What's The Word? Words of Christmas Time Past

What's The Word?

Well, since it's Christmas Time, thought it would be fun to look at words from Christmas that are no longer used, or like today's word, Sugar Plum ... used in songs, but we don't know their meaning.

Twas the Night Before Christmas, 

The children were nestled all snug in their beds
While visions of sugar plums danced in their heads.

According to The Atlantic, the sugar plums English-speakers ate from the 17th to the 19th century contained mostly sugar and no plums. They were made by pouring liquid sugar over a seed (usually a cardamom or caraway seed) or almond, allowing it to harden, and repeating the process. This candy-making technique was called panning, and it created layers of hard sugar shells. The final product was roughly the size and shape of a plum, which is how it came to be associated with the real fruit.
Before the days of candy factories, these confections could take several days to make. Their labor-intensive production made them a luxury good reserved for special occasions. This may explain how sugar plums got linked to the holidays, and why they were special enough to dance through children's heads on Christmas Eve.

I never thought about it when we used to sing the song in school. I guess the word sugar gives you a hint that it was something sweet.

So, because they were so hard to make, they faded away. 

I wonder what they tasted like and if we have anything like that now.

I know that it wasn't good for people, but I bet it tasted yummy!

So many things that are tasty are so bad for us!

Well, it has been fun learning!

Stay tuned, we'll be bringing more word of Christmas Past here on What's the Word during this holiday season!

Information on this What's the Word at link below