Happy December, Risky readers!  It’s been a busy month around here, with family visits and some lovely concerts (like Elena, there are aspects of Christmas that always make me feel a bit melancholy, but music is one of my favorite things about the season).  I have also had a flurry of new releases.  The latest is the 4th in my Elizabethan Mystery series, Murder at Whitehall (which takes place, of course, at Christmastime 1560).

So, how did the Elizabethans celebrate Christmas?

One thing I learned as I researched Murder at Whitehall is that the Elizabethans really, really knew how to party at the holidays! The Christmas season (Christmastide) ran 12 days, from December 24 (Christmas Eve) to January 6 (Twelfth Day), and each day was filled with feasting, gift-giving (it was a huge status thing at Court to see what gift the Queen gave you, and to seek favor by what you gave her), pageants, masquerades, dancing, a St. Stephen’s Day fox-hunt, and lots of general silliness. (One of the games was called Snapdragon, and involved a bowl of raisins covered in brandy and set alight. The players had to snatch the raisins from the flames and eat them without being burned. I think the brandy was heavily imbibed before this games as well, and I can guarantee this won’t be something we’re trying at my house this year!)

Later in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, she mostly kept Christmas at Greenwich, or sometimes at Hampton Court or Nonsuch Palace, but in the year my story is set, 1559, she spent the holiday at Whitehall in London. Elizabeth had only been queen for a year, so hers was a young Court full of high spirits. This was also one of the coldest winters in memory, so there would have been a lot of sledding and ice skating . It was fun to imagine this scene, and put my characters, Kate and her friends (including the real-life Lady Catherine Grey and her suitor Lord Hertford) into the action!

Even though there were no Christmas trees or stockings hung by the fire, I was surprised to find we would recognize many of the traditional decorations of the time. Anything that was still green in December would be used–holly, ivy, yew, bay. The Yule log was lit on Christmas Eve using a bit of last year’s log saved for the purpose. It was brought in by the men of the household, decorated with wreaths and ribbons, and set ablaze so everyone could gather around and tell tales of Christmases past.  Music, as it is now, was one of the big mood-setters of the season, and since Kate is the queen’s favorite musician I listened to many CDs of period music and imagined what she might play every day.

Food was also just as big a part of the holiday as it is now! Roast meats were favorites (pork, beef, chicken, fricaseed, cooked in broths, roasted, baked into pies), along with stewed vegetables and fine whit manchet bread with fresh butter and cheese. Elizabeth was a light eater, especially compared with her father, but she was a great lover of sweets. These could include candied flowers, hard candies in syrup (called suckets, eaten with special sucket spoons), Portugese figs, Spanish oranges, tarts, gingerbread, and figgy pudding. The feast often ended with a spectacular piece of sugar art called (incongrously) subtleties. In 1564, this was a recreation of Whitehall itself in candy, complete with a sugar Thames. (At least they could work off the feasting in skating and sledding…)

A couple fun reads on Christmas in this period are Maria Hubert’s “Christmas in Shakespeare’s England” and Hugh Douglas’s “A Right Royal Christmas,” as well as Alison Sim’s Food and Feast in Tudor England and Liza Picard’s “Elizabeth’s London.”  Be sure and visit my website,http://amandacarmack.com, for more Behind the Scenes history on Kate and her world, and a few Christmas traditions and recipes.  (Anyone going to try and cook the roasted peacock??)  If you’d like to give Murder at Whitehall a read, or see an excerpt, you can find it right here….

And And–if you are more of a Regency fan (I told you I had a flurry of new things out!), I have a little Christmas novella, The Bluestocking’s Christmas Wish!  If you’re like me, you don’t have a lot of time for deep reading this time of year, and I’ve always found a Regency Christmas novella fills the slot nicely.

What are some of your favorite holiday reads???

In the spring of 1986 I absorbed a museum exhibit that ranks as the best in my experience. The Treasure Houses of Britain was seen by almost one million people during its six months at Washington’s National Gallery of Art. Like most of the visitors I was amazed, impressed, “gobsmacked” not only by the sheer opulence of the treasures but also by their artistic merit. The memory of that exhibit is as fresh in my mind today as it was when I first wrote on the subject years ago.

According to the National Gallery of Art (DC) website more than “700 objects were gathered from more than 200 homes representing collecting and domestic arts from the 15th to the 20th century.”

Above is one of seventeen period rooms that were constructed to display the objects. It is obviously the most ambitious project ever undertaken by the NGA. Gervase Jackson-Stops chose the art work and the exhibit was structured to showcase each period of collecting by the great families of England.

It was at this exhibit that I first saw the work of master woodcarver Grinling Gibbons. The piece on display was a carving of fish and game, not my favorite subject matter, but the delicacy of the carving amazed me. The work was done in the days before dental drills and dermal tools made intricate carving more accessible. Gibbons work shows an attention to detail that defies the imagination of my contemporary “hurry up and get it done” approach to the craft projects I have undertaken.

Grinling Gibbons was born in Rotterdam in 1648. It’s possible his father was an Englishman who worked with Inigo Jones, who introduced Italianate Renaissance design to the English. Grinling Gibbons came to England in 1667 his talent obviously developed in the nineteen years before he arrived. He was discovered working “in a poor and solitary thatched hut in Kent” by diarist John Evelyn who introduced him to King Charles II through the intercession of Christopher Wren.

His work can be found in dozens of houses and public buildings throughout Britain, including Petworth, Blenheim, Kirtlington Park and also at Windsor, and many of Wren’s London churches. Gibbons and his “workshop” added immense detail and beauty to St Paul’s, London. Arguably the greatest example of his work is found at Petworth in the Carved Room, a small segment of which is shown above. Ignore the paintings  (yes, I know that’s not easy) and look at the work in wood that fills the wall like we use wood paneling today.

Gibbons and his workshop worked in mediums besides wood, but wood best suited the detailed handiwork for which he, himself, is best known. To the right is a detail of his work in wood.

Last year when I visited Biltmore in Asheville North Carolina I noticed a fine wood carving over the mantle in one of the rooms. I’ve been meaning to call the curator and find out if it was by Gibbons. I might do that tomorrow and I will let you know what I find out.

Are you familiar with Gibbons? But, more important tell us about an exhibit that made you stop in your tracks in awe and appreciation.