This edited article about Christmas customs originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 676 published on 28 December 1974.

Bringing in the Yule log is an ancient Christmas custom, by Angus McBride

When we decorate our homes for Christmas with evergreens, we are following a custom which began long before people wanted to celebrate the birthday of Christ. In the far North, it had long been the way of marking the passing of the year’s shortest day. The return of longer days brought the first signs of Spring, and what better way was there of proclaiming the promise of new growth than to decorate homes with these remarkable plants which had kept their green leaves throughout the Winter? When Christmas became a festival to mark the birthday of the founder of the Christian religion, these older customs were simply gathered up as part of the general celebrations, and have remained a part of Christmas ever since.

About three hundred years ago there was a custom in Oxfordshire by which servant-girls at the great houses used to ask one of the village youths to cut and carry sufficient ivy to decorate the house. If a man refused, or having promised, failed to provide enough, the maidservant had the right to steal a pair of his breeches and nail them to the gate of the house, where they remained over Christmas to give the passers-by a good laugh.

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This edited article about Christmas ghosts originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 676 published on 28 December 1974.

Marley’s ghost visits Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Picture by Pat Nicolle

Ghost stories are always enjoyable, and never more so than at Christmas time. Dark nights, howling winds, perhaps the threat of snow outside, all provide the perfect setting for the story of a good haunting to people gathered around the fire indoors. Yet Christmas itself is strictly a non-ghost season. Ghosts were long thought of as wandering about at night, and the moment dawn appeared – announced by the crowing of a cock – they had to leave off their hauntings, and return to the unseen world of spirits.

Shakespeare knew of this tradition. In the opening scene of his play Hamlet, the ghost of Hamlet’s father is seen by a group of watchers in the night. Then the ghost vanishes – “It faded on the crowing of the cock,” says one.

There are also many old rhymes and carols which suggest that in the Christmas Season all evil influences are subdued, and that such unusual things as do happen are of a good and happy kind. An old Cornish poem claims that on Christmas Eve the bees in every hive sing or at least hum, all night long, for joy at the news of the birth of Jesus, and that the cows in their stalls turn to the east and kneel in his honour. Certain flowers, such as the Christmas Rose and Glastonbury Thorn, burst into flower at this time for the same reason. The same old verses say that all evil spells, curses, wicked charms, and “things that go bump in the night” are made powerless so long as the Christmas festival lasts.

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This edited article about pantomime originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 676 published on 28 December 1974.

‘Dick Whittington’  is a popular pantomime, by Richard Hook

What makes a good pantomime? Catchy songs? Spectacular scenery? Certainly knock-about comedy, and at least the outline of some well-known fairy story, of which “Cinderella” is the outright favourite. Though it is essentially a Christmas entertainment, pantomime also has more to do with the old fashioned summer pierrot show at a seaside resort, than the “pier” on which it is acted.

For pantomime has a long history, and many learned books have been written about it. At different times “pantomime” has meant very different kinds of entertainment, some of which bear practically no resemblance to a modern performance of that name. Yet nearly all of them have contributed something to the entertainment which, even today, fills our theatres as nothing else can.

“Pantomime” is really a pair of old Greek words meaning “Let’s all pretend”. It began as a kind of play without words, in which masks were used to represent different people and their moods. Many modern pantomimes make great use of disguises in their stories – giants, fairy godmothers, witches and wolves, for example. Cinderella is full of them, just like those Greek “pantomimes” of 2000 years ago.

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This edited article about Christmas originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 624 published on 29 December 1973.

A montage of Christmas images by John Millar Watt

Here are the stories of three cities which have a special meaning and place in the Christian beliefs at this time of year

Bethlehem

Eight centuries before the time of Jesus Christ, a wise old man sat dreaming of the future of his people. They lived in a small country, and were surrounded by great and powerful empires. Their ancestors had come from the desert, under leaders like Moses and Joshua. After a long struggle they had conquered this land, the Land of Canaan. What sort of a future had they? Micah (that was the old man’s name) saw that they needed new leaders – another great captain like Joshua. Where would such a one be found? There was something about a little town in the hills whose name meant House of Bread, that appealed to Micah. It was only a small place, built on the spur of a hill, jutting out into a valley, like a headland into the sea. “That is the place,” thought Micah, and he wrote on a leather scroll these words:

“And you, Bethlehem, although you are only one of the small cities of this land, out of you shall come the one who is to be its leader.”

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This edited article about Queen Elizabeth II originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 884 published on 23 December 1978.

Queen Elizabeth II’s first Christmas TV broadcast by John Keay

Sitting completely relaxed, with four TV cameras focused upon her, Queen Elizabeth II began to speak to her people in Britain and throughout the rest of the Commonwealth. It was Christmas Day, 1957 and the Queen was giving her first televised Christmas message. Prince Charles and Princess Anne, then small children, were near her in the library at Sandringham as she spoke. Her speech linked one small family group with millions of similar gatherings over much of the globe, for it was heard by radio in places beyond the reach of television. It is an event which has been repeated on every Christmas Day in the years that have followed to bring together in thought the great Commonwealth of Nations.

This edited article about plants originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 884 published on 23 December 1978.

A traditional English village at Christmas time by Ronald Lampitt

To the people of Ancient Britain there was something magical about mistletoe. For here was a plant which, instead of being rooted in the earth, grew out of the branch of a tree.

Mistletoe growing on an oak was of special significance. For the oak was sacred, and the mistletoe was thought to be the spirit of the oak grove that lived on when the trees “died” in winter. At a midwinter ceremony the Druids cut twigs of it, and these were hung over doorways as symbols of hospitality and fertility.

Later this pagan symbol was to become a familiar feature in Christmas decorations. We now know that, far from being the “spirit” of the tree on which it grows, it is a parasite that preys on its host.

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This edited article about meteorology originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 883 published on 16 December 1978.

Teddy Bear makes a Snowbear as snowflakes fall by William Francis Phillipps

When you pick up a handful of snow to make a snowball, you are handling one of nature’s most beautiful and delicate creations. It may not always look that way, especially when it has been trodden into slush on city pavements. It needs a close look at fresh-fallen, dry snow to reveal its true nature.

It is important to realise that snow is not “frozen rain”. Some knowledge of what causes rain will help to understand how snow is formed.

In certain conditions, the air reaches a state when it becomes saturated with water vapour. This means that it holds more than it can readily contain, and the invisible vapour tends to condense into liquid water. This takes the form of minute droplets, which float in the air as clouds. When these droplets unite to make larger drops, rain is formed.

When the temperature is below freezing point, as at very great altitudes, the surplus water vapour turns directly from the vapour form into ice. When this happens, minute crystals are formed.

Very high clouds, such as the cirrus clouds which form “mares’ tails” or “mackerel skies”, are composed of such crystals. Some of these take the form of fine needles of ice, which may be no more than one two-hundredth of a millimetre in diameter.

The snow that falls to the ground is composed of ice crystals. Their form and size varies greatly, depending partly on the temperature at which they are formed. The shapes include not only “needles”, but also hollow, prism-shaped columns and “dendritic”, or tree-shaped, clusters of needles.

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This edited article about British royalty originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 880 published on 25 November 1978.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert gather their family round the Christmas tree by C L Doughty

The people of London lined the pavements in crowds to see Queen Victoria being driven to St. Paul’s Cathedral. The cheers and yells, as her carriage passed, were deafening. It was June, 1897, and the celebrations marked her Diamond Jubilee – the 60th year of her rule.

The Queen was so much a part of the image that Victorians had of their well-ordered world, that her death in 1901 seemed to knock the bottom out of their comfortable and stable existence.

Foremost among Victoria’s qualities were her truthfulness and her devotion to duty. Three people dominated her education as a young girl: her mother, the Duchess of Kent, her uncle Leopold (later King of the Belgians), and her governess, the Baroness Lehzen, to whom fell the task of instructing the queen-to-be in royal etiquette.

Victoria’s marriage was arranged by her mother and uncle. This was done by inviting various young men, usually cousins, to stay with the royal family until a suitable candidate was found.

One such was Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Albert and Victoria were married in 1840.

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This edited article about Christmas carols originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 869 published on 9 September 1978.

The travelling Rainer family of singers performed ‘Silent Nght’ before royalty, by Andrew Howat

Not until the local priest and the village schoolmaster prepared to rehearse the Christmas Eve Mass did they discover that the church organ was broken. A mouse had apparently gnawed a hole in the old leather bellows and they could not be mended until after the holiday.

Anxiously, the two men asked each other what could be done. For a while, there seemed to be no solution to the problem. Then the young priest, Father Joseph Mohr, put forward a bold idea. “I’ve written a poem,” he murmured. “Nothing very ambitious, but it’s in keeping with the season. Perhaps, if you could set it to music, we’d be able to hold Mass after all.”

The schoolteacher-organist, Franz Gruber, liked the idea, but he pointed out that, without the organ, there would be no musical accompaniment for the poem – even if he did write a tune for it. “The children’s choir isn’t used to singing unaccompanied,” he pointed out. “They might sing wrong notes. Or, even worse, dry up altogether.”

But the priest refused to listen to his friend’s protestations. “In that case you can score it for two male voices, tenor and baritone,” he suggested, “and give it a guitar accompaniment.” The schoolmaster said this was possible, and asked who the singers and guitarist would be.

“Why us, of course,” smiled Father Mohr. “I’m the tenor, you’re the baritone, and you can also play the guitar. With a quick rehearsal we can even have a small choir – say six boys and six girls – to join in the refrain.”

So, on the night of 24th December, 1818, the specially-written Christmas lullaby, or carol, was given its first performance in the Church of St Nikola, in the small town of Oberndorf, near Salzburg, in Austria.

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This edited article about music originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 864 published on  5 August  1978.

Wagner rehearsed his Siegfried Idyll with a group of  musicians on Lake Lucerne by Andrew Howat

The one thing Richard Wagner want ed most in the world was a son. He was delighted when his wife, Cosima, presented him with one, and determined to mark the event and reward her in a very special way. As a composer, he felt that the best gift he could bestow would be a new musical work – one which, he said, would be a song of praise to Cosima and their baby boy, Siegfried.

For the next few weeks in that winter of 1870, he worked in seclusion in his study. Shortly before Christmas his latest masterpiece – a fifteen-minute long lullaby – was completed. He called it the Siegfried Idyll in honour of the baby, and declared that his family’s life would henceforth be as idyllic, or happy, as the title of the orchestral piece.

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