The True Nature of American Christmas. When It Started and Why It Sucked.

                In the US we tend to view Christmas as sacred and far reaching.  We picture our ancestors decorating Christmas trees by candle-light, giving gifts of dirt (or whatever they had way back then), and caroling at random like a bad old-timey episode of Glee.  We picture women in outfits that include things like bustles and bonnets and muffs (ha!) leaving their homes to spread Christmas cheer by taking baked goods and oranges to neighbors, and we picture men constructing rocking horses and reading Bible passages near a fire.  It is normal now to hear our 21^st century Christmas customs of elbowing old ladies in the face for the last Furby, shopping until we vomit on Thanksgiving, and going into credit card debt to buy enough booze to make our families tolerable derided as a departure from the “true nature of Christmas”.  We are reminded by political pundits and regular assholes to “put the Christ back in Christmas!” and that it is somehow unpatriotic to say “Happy holidays”.  

LIES!

All of it—lies!  So let’s take a brief look at the history of American Christmas celebration.  If only to shut up that obnoxious uncle bitching about this “sacred American institution” and how it’s been perverted. 

                The earliest Anglo-American colonies were settled by Puritans on the East Coast of the United States as early as the late sixteenth century (the 1500s for those that aren’t good with the whole numbered century thing).  Puritans believed in strict adherence to divine law in every aspect of life.  They saw all humans as depraved sinners, saved only by the grace of god, which was predestined.  This predestination did not translate, as logic would sort of dictate, to people doing whatever they wanted since their eternal salvation or damnation was already written regardless.  The reason for this was that Puritans believed only those that were pious enough and lived as righteously as possible could be predestined for salvation.  This led the Puritans to a stodgy existence without alcohol, with sex prohibited most of the time even for married couples, and dancing outlawed until Kevin Bacon rode in on his unicorn and saved the day.  Strict Biblical adherence was what the Puritans strove for and the more important part of the Bible, according to Puritans was the Old Testament.  If it wasn’t in the Bible, it wasn’t a thing.  And this affected how Puritans felt about Christmas. 

               Christmas in the Old World up until the seventeenth century (1600s) was celebrated on a much smaller scale than it is today.  More important, for most people anyway, was the twelve days of Christmas, which were celebrated with Christmas as day one and into January with feasting, drinking, gambling, the closing of businesses, etc.  Puritans saw all of this as excess.  Furthermore, Puritans also saw these celebrations as anti-Christian.  This view led to Christmas being outlawed in most American colonies.  For example, in 1659

Massachusetts Bay outlawed the holiday and imposed a five shilling fine on anyone found to celebrate it.  Not all colonies banned the holiday—in Virginia Christmas was celebrated often with hunting and gambling (and drinking-- If only to make the fact that they were living in Virginia tolerable for at least a day).  However, the family friendly holiday that we know and love today was not celebrated in any recognizable way in the early colonies. 

               So why didn’t the Jesus-loving, Scripture-adhering Puritans want to celebrate the birth of Jesus?  Well, because they didn’t believe that Christmas was the birth of Jesus.  And, if we’re to believe the historical record and what we know of the circumstances surrounding the birth of Jesus—brace yourselves-- they were right.  Jesus was said to have been born in a manger while enroute to the land of Joseph’s birth for a census called by Augustus.  Census occurred in August.  Not December.  So what the shit is Christmas then?  Well, Christmas, as a holiday in December anyway, was a tactic for conversion.  

Let me explain. 

                In the earliest days of Christianity Christians were trying to convert the world at a time when polytheistic religions featuring many human like gods were the norm.  These gods were fun—they did things like drink wine, have sex, abduct people, feed them to sea monsters, etc—to convert people to a religion of good works and turning the other cheek took work.  At this time societies were agricultural and lived based on the agricultural year.  This didn’t mean constant work day in and day out until you died, the work was hard and back-breaking, yes, but there were long periods of leisure as well.  Winter was especially good to ancient farmers—there was no planting to be done, the harvest was already in, and the weather was conducive to slaughtering animals and preserving their meat at a time long before Frigidaire.  So festivals occurred.  And of these festivals that celebrating the Winter Solstice was the most popular and the most fun.  

                One of the most studied of these ancient festivals, and the one that would have existed alongside Christianity, is the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia.  Saturnalia was a fucking blast.  New Orleans on Fat Tuesday has

nothing on Rome in late December.  Festivities started around the 17^th or 21^st and lasted about a week.  The festivities would begin with an animal sacrifice to Saturn and feasting would occur from then on out with slaves being waited on by their masters.  Gambling was especially popular and wine would have to be allotted throughout the year for use during the Saturnalia festivities as everyone—seriously, everyone—would be plastered for the duration.  The festivities would culminate in a celebration of the coming of the new year and the birth of the sun on December 25 (ish—because ancient calendars are awkward) as the days began to get longer (because the sun was back) after the solstice (the shortest day of the year).  So early Christians absorbed this holiday and this ritual as the birth of their SON—the birth of Christ—in order to keep the Pagans engaged and keep the holiday festivities.  

*Note:  Don’t send me emails about this.  I realize that this is a touchy subject.  This is the interpretation of the holiday based on the historical record, what we know of Jesus and the writings we have from early Christians.  If you choose to disregard this and believe that Jesus was born on December 25 during a census that happened in August and in a manger during winter, that’s fine.  But don’t be a dick. 

               So Puritans, as well as some other Christians, saw Christmas celebrations for what they were-- throwbacks to Pagan festivities with no Biblical basis.  In fact, Increase Mather (who could be a blog subject all on his own) had this to say about Christmas and its origins:   "profane and superstitious custom… because the Heathens Saturnalia was at the time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian”.  Writing in 1687 as one of the most prolific ministers in the early American colonies (perhaps eclipsed eventually only by his son, Cotton), his view of Christmas can be taken as indicative of prevailing Puritan sentiment.  So on Christmas Day, life went on as usual—people worked, they tended to their animals, they went to church only if it was a normally scheduled meeting day—it was just another day.  

So what of the dude in the red suit?  The gifts, the tree, the ornaments, the crippling credit card debt?  These were predominantly 19^th century creations.  The first mention of modern Santa Claus was in Clement Moore’s “An Account of a Visit From Saint Nicholas”, written in 1820 (catchy title, huh?  I bet he was great at parties).  In England, Christmas was reinstated in the 1660s, but it would be another two hundred years before that sentiment would return to the New World.  In 1843 British author Charles Dickens wrote and published “A Christmas Carol”.  How much this one event molded the Christmas celebrations we know today cannot be overstated.  Dickens cast Christmas as a holiday centered around family and children rather than a somber religious observance, as it had become over the last century in England.  Almost immediately the holiday became transformed by merchants.  Seeing the growing popularity of Christmas celebrations merchants shifted focus from hunting, gambling, etc to children and goodwill (in the form of buying stuff for both children and the less fortunate).  As early as 1850 Harriet Beecher Stowe was complaining in writing that the true meaning of Christmas was lost amongst the shopping sprees.  Gift giving took center stage within about fifty years and the Christmas that we know today was born.

So you see, what we celebrate today as Christmas, has always really been about drinking, gambling, consumerism, family.  So don’t let that obnoxious uncle tell you otherwise.  When he starts to bitch, tell him TUH says to read his history. 

Happy Holidays!