Jane Austen celebrated Christmas with dancing, dinner parties and dangerous games |
Would you dare to play Snapdragon and pluck a flaming raisin from a fiery bowl of brandy? Or don the costume of a comedic character on Twelfth Night? Jane Austen certainly would have – and did.
These games were two among many festive traditions that featured in the Georgian Christmas season and were part of Austen’s yuletide experience. Much like our own holiday season, it was a time filled with frivolity, fun, and friendly gatherings – as Mr Elton confirms in the pages of Emma (1816).
During a picturesque carriage ride through the snow, he shares his delight with Emma and Mr Knightley, proclaiming: “This is quite the season, indeed, for friendly meetings. At Christmas every body invites their friends about them, and people think little of even the worst weather.”
This sentiment holds as true now as it did when it appeared in print in 1815 and is echoed across Austen’s novels. In Pride and Prejudice (1813) both Mrs Bennet and Lizzy invite family to stay for the holidays – Mrs Bennet welcoming her brother and his family to Longbourn, Lizzy offering to host her aunt and uncle at Pemberly.
Whether the assembly at Randalls in Emma or Sir Thomas Bertram’s ball at Mansfield Park, social gatherings with friends and family were a central part of Georgian Christmas culture. In Persuasion (1817), Mary Musgrove’s disappointment over a “very dull Christmas” without a single dinner party during the whole of the holidays........