The Wassail Bowldetails

All hail to thee, January—all hail! cold and wintery as thou art—full of ice and snow—of cold fingers and cold noses—of bare boughs and hard pathways—yet thou art not hard, nor cold, nor bare, after all—but full of genial warmth— good thoughts—good things, and merry doings. Come about me, all ye little schoolboys, that have escaped from the necessary hard thraldom of your task-work, with your untamed hearts shouting in your own musical voices, and your laughing spirits dancing in untaught measure in your eyes. Come and help me to make up my Wassail Bowl—come with all your variety of good things—come with your best of all holiday greetings—with your gifts and rejoicings, and your loud laughs and hallos—with your many happy relations—with your plum-puddings and mince pies—with your twelfth-cakes, kings, queens, and caricatures—with your forfeits and fortune-tellings—with your quirps, your jokes, and your conundrums—with blindman’s buff—and your sitting up after supper—with your patomimes and panoramas, and new penknives and Parley’s Annuals—come with old Peter Parley, and let us make up our Wassail Bowl.

And what shall be our Wassail Bowl? The old Wassail was a bowl of good ale, with apples and spice, and they used to sing:—

But ours shall be the Wassail Bowl and the “Loving Cup,” one and the same; for the Loving Cup was the ancient Wassail Bowl. The warmth of the spice and the glow of the ale was to testify to the warmth of the heart and the glow of the soul—while in it was drowned all evil thoughts, feelings, and animosities—and good health, and good cheer, and good luck, to all our friends and neighbours. (pp. 2-3)