Christmas Day
Still from The Christmas Angel (Détresse et Charité). Georges Méliès, 1904.
Published on Christmas Day in 1830, in the British publication ‘The Tatler’, Leigh Hunt’s essay on Christmas grapples with many of the same questions being asked almost 200 years later. How, he wonders, can we celebrate in a world full of suffering? Yet deftly and sympathetically, Hunt makes the argument that the best thing we can do in times of strife and trouble is sow seeds of happiness. Much of the original essay concerns the intricacies of eating and drinking in 19th century Christmas celebration, but the extract presented here is his opening remarks. While dressed in the language of the day, it contains within it universal truths of justice, charity, and kindness that are evergreen reminders.
Leigh Hunt December 24, 2024
The antiquities of Christmas, its origin, old customs, rustic usages, and mention by the poets, have been so abundantly treated in various publications of late years, that we should have nothing to say on the subject, if the season itself, and the fire-side, did not set us talking. We hope our readers will all enjoy themselves heartily to-day ; but to that end, we have first a word or two to say of a graver tendency. We are not going to tell them that they must have no mirth, because there are many who have a great deal of sorrow. It would be a great pity, were there no sunshine in one place, because there is rain in another. There are many things in the present state of the world, and of our own country in particular, calculated to disturb, even a momentary spirit of enjoyment, if our very humanity did not help to reassure us. We firmly believe, that the end of all the present tribulations of Europe, will be a glorious advance in the well-being of society. This reflection alone may enable the lovers of their species to endure many evils, and to persevere with renewed cheerfulness, in the struggles that yet remain for them to go through. We believe also, with equal assuredness, that the end of the present dreadful calamities of the poor in England, will be a proportionate advance in the whole condition of the English community; and therefore uneasy and cheerful thoughts chase one another in our contemplations, as images of the present or future predominate ; but when we propose to ourselves a special day of enjoyment, or relief, or whatever else it may be called, in proportion to the cares of the individual, it appears to us that we ought not to take it, without doing what we can towards diminishing some portion of it in others, even should our circumstances allow us to do no more than give them an apple or a crust.
What we mean, in short, is, that in all neighbourhoods, there are fellow-creatures to whom Christmas is little or no Christmas, except in reminding them that they cannot keep it; and we would have everybody do something, however small, to shew them that we would fain have it otherwise. The rich can do something in this way, to gladden the hearts of many families; others may be able to do but little for three or four; others for a less number; and some for none at all, to any serious degree, except that the least attention to the poor is welcomed as a serious blessing. But we would say to every one who can spare a slice from his pudding, or an apple from his little children's dessert, “If you can send nothing else, send that.” If you know of no actual distress, still the slice of meat or pudding may be welcome ; the servant will, probably, know somebody who would be glad of it. There is the washerwoman, or the errand-boy, or the poor man who sweeps the cold street at the corner - send out your charity somewhere, and it will find a call for its tenderness.
We give this advice, not because your heart may be wanting in natural kindness, or you may not be even actively beneficent, when affliction is brought before your eyes; but because the best hearted joy may sometimes forget others, in its vivacity, or not have been sufficiently taught to share what it can; but having thus earned a right to be sympathized with by those about you, we say then, “Do forget, if you can, all others." Shut out the world and its sorrows, as you do the darkness of the evening with your curtains, and realize the happiness which you would bestow on all. It is a part of your duty to enjoy what pleasures you can, not inconsistent with others' welfare or your own.
Leigh Hunt (19 October 1784 – 28 August 1859) was an English critic, essayist and poet. In 1808 he founded the radical intellectual journal ‘The Examiner’, and introduced many of the greatest poets of his age, including John Keats, Percy Shelley, Robert Browning, and Alfred Tennyson, to a public audience.
