to refashion it as a holiday where the poor and downtrodden should stay home, in the bosom of their families, instead of going out and demanding a share of the wealth. ...When charity on the part of the wealthy is encouraged as voluntary, it strengthens the fabric of Society Status-Quo, and enables the wealthy to pat themselves on the back as kindly benefactors of the poor, just as Scrooge reinvented himself at the end of Carol.

---

And so here begins the Ranting portion of this post:

So, fast-forward to today, and the dime-a-dozen, grade C, "Made-for-TV Christmas Specials" that are (often) part slapstick farce, and part heartfelt, sentimental family drama. In nearly every single example of this genera that I can think of, there is one poor child who doesn't believe in Santa, because Santa Claus (trans: the child's parents) has never brought them anything. Instead of this being shown as an example of social injustice, it's almost always seen as a tragic case of premature cynicism on the part of the poor child, which is "cured" with the help of a new, upper-middleclass child-friend (q.v. the movie version of "The Polar Express," for one example), and when the poor child 'learns to have faith,' Santa Claus rewards the child with a miraculous gift...

Um, excuse me while I grab one of those ginger candies for my nausea, at this point...

Okay, I'm back.

That's all very well and good for a fictional story, I suppose. But what about the real, live, poor children who are watching that movie on TV?

What social lesson is that really teaching, except that being a "good" child: someone who is "rewarded" by Santa, is a priviledge that only the well-to-do kids can afford?

Now, on to the "Bellsnickling" alternative, and why I want to revive this tradition:

Another thing that those many Histories-of-our-modern-Christmas point out is that many of the traditions that were revived during Dickens' and Queen Victoria's time were borrowed from the Germans, via Victoria's German Husband.

Now, there was no Cromwellian Revolt in Germany, and so the German immigrants to America (mostly Pennsylvania) brought many of the Old Time traditions with them from the Home Country, and gave them their own Americanized twists. One such tradition was the figure of Pelznickel, Pelznichol, or Bellsnickle, or Belshniggle, or some other local variant spelling and pronounciation. Whichever spelling you prefer, the roots of the name are "Pelt" and "Nicholaus" (short for "Pelt-Wearing Nicholaus")-- and the latter half of the name is somewhat ambiguous whether that's Saint Nick or Old Nick (as in the Devil). And considering that the figures who dressed up as Pelznichol often wore horned masks and shaggy, patchwork cloaks of animal pelts, and darkened their faces with ashes and soot, there's a good argument to be made that Pelznichol is more closely related to the the latter than the former.

"Belsnickling," as a verb, means to dress up in costume as the character (often a job given to young, single men), and go from house to house performing your Yuletide duty.

Here is a snippet from the account of a "Bellnickler" in Pennsylvania, recalling his involvement in the tradition in the early 1800s:

I went belsnickling several times when I was young. We went to every house in half a township where the poor children were. When we had given what we could get from people who could afford it better, we went to some of the big farm houses for fun ... When we were done visiting the poor children and scared many of them before we did give them the things, we made our headquarters on the farm. We had fiddles and other music.

(From Santa Claus: Last of the Wild Men by Phyllis Siefker. McFarland and Company, Inc.. Jefferson, North Carolina. 1997. Page 22 [emphasis mine])

Wasn't there someone who once said that social justice is bringing "comfort to the troubled, and trouble to the comfortable"? From this little snippet, it sounds like that is what Belsnickling, at its best, at least, was all about (At its worst, it was an excuse to get drunk and throw stones at those you had a grudge against). Now, imagine, if you will, a society where it's the kids on the "wrong side of the tracks" who have a default happy association with the Winter-Gift-Giver-of-whatever-name, and the born-entitled brats kids who learn to be suspicious of him, and who have to work to earn the "miraculous reward."

That, to me, would be the more "spiritually uplifting" and less cynical holiday story than the so-called "celebrations of innocence" that we get flooded with every year.

Oh, and by the way, have a vintage illustration of "Father Christmas"

This is one of the ideas for funky, leftist, lawn art
I mentioned in that poll I posted;
(Illustration from The Book of Christmas, 1888)

Comments

[lizziebelle.livejournal.com]

It sounds like the Belsnicker was a sort of Robin Hood.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Robin Hood with fiddles!

But really, if the rich kids were all reminded that their Christmas depended on the fortunes and foibles of their mortal parents, and the poor kids got all their pressies from "Furry Nicholas" -- how cool would that be?

And also: the Germanic Yule basically was just a different version of the Celtic Samhain: a celebration of the New Year that was also a recognition of the power of Death.

And the rituals included going from house to house in costume, demanding payments of goodies, followed by giving the little kids a fun, spooky, experience, and letting them a have a once-a-year overindulgance in sugar... while the grownups get drunk, go to parties and dance the night away.

[lizziebelle.livejournal.com]

Sounds like fun to me. :)

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

That's what I'm saying...