Saw this from todays date but many long years ago and it so reminded me our our just passed Christmas Ball

Once Around the Colonial Seasons
by Anthoni Aveni
Sunday, January 7th, 1775. Last night I went to the Ball. It seems this is one of their annual Balls supported in the following manner: A large rich cake is provided and cut into small pieces and handed round to the company, who at the same time draws a ticket out of a Hat with something merry wrote on it. He that draws the King has the Honor of treating the company with a Ball the next year, which generally costs him Six or Seven Pounds. The Lady that draws the Queen has the trouble of making the Cake. Here was about 37 ladies dressed and powdered to the life, some of them very handsome and as much vanity as is necessary.
So reads an entry in the diary of Nicholas Cresswell, a British visitor to colonial Virginia. The occasion was the biggest event of the Christmas season and of the seasonal year—the Twelfth Night Ball. Christmas itself in the Old Dominion was no big deal: there was church, dinner—the American turkey had already replaced the traditional English roast beef—afternoon visitations, a display of greenery, games, a fox hunt, and other entertainment sprinkled about the two-week season. "None was meant for kids, and the youngsters were cordially not invited to attend," wrote Colonial Williamsburg historian Emma Powers.

On occasion, Twelfth Night Balls could become raucous. Cresswell said:
Betwixt the Country dances they have what I call everlasting jigs. A couple gets up and begins to dance a jig (to some Negro tune) others comes and cuts them out, and these dances always last as long as the Fiddler can play. This is sociable, but I think it looks more like a Bacchanalian dance than one in a polite assembly. Old Women, Young Wives with young children in the lap, widows, maids and girls come promiscuously to these assemblies which generally continue till morning. A cold supper, Punch, Wines, Coffee and Chocolate, but no Tea. This is a forbidden herb. The men chiefly Scotch and Irish. I went home about two o'clock, but part of the company stayed, got drunk and had a fight.
Reciprocal generosity has always attended the turning of the seasons, from the time of the ancient Roman Saturnalia, when generous gift giving to household members accompanied a reversal of roles. Master attended slave, and the village idiot was coronated mock king-for-a-day. On Plough Monday, which followed Twelfth Day in England and the colonies, boys dressed as clowns and paraded a decorated plow from village to village extracting alms by teasing and mildly insulting spectators—including town officials. Adding to the emotional anarchy, mumming, or masking—parading and dancing among townsfolk who would try to guess the identity of the person behind the face—was another tradition transplanted from Europe. Nevertheless, as might be expected, one's temporary loss of identity can give rise to erratic behavior.