Christmas on the farm, 1883

To everyone reading this, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas.

In Chapter 14 of Sentence of Marriage, we see one family's Christmas Day 126 years ago. For them it was not so very different from any other day of the year. There were cows to milk; cooking to do; children to tend. They went to church in the morning, and at lunchtime sat down to a hot dinner: roast lamb and vegetables, followed by plum pudding. Quite unsuitable for a New Zealand summer, of course, but a hot dinner on Christmas Day was a tradition brought from "Home".

Gifts were simple, and often homemade—Amy has given each of her menfolk a handkerchief embroidered with his initial. This year there's a houseguest: a young man from the city, who's been paying Amy a good deal of attention. She's unable to hide her disappointment when he appears to have no gift for her, but he persuades her to slip outside with him while the rest of the family is lingering over tea and cake.