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plantations where the servants were given off the full twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany, and encouraged to spend their hours in dancing and singing for the entertainment of their masters. On the tobacco plantations the Christmas season coincided with the one break in the long tobacco season—traditionally, tobacco seeds were sown under cover on New Year’s day. The crop was not completed until the warehouses closed in late fall.
But even middleclass and poor Virginians found a lot to celebrate around Christmas time. In the mountains, those who grew apples, peaches or corn had also completed their harvest and had some free time before their work began again in earnest.
Some visitors to Virginia were scandalized at the goings-on during the Christmas season. Rev. David McClure, a Presbyterian minister, wrote in his journal after a trip through Virginia during the holidays: “Rode seven miles to Mr. Steven
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