In 18th-century Williamsburg, Christmas was more a holy day than a holiday. It involved a quiet morning worshiping at church. In the days of Advent leading up to Christmas, people mainly prayed, fasted, and waited for the day to arrive. It was the following days, the 12 days of Christmas, where the real celebrating took place, with feasts and balls and games. The Virginia celebrations would have been considered scandalous in the northern colonies. Because of New England’s Puritan heritage, it was illegal to observe Christmas at all, even at church.
The time between Christmas and 12th night was the height of the social season. Feasts, foxhunts, cards, and other games abounded, including stoolball—an early sport in which one player threw a leather ball stuffed with feathers or hair at a milking stool while another defended the stool with a wooden bat. In time, the game evolved into cricket and baseball. Schoolboys also staged plays, mainly religious but with plenty of secular and humorous overtones.
The end of an 18th-century Christmas festivities were often accompanied by music. Fiddles, flutes, harpsichords, and other popular instruments of the day played in wealthy homes, but for people who couldn’t afford such luxuries, voices were the only way to provide music. Virginians most likely sang popular English carols such as "The First Noel," "God Rest You Merry Gentlemen," "The Holly and the Ivy," and "I Saw Three Ships.” However, they would not have been sung to tunes we would recognize today. And they would never have been performed on the streets, only inside the home.
Wassailing, on the other hand, was commonplace in the streets around Christmas. Wassail, named for the old English toast meaning “be in good health,” is a spiced ale served in a large silver bowl. Wassailers would go singing door to door while carrying a wassail bowl, in hopes the good people of the house would keep the bowl full. They greeted each home with their song of holiday cheer.
Dancing was another popular Christmas activity. To the music of a harpsichord or fiddle, Virginians glided to minuets, country dances, and the Roger de Coverly, which came to be called the Virginia Reel. While adults did not exchange gifts at the time, children usually received an educational book, and servants could expect a “Christmas box” of coins and trinkets. For one and all, Christmas was indeed, as Thomas Jefferson wrote, a “day of greatest mirth and jollity.”