Fruitcake: treasured Christmas tradition or hefty holiday menace?
That’s a question you’ve probably answered for yourself.
Here’s a harder one: Why did eating fruitcake become a holiday tradition in the first place? Or drinking eggnog for that matter? Or buying poinsettias and hanging wreaths? Spinning dreidels and frying potato latkes?
We all know why we do these things. We do them because, well, because we’ve always done them …
Oh, all right, we don’t have a clue why we do them. Who has the time to research that?
We do. So sit back and have some eggnog as we answer these and other holiday questions you may have wondered about.
Why do people hang up a Christmas wreath?
It’s a circle. It’s traditionally made out of flowers or foliage. Remind you of anything? How about the crown of thorns Jesus was made to wear before he was crucified?
Why are fruitcakes a holiday tradition?
Modern fruitcake was born with an influx of cheap sugar that arrived in Europe from the colonies in the 1500s, said Robert Sietsema, writing in the Village Voice.
“Some goon discovered that fruit could be preserved by soaking it in successively greater concentrations of sugar,” he wrote, not in the most appreciative tone.
“Not only could native plums and cherries be conserved, but heretofore unavailable fruits were soon being imported in candied form from other parts of the world. Having so much sugar-laced fruit engendered the need to dispose of it in some way — thus the fruitcake.”
Suddenly they were everywhere. Their ubiquitous nature spawned an 18th-century law in England restricting the consumption of fruitcake — or plum cake as it was called — to Christmas, Easter, weddings, christenings and funerals.
Eventually the other occasions fell by the wayside, leaving Christmas as the lone holiday with a link to the fruity cake.
Another theory: Well-heeled Englishmen would give slices of fruitcake to poor women caroling outside their houses.
Why do people drink eggnog during the holidays?
Short answer: It has booze in it — usually rum, brandy or sherry.
But, as you might have guessed, there’s more to it.
Eggnog is thought to have started in England, around the 17th century, where it was a favored drink of the rich. Early hot versions, called posset, contained milk, eggs and ale. (In Britain, nog is slang for ale.) Then someone added sugar, took out the ale and replaced it with brandy or sherry.
But why make eggnog in the first place?
Historian James Humes put it this way: “The average Londoner rarely saw a glass of milk. There was no refrigeration, and the farms belonged to the big estates.”
The heat and the alcohol helped preserve the milk. Dairy farms were plentiful in America, and the new drink soon became popular here. Colonists often substituted rum, which was cheaper than the heavily taxed brandy or sherry.
George Washington, reportedly a big fan of eggnog, had his own recipe, a knee-weakening concoction made with rye whiskey, rum and sherry.
The frothy brew quickly gained favor as a social drink, and a cup of nog was often used to toast friends and family and spice up special occasions.
For Hanukkah, we know people eat latkes — potato pancakes fried in oil. We know they’re reminders of an ancient miracle, when a bit of oil burned for eight days in the Temple of Jerusalem. But why fried potatoes? Why not fried squash or chicken or calamari?
Actually, another fried food –the jelly doughnut — is also a Hanukkah tradition. But thanks to all the Jewish people who came from Russia, potatoes reign supreme.
There really wasn’t much people could celebrate with back in 19th-century Eastern Europe, says Rabbi Vered Harris of Congregation Beth Torah. They were poor. It was December. It was Russia. About the only food anyone had was potatoes (“which last pretty much forever,” Harris says) and old chicken fat, called “schmaltz.” “You’d light the Hanukkah candles, have people come over and you’d have to be able to feed them something,” Harris says. Latkes.
Why is Christmas sometimes written as “Xmas”? And is it just a disrespectful advertising practice that takes Christ out of Christmas?
Advertisers prefer “Xmas” because it’s short. And its four letters do fit nicely with the word “sale.”
But Xmas is more than just a 20th-century marketing term. The Greek word for Christ is Xristos, and, according to the book “Did You Ever Wonder” by Jeff Rovin, the use of “Xmas” became widespread in Europe as far back as the 1500s.
X is the Greek letter “chi,” the equivalent of “Ch.” Therefore, Xristos is pronounced “Christos,” (meaning Christ) and Xmas is not as disrespectful as it once may have appeared.
Why do people hang gigantic socks on the mantel on Christmas Eve?
Saint Nicholas is said to have given gold coins to three poor girls who needed money for their wedding dowries, writes Marshall Brain in How Christmas Works. According to tradition he left the coins in the girls’ stockings. The girls had hung them by the fire to dry.
What does a dreidel — a four-sided spinning top — have to do with Hanukkah?
The Syrian Greeks wouldn’t allow the Jews to practice their religion — they couldn’t even learn Hebrew, Rabbi Harris said.
So, according to folk tradition, parents painted the Hebrew letters on dreidels. When the henchmen came by, they thought everyone was just playing a silly game. Today the dreidel is a symbol of Hanukkah; its Hebrew letters stand for the phrase, “A great miracle happened there.”
Why do people hang mistletoe and kiss underneath it?
Mistletoe traditions go back many years to many cultures. In most places mistletoe is considered a sign of love, peace and goodwill.
But why would people kiss under mistletoe, a parasitic plant that grows on trees? You can thank Frigga for that, or so goes one theory recounted in “How Christmas Works.”
Frigga is the Scandinavian goddess of love and beauty. One day, according to tradition, Frigga’s son, Balder, was killed by a poison dart that his enemy, Loki, made from mistletoe. Frigga’s tears changed the red mistletoe berries to white and raised Balder from the dead. In gratitude for getting her son back, Frigga then reversed mistletoe’s bad reputation and kissed everyone who walked underneath it.

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