One especially popular old Christmastime game played by children and adults alike probably wouldn’t be allowed in most homes today.
On Christmas Eve in 1868, Georgiana Perry, who would turn 24 the next day, was delivering presents to children at Fredericton’s orphanage.
She wrote in her diary that she and the orphans decorated a giant Christmas tree together on the exhibition grounds, and later Frederictonians prepared them a Christmas feast.
And after that they all played Snapdragon.
Snapdragon began way before there even was a Christmas.
The Ancient Greeks were playing Snapdragon hundreds of years before Jesus Christ was born. Herodotus –who is considered the first ever historian– claimed that Hercules had invented the game a thousand years earlier.
On Christmas Eve in 1879 the Saint John Globe newspaper described the game’s rules in a poem:
“Here he comes with his flaming bowl
Don’t he mean to take his toll?
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
Take care you don’t take too much,
Be not greedy to your clutch,
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
With his blue and lapping tongue,
Many of you will be stung,
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
For he snaps at all who comes,
Snatching at his feast of plums,
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
But old-Christmas makes him come,
Though he looks so Fe! Fa! Fum!
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
Don’t fear him, but be bold,
Out he goes, his flames are cold
Snip! Snap! Dragon!”
So how does one play Snapdragon?
You take a plate, or a shallow bowl. And you fill up the bottom with some hard liquor like brandy. Next you sprinkle a few raisins throughout the booze. Then you turn off all the lights. And then you light the alcohol on fire.
Now the low blue flame of burning alcohol is the only light in the room. The flickering blue flames cast dancing shadows on the walls. The dim way they illuminate the faces of the people sitting around the fire makes their facial expressions seem contorted and dramatic, adding tension to the mood…
And then you reach into the fire and snatch out the raisins with your bare fingers!
The person who picks the most raisins out of the flaming bowl wins.
Simple, easy to play, and with a risk of setting your house on fire – that’s Snapdragon!
Georgiana Perry was at that Christmas party for orphan’s with her best friend, 27-year-old Juliana Horatia Ewing, who was quite a famous author.
Ewing once wrote a Christmas story for children called ‘Snap-Dragons: A Tale of Christmas Eve.’
“ONCE UPON A TIME there lived a certain family of the name of Skratdj,” the story began. Mr. and Mrs. Skratdj, caught up in the stresses of Christmas, were always snapping at one another.
They’d bicker in front of the children, in front of their friends, and neighbours. “So it went on, however; and so, I suppose, it goes on still, for not many bad habits are cured in middle age,” wrote Ewing.
The Skratdj children, Harry and Polly, also bickered with each other “like young puppies.”
Even the dog –named Snap– got caught up in the family’s snapping at one another, barking at the boarder who rented a room from them.
This boarder tried to playfully diffuse the tension, Ewing wrote: “when the war of words waxed hottest at the dinner-table between his host and hostess, he would drive his hands through his shock of sandy hair, and say, with a comical glance out of his umber eyes: "Don't flirt, my friends. It makes a bachelor feel awkward." ”
One morning the boarder was reading the newspaper in his room when Harry and Polly burst in, snapping at each other.
The boarder sighed and told them:
“ "I'm very much afraid," said the gentleman, in solemn, measured tones, "that you are both of you–fast–going–to–the–"
"Dogs?" suggested Harry.
"Dogs!" he said, driving his hands through his hair. "No, my sad fear is, that you are both of you–rapidly–going–to the Snap-Dragons!"
On Christmas Eve, the household gathered to play Snapdragon.
Ewing described the scene: “In the darkness the blue flames leaped and danced, the raisins were snapped and snatched from hand to hand, scattering fragments of flame hither and thither. The children shouted … Mr. Skratdj cried that they were spoiling the carpet; Mrs. Skratdj complained that he had spilled some brandy on her dress. Mr. Skratdj retorted that she should not wear dresses so susceptible of damage. The children disputed the amount of raisins due to each. Snap barked furiously at the flames.”
After the game was over, the Skratdj family left to go to bed, but Harry lingered.
He noticed there were some dim flames in the bowl, and some brandy left in the bottle.
Harry tipped more brandy into the bowl. All the sudden the bowl exploded and he was thrown to the ground, unconscious.
Ewing wrote that when Harry opened his eyes: “All over the room the blue flames leaped and danced as they had leaped and danced in the soup-plate with the raisins. And Harry saw that each successive flame was the fold in the long body of a bright blue Dragon, which moved like the body of a snake. And the room was full of these Dragons. In the face they were like the dragons one sees made of very old blue and white china; and they had forked tongues, like the tongues of serpents.”
The blue dragons revealed that they fed on the angry energy of people fighting with each other.
Harry, however, maintained his manners, always remembering to say please and thank you when addressing the dragons. Every time he did, one of them disappeared.
Eventually there were no dragons left.
Harry was woken up by his parents, realizing it was all a dream.
However, afterwards, Harry and his sister stopped snapping at one another.
“Before long there was not a ‘sharp tongue’ amongst all the little Skratdjs,” Juliana Horatia Ewing concluded. “But I doubt if the parents ever were cured. Bad habits are not easily cured when one is old.”
MORE CHRISTMAS BACKYARD HISTORY ARTICLES:
- Santa and The Flaming Christmas Tree Incident
- T'was The Night Before Christmas Maritimes' Connection
- Snapdragons: The Hottest Game of Christmas Past
- Before Santa Claus There Was The Queen of the Fairies
- Christmas 1868 In Their Own Words
- The First Christmas In North America
- A Halifax Christmas Murder Mystery
- Santa's First Appearance In The Maritimes
- Claustrophobia & Santa's Other Misadventures
