The cairn

Chapter 100: Christmas Day.

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About This Book

A compact miscellany of short essays, anecdotes, prayers, poems, and biographical sketches that collects reflections on grief, maternal love, benevolence, virtue, taste, and historical episodes. The pieces alternate personal memories, moral aphorisms, humorous and touching anecdotes, and brief portraits of public figures, often framed as letters, epitaphs, or short narratives. Recurring themes include the effects of sorrow and joy, domestic affection, charity, the vicissitudes of fortune, and the consolations of faith and art. The tone moves between intimate recollection and light moralizing, presenting varied, self-contained vignettes meant to instruct, console, and amuse.

Christmas Day.

The feast of our Saviour’s nativity was undoubtedly celebrated in the early ages of Christianity. It is named Christmas-day from the Latin “Christi missa,” the mass of Christ, and thence the Roman Catholic liturgy is called their Missal, or Mass book. About the year 500 this day became generally observed in the Catholic church.

Christmas Boxes. The mass was called Christmas, the box, Christmas-box, for the collecting money that the priests may say masses to the Saints for those who presented them.