WORD of the DAY

Wassailing

The house-visiting wassail, caroling by another name, is the practice of people going door-to-door singing Christmas carols.

In the middle ages, the wassail was a reciprocal exchange between the feudal lords and their peasants as a form of recipient-initiated charitable giving, to be distinguished frombegging. This point is made in the song "Here We Come A-Wassailing", when the wassailers inform the lord of the house that

we are not daily beggars that beg from door to door
But we are friendly neighbours whom you have seen before.