Christmas in 19th-Century America (1995)

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/christmas-19th-century-america

by samizdis • 5 years ago

38 30 5 years ago

I am not a Christian, nor do I think there is a "War on Christmas", but I do find it fascinating that Christmas in America has transformed into an increasingly secularized and commercialized event.

When you think of Christmas, you're probably thinking about Santa Claus and presents, not Jesus. In fact, most Christmastime movies and songs are about Santa rather than Christ, the namesake of the holiday. We also have this lore built up around Santa that was created by film studios and retailers hoping to sell more products. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was originally made as a coloring book but now it's themes and imagery is what children think of when they imagine the North Pole. To use a wild analogy, it's sort of like how Dante's Inferno became what people think of as "Hell".

Does anyone know of any other religious holidays that have been so thoroughly transformed over time? I'm curious if this has happened to other holidays or if it is just a unique product of American culture and consumerism.

samizdis• 5 years ago

A slight tangent, but the commercialisation of Christmas was a source of annoyance back in the 1930s and 40s. Louis MacNeice wrote about it in his epic work Autumn Journal (which he wrote while travelling through Europe just as fascism was taking hold); the excerpt is titled A Week to Christmas. Note: I've substituted the word "logs" in place of the original here, which was an abbreviation of golliwogs.

A week to Christmas, cards of snow and holly,

Gimcracks in the shops,

Wishes and memories wrapped in tissue paper,

Trinkets, gadgets and lollipops

And as if through coloured glasses

We remember our childhood's thrill

Waking in the morning to the rustling of paper,

The eiderdown heaped in a hill

Of logs and dogs and bears and bricks and apples

And the feeling that Christmas Day

Was a coral island in time where we land and eat our lotus

But where we can never stay.

There was a star in the East, the magi in their turbans

Brought their luxury toys

In homage to a child born to capsize their values

And wreck their equipoise.

A smell of hay like peace in the dark stable -

Not peace however but a sword

To cut the Gordian knot of logical self-interest,

The fool-proof golden cord;

For Christ walked in where no philosopher treads

But armed with more than folly,

Making the smooth place rough and knocking the heads

Of Church and State together.

In honour of whom we have taken over the pagan

Saturnalia for our annual treat

Letting the belly have its say, ignoring

The spirit while we eat.

And Conscience still goes crying through the desert

With sackcloth round his loins:

A week to Christmas - hark the herald angels

Beg for copper coins.

soco• 5 years ago

Christmas Carol, Chemically Cleaned by Eric Kästner (1927) here in a not-so-ideal translation (from https://lyricstranslate.com/en/weihnachtslied-chemisch-gerei...):

But you must not get sad!

Rich people love poverty

A fried goose upsets people's stomachs

Dolls are not fashionable any more

Tomorrow Santa Claus will come

Just, only next door.

LarryDarrell• 5 years ago

See also Tom Lehrer's Christmas Carol (1959):

Christmas time is here, by golly.

Disapproval would be folly.

Deck the halls with hunks of holly.

Fill the cup and don't say when.

Kill the turkeys, ducks, and chickens,

Mix the punch, drag out the Dickens.

Even though the prospect sickens,

Brother, here we go again.

On Christmas Day you can't get sore.

Your fellow man you must adore.

There's time to rob him all the more

The other three hundred and sixty-four.

Relations, sparing no expense, 'll

Send some useless old utensil

Or a matching pen and pencil.

("Just the thing I need! How nice!")

It doesn't matter how sincere it

Is, nor how heartfelt the spirit,

Sentiment will not endear it.

What's important is the price.

Hark, the Herald Tribune sings,

Advertising wondrous things.

God rest you merry, merchants,

May you make the Yuletide pay.

Angels we have heard on high

Tell us to go out and buy!

So let the raucous sleighbells jingle.

Hail our dear old friend Kriss Kringle,

Driving his reindeer across the sky.

Don't stand underneath when they fly by.

pstuart• 5 years ago

Christmas absorbed pagan celebration, so this isn't really a transformation, just a return to the original celebration (winter solstice).

watwut• 5 years ago

Imo, it is something new and different.

We are not celebrating winter solstice. Most people dont even know there is winter solstice and dont care. And I doubt pagans did tree, santa claus, snowman and gifts.

jetrink• 5 years ago

I think Christmas should be regarded as two separate holidays that happen to have the same name and occur on the same date. There is the secular/pagan celebration, which gives everyone an excuse to put up lights, bring green things into our homes, visit friends and family and generally brighten up a dark time of year. Then there's the religious holiday, which has its own customs and traditions. If anything, the commercialization of Christmas is ruining the secular holiday, by changing its focus to consumerism, when it should be about merry-making. The religious traditions, which take place in churches and in homes, are well-insulated from the other Christmas taking place outside.

smhenderson2• 5 years ago

I'd say the one that comes to mind most after Christmas is Halloween in America. It went from being All Hallows Eve, a time to celebrate the dead, especially saints past, to becoming a commercial holiday to sell costumes to kids and candy to parents.

I can't think of anyone I've ever met or heard of close to me celebrating the religious aspect of this day, just the "fun" part. Not nearly as big a deal as Christmas but still a religious festival that became highly commercial and secularized over time.

ido• 5 years ago

I think it’s interesting to note Christmas itself didn’t used to be “that big a deal” - the major holiday of the year was Easter.

monocasa• 5 years ago

Interestingly, like Christmas was, the religious aspects of Halloween were specifically de-emphasized by the dominant religious orders of the time, leading to (re?)seculrization of the holiday. The protestants weren't a big fan of venerating saints, or some of the underlying ideas of the the group of holidays (like the idea of souls resting in purgatory until those days) as those ideas were based in some of the philosophical differences they had with Catholics.

Good luck taking a feast and dress up day from the people though once you remove the religion out of a holiday.

brundolf2• 5 years ago

Don’t Christmas and Easter both take quite a bit from pagan traditions? I don’t think the secular side is a modern invention; they’ve been mixed for a long time

Of course, the commercial side is a modern invention. But I see that as a separate phenomenon

simplicio• 5 years ago

Modern (or even 17th century) Valentines Day seems pretty detatched from the Feast Day of St Valentine.

irrational2• 5 years ago

Halloween. November 1 is All Saints Day (Catholic Holiday). Saint comes from Latin. The Germanic version is Holy One. So Nov 1 could be All Holy Ones Day. The evening before All Holy One’s Day is Holy Evening or Holy Eve or Hallowed Eve or Halloweve or Halloween. Just like Christmas Eve is the evening before Christmas.

I think we are all familiar with how commercialized Holy Evening has become. Candy and Slutty Nuns anyone? LOL

dragonwriter• 5 years ago

most Christmastime movies and songs are about Santa rather than Christ,

Most are about neither.

irrational2• 5 years ago

Also, Easter to a large extent. Easter used to be a bigger deal than Christmas. But the commercialization of Christmas has caused it to overshadow Easter. Now Easter is all about rabbits and ducks and eggs and candy and baskets and that green fake grass and pastel colors and etc. It is even farther removed from celebrating the atonement of Christ than Christmas is of celebrating his birth. Even for Christians. I asked a friend why he thought that was and his response is Christmas has a baby, animals, angels singing, shepherds, stars, and all sorts of cute child friendly stuff. Easter has blood coming from every pore, false trials, mocking and scourging, crucifixion, etc. Not exactly cute and child friendly. All the Easter secular stuff (candy and cute animals) could be seen as an attempt to make Easter palatable and fun like Christmas.

mixmastamyk• 5 years ago

Winter solstice celebrations predate Christmas. Jesus and co. crashed the party.

trasz• 5 years ago

Christmas - differently named of course - existed long before Christianity repurposed it. Now it‘a the same process once again: a franchise change.

bumbledraven• 5 years ago

(1995)

I was a bit confused at first because it says:

Americans did not even begin to conceive of Christmas as a national holiday until the middle of the last century.

I thought at first that "the last century" referred to the 1900s.

brundolf2• 5 years ago

Might need a (1995) in the title, so phrases like “the middle of the last century” make more sense

dang• 5 years ago

Added. Thanks!

Manuel_D• 5 years ago

It's interesting to see how Christmas and all sorts of regional solstice holidays get mixed together by various cultures across the world. Funny tangent: in Catalonia (Barcelona and the surrounding region) people set up a log with legs and a painted on face [1] and then smack it with sticks saying, essentially, "crap out candy for me!"

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ti%C3%B3_de_Nadal

wrp• 5 years ago

For the evolution of holidays, 19th century America is a particularly interesting case. The mixing of various European cultures created some dramatic changes. Second, these changes happened relatively quickly. For example, Halloween evolved from an ancient Celtic harvest festival to the modern spooks & treats celebration between the 1850s and 1890s. Finally, the force of American culture after WW2 spread these recently created traditions around the world.

While Christmas in the USA has an interesting history, the most dramatic is with Halloween. The major thematic development occurred from the 1850s to 1930s, with heightened commercialization coming in the post-WW2 boom. Then there was the rise of adult oriented horror in the 1970s. There are a few good histories on the subject.

Christmas in 19th-Century America (1995)

Related Stories