last-minute shopping continues through Hamilton's stores, and tempers begin to fray at the pressure and expense of it all, it is perhaps worth remembering that this annual ritual is a relatively modern-day phenomenon.

If Christmas today has all but sunk in a sea of commercialism, Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, is partly to blame. He is credited with popularising the German custom of bringing a fir tree into the house (although the origin of this practice certainly harks back to pagan times). Gifts under the tree were the next thing -- and in Bermuda, at least, the ritual of gift-giving has reached expensive proportions.

But back in the early 1800s, the first occasion when Christmas was even mentioned in the weekly edition of The Royal Gazette occurred in 1805, with the printing of a Christmas Carol, "to be sung to the tune of `The Merry Days of Good Queen Bess'''.

According to Kitty Zuill, writing in the Bermuda Historical Quarterly in 1944, Christmas in the early days of the Colony was celebrated much as it had been in England, with a special feast and the observation of Boxing Day. And, she wrote, although Bermuda introduced its own variations, such as Cassava Pie and the Gombey dancers, both of these customs were also rooted in England. She claims that the pie was a Bermudian version of the English meat pasty and, more controversially, that the Gombeys "were a very strange mixture of English Christmas Mummers and African and Indian dancers.'' Happily, Ms. Zuill's assertion that these dancers were "gradually disappearing'', proved to be quite erroneous and today, the Gombeys not only contribute to the festivities of Christmas, but are recognised as one of Bermuda's few indigenous art forms.

In her Sketches of Bermuda, written by visitor Susette H. Lloyd in 1835, this observant and perceptive correspondent refers to the Gombeys, noting that the most famous were the groups from Hamilton and Hearne Bay, "negroes dressed in a neat white uniform of scarlet facings...all self-taught (who) play many favourite airs with great accuracy. They learn and play everything by ear, and certainly have great natural taste, and love for music.'' E.A. McCallan, in his classic book, Life on Old St. David's wrote that in his youth, "the Gombeys came up from the East End to amuse us and collect pennies. They were the real thing and not the exotic from the West Indies now accepted by the uninformed as the genuine article.

They wore no uniform or fancy dress, appeared only after sunset and their chief, if not only, properties were an improvised drum and an illuminated tissue-paper-and-frame house on the head of the most active member of the band, who danced and pranced while the others improvised doggerel.'' After the end of the disruptive Napoleonic wars, wrote Ms. Zuill, Christmas dinner in Bermuda "assumed gargantuan proportions'', consisting of "substantial'' soup, turkey or other poultry, roasts of beef, pork, ham, Cassava Pie, sweet potatoes and concluded with mince pies, pudding, fruit and nuts.

As there was no refrigeration in those days, cooking could only commence on Christmas Eve, apart from the complicated preparation of the cassava, which began with digging up the root, soaking overnight before scraping on huge graters and squeezing in heavy cloths to extract the juice.

The pie and the other foods were cooked in a brick oven, fired with cedar wood, and yanked in and out with a long poker made from the stalk of a palmetto palm.

The custom of giving gifts and food to the poor and infirm was well established by the early 19th century, although personal gifts, given to close family members only, were still extremely simple.

Church-going was compulsory, and as the weather was then, as now, often warm and bright, young women usually wore long white dresses with hats or bonnets made from palmetto plait and trimmed with fresh garden flowers.

There is a certain wistfulness in The Royal Gazette 's announcement, in 1833, that the Winter Assemblies had commenced in St. George's: "Dancing being almost the only amusing and innocent pastime which is afforded us, the season in which it is most enjoyed is looked forward to with much pleasure.'' By the mid-1850s, the paper was regularly reporting Christmas-Tide Balls, however, held in the Town Hall, where roast beef and dancing to a regimental band was much enjoyed. Christmas of 1840 was remarkable, incidentally, for the weather and the presence of ice "of considerable thickness in the Parishes of Warwick, Paget, Pembroke and Devonshire that was in many places a quarter of an inch thick'' being also reported in the paper.

One hundred years ago, life for most people was still rather frugal in Bermuda, so Christmas represented a welcome break in routine and a rare indulgence in luxuries. All photographs by courtesy of the Bermuda Archives and reprinted by Government Information Services.

CHRISTMAS FINERY -- This photograph, taken in the 1880s and entitled `The Robinson Children' shows how children would be expected to dress for Christmas celebrations.

BOXING DAY BREAK -- One hundred years ago, a day at the races at Shelly Bay track was a favourite way of spending Boxing Day.

GOMBEY TIME -- Bermuda's Gombey Dancers came into their own on Boxing Day.

Although this photograph is not dated, it is pre-World War I.

READY FOR CHURCH -- Bermudians, late 19th century-style, dressed up in their Sunday best. This is how they would dress for Christmas services, when everyone was expected to attend church.