These are two tunes from the old-time mountain repertoire. The first tune refers to a Christmas tradition of meeting at different houses each evening for food, drink, music, and dancing from the week before modern Christmas (December 25th) through the date of Old Christmas (January 6th). The term and tune title, "Breakin' Up Christmas," more particularly refers to the last dance at Christmas, or the end of Christmas festivities. Tom Carter and Blanton Owen of the Fuzzy Mountain String Band quoted an 82-year old Virginia fiddler on the origin of the title. "Through this country here, they'd go from house to house almost - have a dance at one house, then go off to the next one the following night and all such as that. The week before Christmas and the week after, that's when the big time was. About a two-week period, usually winding up about New Year. I wasn't into any of this, but used to laugh about it. They'd play a tune called BREAKIN' UP CHRISTMAS that was the last dance they'd have on Christmas. There's an old feller by the name of Bozwell, he'd cry every time." "Cold Frosty Morning" comes from the repertoire of Virginia old-time fiddler Henry Reed and was collected by musician and ethnomusicologist Alan Jabbour.
