As told by Olive and Gordon Banton, Winterton, formerly of St. Jones Without.
Transcribed by Lester Green, Winter 2004
The first thing we do on Christmas eve was to go out in the store and lug in yaffles of wood to fill the wood box and to make sure we were warm in the night. Then we’d bring in buckets of water to fill the barrel. Then we feed the sheep, goats, cows and hens. When you get all your work done, then some of the young boys would go and kick a ball, made from the bladder of a sheep, around the garden.
Then that night we’d start putting up the Christmas tree that was cut that day by your father or one of the boys. We’d make decoration out of paper. We’d make different things from bread, string together popcorn and put on the tree. We wouldn’t buy any Christmas decorations from the store. Maybe a special bell or a tree top.
In our Christmas sock we’d get an apple or orange, a few candy and some Christmas cake. Sometimes, we’d get some type of toy. You’d get one present and maybe something small.
Where we lived in St. Jones, Christmas was good because we’d be Jannying for the twelve days of Christmas. We’d go to people’s door and knock. When they come out you’d say, “Any Jannies ‘lowed in?” They’d say come on in now. They’d try to guess who we were. Then they’d give you a piece of cake and a drop of syrup. Sometimes the people would want you to dance.
You’d always share whatever you had with your family and friends. For Christmas dinner we’d have mutton or a rooster. Some people might have a turr. We’d have this food with plenty of vegetables; spuds, carrot, and turnip that we grew up in the bottom of St. Jones during the summer. For desert, we’d have some type of pudding or a piece of Christmas cake. On Christmas day, we all went to church. In church, we sing a few hymns and after the service we all rush out to celebrate Christmas. Christmas day was like a big holiday and the boys would get together and play football. The girls used to watch the boys play. Old Christmas day was the same as Christmas Day. You would have a special dinner cooked. On old Christmas night, we’d go around to the different houses. Around 11:00 pm a number of young people would get together and make an old twelve cake[i]. Everyone would bring something to put in the cake like figs, fat pork, berries and whatever you could get. When it was baked, we’d all share. Somebody would bring partridge berries and we’d steep it in the kettle and remove the berries and drink the juice. This was how we made berry ocky[ii].
I had one experience with animals praying in the stable. My Uncle and me went to the stable. When he went in the stable, I hold on outside. When twelve o’clock come, everything went on their knees, the sheep and cows. My uncle got frightened. I barred the door with him in the stable. He got mad, beat the door down and we both ran home frightened to death. That was my experience with praying animals.
Yes. Christmas is not the same at all. No Jannies now, people don’t dress-up and only a few people comes to your house now. But these times there was always someone back and forth to your house. Now a few people belong to you comes in for Christmas dinner or something like that. No fun now. All gone now. All there is now is liquor, liquor, liquor, or beer, beer, and beer. That’s all I got to say about it.
Gordon Banton and Olive Pitcher were married on January 3, 1946. They moved to Winterton when the people of St. Jones Without abandon the community because the community was lacking in community governmental services such as roads and medical facilities.
[i] twelfth-cake n also twelfth bun. OED ~ (1774-1838). Cake prepared for celebration of Twelfth Night, January 6th; cp CHRISTMAS n 1.
T 11-63 Those twelve nights [of Christmas] we’d be at it, and the last night we[‘d] make a pan of sweet buns, twelfth buns, and give ’em to the people. Every house we’d go to we’d give ’em a bun for Twelfth Night. 1981 SPARKES 123 I have heard my grandmother (born 1835) talk about the ‘Twelfth Cake’, and an old gentleman of about the same age, but living in a different part of the island, told me that he had heard his father say that it was the custom to make twelve small bonfires in the village on Twelfth Night. His ancestors came from Gloucestershire.
Source: Dictionary of Newfoundland English
[ii] berry ocky: home-made drink of wild berries, especially partridge berries, or jam and water; cp OCKY.
C 66-1 At home it was the grown-ups who used to go mummering [but] the young folks went too. We were always treated to cake, cookies and black-currant drinks, or partridge berry drinks which they used to call ‘berryocky.’ 1969 Christmas Mumming in Nfld 133 ~ a hot drink of berry juice, usually with rum added. Q 71-7 That’s just as bitter as berryocky.
Source: Dictionary of Newfoundland English