Antebellum southerners would find little familiar with today’s Christmas

Anyone wanting to celebrate Christmas in an old-time Southern way will need to pare down the shopping list and round up a few hog bladders.

Although antebellum Southerners would scarcely recognize the commercial nature of Christmas today, their celebrations were more boisterous than their counterparts in the North, says Paul Anderson, assistant professor of history at Clemson University.

We wouldn’t find the feel of Christmas much different if we were to go back in time,” Anderson said. “In the old South, Christmas was a time of celebration, of eating special dishes, and generally of good will.”

However, it was also more religious and less commercial. Although gifts were exchanged often, Christmas was not yet a gift-giving holiday, and it was not as sentimental as it is today. The focus on children and Santa Claus were concurrent developments of the Victorian era, and did not take firm root until the 1930s.

Even though the New England Christmas dominates today’s holiday imagery, northern celebrations were much more subdued before the Civil War, especially in New England.

“In New England, where the legacy of Puritanism ran deep, many were suspicious that the holiday smacked too much of Catholicism,” Anderson said.

Southerners readily embraced the celebration, however, and the goodwill often was passed on to slaves.

“Many slave masters used the holiday to reinforce their sense of paternalism,” Anderson said. “Typically, slaves were given a week to 10 days off at the end of the year. This was a time that the planter might use to show his own benevolence.”

The slave owner used the occasion to give food and clothing to his slaves. He might give out cash gifts or candy, or even a small amount of liquor to his favorites. Slaves also had greater freedom of movement at Christmas time and sometimes were allowed more freedom to drink and celebrate.

“It was the only time during the year that the rules were expected to be deliberately loosened. It was one of the few holiday seasons, if not the only one, that slaves shared with masters,” Anderson said.

The good will toward slaves did not go so far as equality, of course. While fireworks were a big part of the Christmas celebrations, slaves were not allowed to have gunpowder. But they improvised.

“There is at least one account of slaves using hog bladders for the occasion,” Anderson said. “Children would put the bladders on sticks, blow the bladders full of air, and then hold the stick to a fire until the bladders blew apart.”