Weird Newfoundland Christmas Traditions
A Christmas Star in Trinity, NL
Newfoundland has a lot of interesting customs. Perhaps none are as unusual as those practiced at Christmas time. The holidays are a time of tradition and celebration so, perhaps, it’s not surprising that the isolated coves that dot the island’s coastline have held on to some old-world entertainment and managed to breed some pastimes all their own.
Are these weird traditions? Well, weird is in the eye of the beholder. I don’t think they’re any stranger than cutting down a tree, bringing it indoors and putting lightbulbs on it… that’s weird.
What they are is, if not unique, certainly less common customs. Some of what follows is still practiced, while other traditions have fallen away.
Tibb’s Eve
Trinity Christmas Tree
In my corner of Newfoundland, the night of December 23rd has been called Tibb’s Eve for as long as I can remember. That isn’t so across the island. Many Newfoundlanders have only discovered Tibb’s Eve in recent years. In truth, it’s not an old tradition anywhere. It only dates back to the post-war period.
These days it’s a night marked with celebration, and whereas Christmas is about family, Tibb’s Eve is reserved for friends. There is a lot of talk of Tibb’s Eve drinking, but it is more than just that. Through all time, Newfoundlanders have had to leave their small coastal communities to make a living. Tibb’s Eve represented an opportunity for people who had just returned home for the holidays to reconnect with life-long friends.
As I’ve written elsewhere, Tibb’s Eve was not something I ever associated with alcohol. The degree to which its a 'drinking event’ seems to be growing as new people discover it. That’s okay — traditions evolve.
Playing for the Christmas Cake
In the time of my great-grandparents, the shortening fall days gave people a bit more leisure time. The early darkness did not allow for work outdoors so neighbours gathered together being social,taking turns hosting kitchen card games. A popular one was playing for the Christmas cake.
Friends played cards to collect enough money to make a Christmas cake. On one night they would play for flour — the losers of the game would contribute enough money to buy flour for a cake. The winner got away without having to pay. During the next game they might play for raisins, and one lucky person got away without having to pay for raisins. They continued the series of games until the ingredients for the Christmas cake had been collected. Then, during the Christmas season, the cake was baked and the group assembled for a party.
To the best of my knowledge this tradition has vanished. Even by the mid-1900s the ‘playing for Christmas cake’ had begun to make a shift toward ‘playing for the Candlemas cake,’ owing to the increasing Christmas time entertainment/distractions.
Check out this word slip collected in Happy Adventure regarding the Candlemas Cake It was gathered in research for the Dictionary of Newfoundland English.
The Village Champion
Another Christmas tradition of yesteryear involved deciding ‘the strongman’ of the settlement. Long before I was born, in the area of Bonavista Bay in which I grew up, it was customary for young men to challenge each other to fight during the Christmas season. The goal of the game(?) was to earn bragging rights as the champion of the community.
The fight was initiated when a young man would drag a coat behind him. If an onlooker wished to challenge, they did so by standing on the coat. This custom exists in Ireland and, no doubt, that’s the origin of the Newfoundland variant.
The general idea was that the participants would fight, bare-knuckled and the first person to secure three knock-downs would win. Bear in mind, these young Newfoundlanders rowed oars, cut timber and hauled fish with regularity. They were strong. A punch from one of these guys was going to be… substantial. But, as often as not, the fights were ‘friendly’ and the first fellow to land a fair blow was considered the winner.
There is a great story related in Harold Squires’ An Newfoundland Outport in the Making, that tells of a young man by the name of Rogers who was ‘Champion of Salvage’. When Rogers heard of a fellow across the bay in King’s Cove who was calling himself ‘Champion of Bonavista Bay’ he was offended. Rogers and a small crew of friends rowed the almost 20 miles across Bonavista Bay to King’s Cove (in January, no less) and found the ‘Champion.’ Rogers stood on his coat and, in his own words, “left im straightened out on the road. All six feet of im.”
Salvage, for the win!
Mummers & The Mummers Play
Mummering maybe the archetypal ‘weird’ Newfoundland Christmas tradition. That said, Newfoundlanders don’t ‘own’ mummering, it too grew out of old-world traditions, and it continues to exist away from our shores. We certainly made it our own, though.
Through the 12 nights of Christmas, some Newfoundlanders dressed in bizarre disguises and travelled in groups from house-to-house. When these mummers were invited inside they danced, drank and generally made merry. It was the job of the host to try to determine the identity of the mysterious strangers.
A good time was had by… most.
“Any Person... without a written licence from a magistrate, dressed as a mummer, masked, or otherwise disguised, shall be deemed guilty of a Public Nuisance””
The truth is mummering was always a bit scary and it was sometimes downright dark.
In fact, descriptions of early Newfoundland mummers often sound more frightening than jovial — there are mentions of wearing horns and the use of animal heads as part of costumes.
Hidden by their disguises, some mummers used the opportunity to settle scores. There was violence and even a murder. For a period of time Mummering became illegal.
As I said: dark.
Mummering eventually returned, albeit in a sanitized way thanks, in no small part, to Simani. Their 1982 recording Any Mummers Allowed In helped to solidify the practice in modern consciousness. In fact, the description of mummers in the song (bras, underwear stuffed, mitts on feet, etc) has probably done as much for the image of mummers as the description of St. Nick in Twas the Night Before Christmas has done for Santa Claus.
It is the fun-loving Simani-style mummer you will most often (but not always) find in Newfoundland today. There is even a daytime Mummer’s Parade held in St. John’s annually.
“Here Comes I, Beelzebub, and on my shoulder carries my club.”
Aside from the free-wheeling social mummering, Newfoundlanders sometimes performed The Mummers Play.
The Mummers Play, which also has old-world origins, is a scripted performance consisting of something-like 30 rhymed verses (here’s a version from Poole, UK). Locals learned their parts, dressed in costumes and visited homes throughout the village. The play, which included Beelzebub and Father Christmas as characters could take nearly an hour to perform. Owing to the length of the production, it could take a fair chunk of Christmas to visit and perform in all the community houses.
I have only ever seen The Mummers Play once and that was in a theatre in Eastport. I do remember a very creepy horse character whose jaws clapped together loudly.
Stuff of nightmares.
On that cheery note,
what’s Your Weird?
These are four Newfoundland Christmas traditions from my part of the island. I’m sure there are many more strange Christmas customs in my own community and even more beyond. I’d love to hear about them.
Feel free to drop your holiday traditions in the comments below.
