Many years ago, I heard a story from a customer who stopped by my book shop about a flower that ordinarily one doesn't associate with Christmas -- a rose.  This tale didn't occurr on December 25, however.  It happened on January 6, a date that many families in southern Illinois and much of rural America knew as Old Christmas.   

 

Christmas came twice in early America. December 25 was often referred to as "New Christmas" to distinguish it from it from "Old Christmas," which fell on January 6.  Although in 1752 Great Britain adopted the revised Gregorian calendar, which established December 25 as the anniversary of Jesus' birth, some British traditionalists -- including many colonial Americans -- continued to observe January 6 as Christmas, the date on which it fell according to the old Julian calendar that Britain had abandoned.

Residents of isolated rural communities, such as those that once existed in southern Illinois, often ignored December 25 and continued to celebrate Old Christmas until well into the twentieth century. For some southern Illinoisans, Old Christmas was a time for retelling many beautiful legends and folk beliefs. Bees were said to hum the 100th Psalm in their hives at the stroke of midnight. It was also atmidnight that water in wells and streams magically turned into wine, while all fruit trees miraculously blossomed and bore fruit that vanished just before daybreak.   The very dawn on Old Christmas morning was always especially beautiful and said to be marked by two sunrises, a phenomenon that some old-timers even claimed to have witnessed!

 

Families often made a ritual of opening a window on Old Christmas morning to allow all the year's bad luck to escape, while others flatly refused to throw out ashes from the stove or fireplace, since there was the danger that one might inadvertently "throw them into the Savior's face."

 

Ghosts supposedly walked the earth on this day.  "Old Christmas," a poem by Roy Helton, expresses this belief with a beauty and poignance I haven't found anywhere else.  Before sunup on Old Christmas morning, a young woman named Lomey Carter stops by the cabin of the man who killed her husband.  Taulbe Barton, the murderer, isn't home but Sally Ann, his wife, invites 
 

Lomey to enter and rest for a while.   When asked where she has been so early in the morning, Lomey replies that she visited the graveyard near the salt lick meadows, where Barton had killed her man.  There, she had seen her husband's ghost.  The spectre's head was still bleeding, where Barton's bullet had passed completely through it.

 

Lomey tells Sally Ann that the ghost kissed her and said that Jesus had forgiven Barton for this murder. He then whispered something to Lomey -- she doesn't tell Sally Ann what it is -- before vanishing.   When Sally Ann again remarks that Taulbe isn't home, Lomey reveals that she shot him to death with her late husband's rifle.  Sally Ann says that she heard two shots. That second gunshot, Lomey explains, came from the rifle of Taulbe, who managed to kill her before he died. Sally Ann had been talking to a ghost on this Old Christmas morning.

 

One of the most widely held Old Christmas beliefs was the notion that the weather on that day and the eleven succeeding days was indicative of the weather for each of the twelve months of the new year. For example, if January 6 was marked by snow, then there would be a great deal of snowfall throughout the month of January, while an unseasonably warm January 12 was a harbinger of a hot, dry July.

 

I rather doubt, however, if even the staunchest proponents of this meteorological theory really believed that a blizzard on January 13 meant that there would be snow in the month of August. A more reasonable interpretation would have been that snowfall on January 13 heralded an August during which there would be considerable precipitation.

    

One of the most pervasive legends of southern Illinois and much of rural America maintained that all perennial flowers roused themselves from dormancy atmidnight on Old Christmas Eve and bloomed in honor of the Savior's birth. The daintiest, most beautiful flowers of spring and summer could be found blossoming through even the harshest snow and ice, if only one cared to look.  The customer who stopped by my bookshop that day had been told such a story by his mother.  
 

It seems that this man's mother, as a little girl in southern Illinois, had heard the legend of all the sleeping perenniel flowers pushing up new life through the snow and frozen ground on Old Christmas Eve.  She took the story with a generous grain of salt, since she had never seen any evidence of it.  That is, until one very special Christmas.  She was awakened by her father late on Old Christmas Eve.  She recalled that his eyes were shining, his mouth was "grinning from ear to ear" and his hand was holding a beautiful red rose. 
    

The rose, its bud still tightly furled, was lightly dusted with snow. Yes, her father had told her, the rose was from their yard! The old rosebush had bloomed in celebration of Jesus' birth, just as the legend claimed, and this lovely rose was the living proof.

 

It was so beautiful, his mother said, that she didn't know whether to laugh or cry.  Her father then placed the rose in an old Mason jar filled with water that he had brought with him, , kissed her, wished her a Merry Christmas and told her to go back to sleep.  The rose, resting in that chipped Mason jar, was the first thing she saw when she awoke on Christmas morning. No present she received that Christmas -- or any other Christmas, either as a child or adult -- rivaled that single rose that had bloomed on the family rose bush atmidnight, just as she had always been told.
 

Of course, his mother said, a couple of years later she figured out what had really happened. Her father had obviously purchased the rose in town, brought it home but kept it hidden from her and then dipped it in the snow before taking it into her room that night. But her surprise upon being awakened that Old Christmas Eve, the sheer joy she felt from finally knowing that the legend of the blooming flowers must be true, was a memory his mother treasured all her life, the son told me.

 

I came to treasure his mother's story after hearing it that day in my book shop.  Now you can treasure it, too.
 

Yet another Old Christmas legend claimed that precisely at midnight all farm animals kneeled in their stalls to adore the newborn Jesus and praised him with human voices. Animals had supposedly been granted this once-a-year privilege since they had been the only witnesses to the Savior's birth in that Bethlehem stable and were said to have breathed on the Holy Infant to keep him warm on that chilly night so many centuries ago.  In fact, Old Christmas Eve was sometimes referred to as "the night the animals talk."
 

The only other Old Christmas tale I've heard that even begins to rival the rose story came from a southern Illinoisan I met at my book shop who shared a story she had been told by her grandfather.  As a boy, the grandfather crept out of the house while everyone in the family was asleep and made his way to the barn.  He was determined to learn if the tales he had been told about animals kneeling down and speaking in human voices were true, and this was the only way to find out.

 

But the lad's curiosity was not sufficient to thwart his sleepiness, and he soon dozed off while curled up on a pile of hay.  Suddenly, he was awakened by the sound of someone calling his name!   Leaping to his feet, he initially thought that he had been discovered by his parents. But, to his profound amazement, he saw that he was alone in the barn -- except for the animals. As he hurriedly returned to the house, he surmised from the position of the moon that it was just about midnight.

 

When I asked my customer who had called out her grandfather's name in the barn on that Old Christmas Eve so long ago, she said that she would give me the same response her grandfather had given her when she had asked the same question.  The old man had just slyly winked at her and replied, "Who do you think?

 

As Old Christmas faded from memory, some of its legends and traditions were transferred to December 25. Springhouse magazine, a southern Illinois literary treasure that has played a vital role in preserving the region's folklore, recently carried a firsthand account of some Christmas Eve magic that involves farm animals. The creatures in this story, however, are less talented or perhaps just shyer than the animals that temporarily gain the power of speech. But let the author tell it his way.

 

Don Floyd was born and grew up in a family of sharecroppers "in the southern tip of Illinois down in the Ozark hills."  While he has many pleasant memories of his childhood, he wrote, "My very favorite is Christmas Eve with my Mother, Father, and two sisters."   
 

Floyd and his sisters would be asleep in their beds when their parents awakened them. After dressing in their warmest clothes, they walked to the kitchen to meet their parents. Their father would light a coal oil lantern and lead his family from the house to the barn. "Daddy would open the door to the tack room," Floyd recalled, where harnesses for the horses and mules were kept.  When everyone had entered the tack room, "Daddy would blow out the coal oil lantern."   While maintaining silence, the family then joined hands to make a circle.  What then happened should be told by Floyd in his own words.
 

At the stroke of midnight, exactly midnight, the cattle would commence the most soothing mooing, humming-like sound. It was like a lullaby. Soon all the other animals would join in. The horses, the mules, the sheep and the goats, the pigs and the chickens would all join in to produce this unique sound.

 

It was difficult for the listeners to resist raising their hands to the heavens and shouting, "Praise the Lord!"  The animals were singing, in their own way, a lullaby to the baby Jesus who was born this very night, all those many years ago, in a little town called Bethlehem.  This beautiful lullaby would go on for several minutes but, when it ended, it would be so silent in that old barn that all you could hear were the creaking of the timbers. 
 

Daddy would relight the coal oil lantern then. Momma would say a prayer. Daddy would light our way down the narrow path while we sang Christmas carols.

 

Upon reaching their house, which was warmed by a wood-burning stove, the parents would drink coffee while the children enjoyed hot chocolate."Daddy would tell us how the animals would always, at midnight, on Christmas Eve, talk and sing this lullaby to the Baby Jesus," Floyd concluded.
 

If traditions such as these are still observed in the southern Illinois of today -- or anywhere in rural America, for that matter -- I have yet to learn about it.  But I like to think that somewhere at midnight on December 25 or January 6, flowers are still said to bloom in the snow and children stay up to see whether animals speak in human voices.
 

 

This is an excerpt from From Christmas to Twelfth Night in Southern Illinois (The History Press: ISBN 978-1-59629-913-9) by John J. Dunphy.  It is available for purchase on Amazon.  Signed copies are available from the author.  Go to www.johndunphy.com for contact information.