The feast day for Thomas the Apostle. From Wikipedia:
When the feast of Saint Thomas was inserted in the Roman calendar in the 9th century, it was assigned to 21 December.
St Thomas's Day
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References
Chart showing the number of references in each month of the diary’s entries.
1660
- Dec
1661
- Dec
1 Annotation
Second Reading
Bill • Link
Going A Gooding At St Thomas's Day.
We find some faint traces of a custom of going a gooding (as it is called) on St Thomas's Day, which seems to have been done by women only, who, in return for the alms they received, appear to have presented their benefactors with sprigs of evergreens, probably to deck their houses with at the ensuing Festival.
In the Gentleman's Magazine for April 1794, the writer, speaking of the preceding mild winter, says: "The women who went a gooding (as they call it in these parts) on St Thomas's Day, might, in return for alms, have presented their benefactors with sprigs of palm and bunches of primroses."
There was a custom in Warwickshire for the poor, on St Thomas's day to go with a bag to beg corn of the farmers, which they called going a corning.
---Popular antiquities of Great Britain. J. Brand, 1877.
There are annotations about St. Thomas's Day on 21 December 1660: http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…