Christmas is just around the corner, and we’ll have been up to the usual traditions. We’ve got our trees up, had some mulled wine, we’re most of the way through our advent calendars, but we’ll be taking a look at the Welsh traditions that have been celebrated here for hundreds of years.
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00:00Welsh Christmas traditions all follow some similar patterns.
00:04Of course, given our rich creative history,
00:06there's plenty of singing and poetry involved,
00:08and they're all a good old laugh.
00:10Probably the most famous Welsh Christmas tradition
00:13is, of course, the Marie Lloyd.
00:15It's a frightening thing to see, but the whole idea
00:17is that someone dressed in a sheet carrying a hobby horse
00:20made out of a real horse's skull
00:22will be led around the village on Christmas nights.
00:25The tradition is dated back to the early 1800s
00:28and had a group of men going door to door with the Marie Lloyd
00:31requesting to enter through song,
00:33with people expected to reply in song back,
00:35trying to get rid of them, as this would go back and forth,
00:38eventually leading to them being invited in
00:40and given food and drink.
00:42We've seen the Marie Lloyd come back a little bit recently,
00:45not so much in the trying to steal food and drink from your neighbours,
00:48but in traditional settings, performances,
00:50and maybe you've seen one knocking around.
00:52A lot of the Welsh Christmas traditions
00:54centre around the Christmas and New Year's period,
00:56so when we're all knocking around,
00:58wondering what to do with ourselves,
01:00maybe we could try the old tradition of toffee making.
01:03Nos on give life, meaning toffee evening,
01:05was a traditional way of spending the long nights over Christmas.
01:08You invite your friends and family round,
01:10tell stories, play games, and then make toffee.
01:14When the toffee is boiled, you pour it out onto a cool slab,
01:17and when it's warm, but not too hot,
01:19you all butter your hands and pull the toffee until it's finished.
01:22Then, when it's all done, you can all have
01:24a delicious, freshly made toffee. Can't go wrong.
01:27Other traditions include homing on Boxing Day,
01:29which included whacking whoever was the last one up in the morning
01:32with some holly, so that one might not be very nice to bring back.
01:36There's also a plegain, which hymns and Christmas songs
01:39were sung between 3am and 6am on Christmas morning,
01:42which is nice, but maybe a little bit early for most of us.
01:45Some of these traditions might not be making an immediate comeback,
01:48but maybe there's some room in your Christmas calendar for some of these.
01:52Most Christmases are about singing, eating, drinking,
01:54and spending time with your family.
01:56So however you celebrate, nadolig chloe, Merry Christmas.