Christmas is out of control. Don’t get me wrong, I love it. I love the whole Christmas season, it’s magical, but it’s been expanding exponentially like a sparkly red balloon for decades and sometimes I wonder when it will burst. When has a holy day, one with origins specifically linked to a single event in the beliefs of one religion, ever transformed so fully into an extravagant secular holiday celebrated by the masses. What does Santa Claus have to do with the birth of Christ? Why is there an actual 8 foot tall living tree in my house right now? And why do Americans alone spend an estimated $960 billion dollars a year on Christmas? There are so very very many questions and most people just hop right on board without even bothering to ask them. Let’s fix that. 

 

Hello, I’m Shea LaFountaine and you’re listening to History Fix where I discuss lesser known true stories from history you won’t be able to stop thinking about. It’s Christmas Eve! Yay! The perfect time to tackle some of these fun but bizarre, I mean, yeah, they’re weird guys, Christmas traditions that we do but don’t really know or seem to care why. 

 

Let’s talk about Christmas for a minute though, the phenomenon, the force that is Christmas. Christmas, as you hopefully know, is a Christian religious holiday to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. You know, the whole nativity story with Mary and Joseph and the baby in the manger. I was actually kind of torn on whether I should cover the nativity story this week, like the actual history behind the nativity story, but, I don’t know, I’ll save that. People get weird about bible history because, you know, the bible isn’t a history book. It’s a religious text. But Chrsitians are supposed to believe it, every word, and not ask any questions. So it gets a little tough to navigate there, a little emotionally charged. Because I’m all about finding the truth, the facts, through the game of telephone that is recorded history. And that means finding factual evidence and cross referencing different accounts to get to what actually happened, not just blind faith. And I’m not saying there isn’t factual evidence to back up the bible, there is, but it just gets tricky. It’s sensitive. It’s a sensitive subject. I’ll do some bible stuff at some point. 

 

Anyway, Christmas is a Christian holiday but what’s interesting about it is that it is also celebrated by a considerable amount of non Christians. According to a Gallup poll, over the last 25 years, an average of around 95% of US adults report celebrating Christmas. Compare that to the 64% of Americans that identify as Christians according to a Pew Research Center study. So we’re talking about around 31%, just under one third of the US population that celebrates Christmas but doesn’t actually practice the Christian faith. Let’s look at it worldwide where 45% of the global population engages in some sort of Christmas celebration but only around 32% profess to be Christians. So that’s 13% of global non Christians celebrating. That doesn’t seem like a lot but when you consider there are just under 8 billion people on Earth, that’s actually 1,025,440,000 people who celebrate Christmas but don’t actually identify as Christians. 

 

And it seems Christmas is becoming less and less a religious holiday as the years go by. According to that Gallup poll, a decade ago 82% of Americans who celebrate Christmas said that it was a strongly or at least somewhat religious holiday for them. That’s down to 71% in recent years. Even the nativity story is being questioned more and more, which is partially why I chose not to tackle it this year. I’m not ready to go there. According to a New York Times article by Liam Stack that analyzes a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center quote “The most seismic change captured by the survey, from a theological standpoint, may be the declining number of people who said they believed the biblical story of Christmas accurately reflected historical events.The survey asked respondents about their belief in four parts of the biblical Christmas story: that an angel heralded the birth of Jesus; that it was a virgin birth; that wise men were guided to baby Jesus by a star; and that he was placed in a manger. Only 57 percent of Americans believe in all four, down from 65 percent in 2014.” end quote.

 

So, Christmas is a religious holiday, undeniably so. But it seems a growing number of non-religious people have latched onto it and adopted many of the more secular traditions associated with it. They probably aren’t setting up nativity scenes and reading the Christmas story to their children. But they likely have Christmas trees, stockings, lights, they do presents and Santa and elf on the shelf. Oh Lord, don't even get me started on elf on the shelf. I’ll come back to that. So why? How? How did Christmas get so secularized? 

 

Well, I was surprised to find that it was always sort of secular, at least in the United States, at least as a national, federal holiday and that it wasn’t actually a thing, officially until the late 1800s. According to a Time Magazine article by Olivia B. Waxman, celebrating the birth of Christ is nothing new and dates back to December 25 in the year 336 AD in Rome. So this was during the reign of Emperor Constantine who basically established Christianity in Rome, or finally allowed it at least. And that was the first year that Christmas, the religious Christmas, was openly celebrated. But Christmas didn’t become an official holiday in the United States until 1870. Actually, in the beginning, the Puritan immigrants, the pilgrims, they banned Christmas altogether from 1659 to 1681. According to Jennifer Latson in another Time magazine article called “The Surprising First Fighters in the War on Christmas” quote “Arguing that Christmas had become merely an excuse for caroling and carousing, they turned holiday merry-making into a crime punishable by a five-shilling fine.” end quote. Puritans weren’t into the festive merrymaking because the bible only officially sanctioned the Sabbath as a holy day. It said nothing about celebrating on Christmas. They called December 25th “foolstide” and they went to work in the fields on Christmas day just to prove how hard they weren’t into Christmas like “take that Christmas, I’m just gonna harvest this corn all day, you won’t catch me singing any carols.” 

 

Even after it became legal again in 1681, colonists were still super anti, especially in Massachusetts which was like Puritan central. They were firmly against decorating or gift giving of any sort. Businesses stayed open and schools were in session on Christmas day for two more centuries. Yeah. It wasn’t until 1870 that Christmas became a federal holiday in the US. And one reason for that delay had to do with anti-British sentiment following the Revolutionary war. Christmas was a much bigger deal in Great Britain which meant Americans shied away from it, and anything British really during and in the years following the war. But that doesn’t mean people didn’t celebrate. A lot of other European settlers were making their way over who weren’t Puritans or British and they started bringing some Christmas traditions with them but it was very chill. It was nothing at all like it is today. You’d sing some Christmassy hymns, you’d go to church, maybe you’d have a nice meal, give your kid an orange or something. There you go kid, Merry Christmas. That was it. 

 

By the mid 1800s though, we’ve got big probs over here in the US, okay, big probs. It’s the industrial revolution. People are super overworked, burn out is real. Plus, we’re on the brink of a Civil War over the matter of slavery. Tensions are high, there’s no leisure time, workers are literally dying from just never taking a day off. We’re on the brink of a Civil War. It’s bad. This is the same setting in which Thanksgiving emerged as well, remember, refer back to episode 36 for more on that. Same problems. Both of those holidays emerged, officially as ways to remedy those problems. And just like Thanksgiving, Christmas came from the efforts of commercial groups, not religious groups. On June 28, 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant officially signed legislation making Christmas a federal holiday along with the 4th of July and New Years Day. 

 

It was an excuse to give people time off work. It was a pressure valve. I love that term, stealing that one from Dr. Smith in the Rum episode, episode 37 when he talks about how holidays and alcohol were used strategically by enslavers as a pressure valve to maintain control over enslaved workers. But, I mean it’s real. If you work all the time and never take a day off… that’s not sustainable. That system is going to collapse. So these federal holidays came as a way to force people to take a day off, to release some of that built up pressure. 

 

But there were other reasons too. According to Waxman quote “Christmas customs encouraged a sense of community and unity at a time when urbanization, industrialization and the memory of the recent Civil War had made many people feel more unsettled than ever.” end quote. It was a way to reunite a war torn America, just like Thanksgiving which evolved, unsurprisingly, around the same time. Christmas was a day of love and hope and new beginnings and it became part of our secular national identity. 

 

Part of what helped Christmas grow into an actual legit thing, though, was an influx in Christmas traditions coming over from Europe. According to the Library of Congress, around 12 million immigrants arrived in the United States between 1870 and 1900, mostly from Germany, Ireland, and England. And while the Puritans had done a decent job stamping out all the Christmas cheer over here for the first few centuries, it was much more celebrated across the pond where traditions like writing Christmas cards and decorating Christmas trees were already a big deal. Actually the whole decorating Christmas trees thing was first introduced to the US in the popular magazine Godey’s Lady Book. Sound familiar? It’s our girl Sarah Josepha Hale, the “Mother of Thanksgiving” at it again. I kind of love her. 

 

So, we’ve made our way to Christmas traditions. Not unlike Halloween, there are so very many and some of them are so very weird. But let’s start with the earliest tradition of all, the date itself - December 25th. Remember that first Christmas ever was celebrated on December 25, 336 in Rome. So December 25, cool that must have been like Jesus’ birthday or something, right? No. Actually, no one knows for sure exactly when Jesus was born. It’s never explicitly stated in the bible. We aren’t even sure what year he was born. According to a Live Science article by Jessica Leggett and Joseph Castro, quote “Some scholars believe that he was born between 6 B.C. and 4 B.C., based partly on the biblical story of King Herod the Great. In an attempt to kill Jesus, the king allegedly ordered the death of all male infants under the age of 2 who lived in the vicinity of Bethlehem, an event known as the Massacre of the Innocents. This occurred shortly before Herod's own demise, a date which is still disputed. However,  most scholars… follow the date used by Roman historians, who believed that Herod died in 4 B.C.” end quote. Am I the only one who thought Jesus was born in the year like, 1? I thought the whole calendar year naming thing was based on the birth of Christ. But the article goes on to say quote “But historians disagree about Herod's actual year of death, and many have argued that the mass infanticide is nothing more than a legend. In his book "Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth", biblical scholar and author Reza Aslan wrote that Herod's massacre was "an event for which there exists not a shred of corroborating evidence in any chronicle or history of the time whether Jewish, Christian, or Roman." end quote. See what I’m saying? Biblical history is a nightmare. 

 

Some scholars have looked at astronomical events to try to pinpoint when Jesus was born. The star of Bethlehem that appeared in the sky and guided the wise men to Jesus, could that have been a comet? Was it actually a planet? Or a couple of planets? In October of the year 7 BC, Saturn and Jupiter would have come together to create an unusually bright light in the night sky. This happened again in June of 2 BC. So those are both possible years that get thrown out. Just looking at it sociologically, it makes sense that Jesus was born in Spring or Summer. Most marriages took place in the fall when the harvest provided enough money for a wedding feast. Assuming that pregnancies occurred shortly after marriage, most babies were born in spring and summer. But, then again, Joseph wasn’t even supposed to be the daddy so who knows. I don’t think the fall wedding summer baby theory applies to immaculate conceptions. 

 

Anyway, my point is, we have no idea when Jesus was born. But it probably wasn’t on December 25th. So why that day? It was chosen by the Roman Catholic church probably because of its ties with the Winter Solstice which is December 21st and Saturnalia, a pagan festival to honor the Roman god Saturn. But also, December 25th was thought to be the birthday of Mithra, an infant god born of a rock. So, it’s the same thing they did with Halloween. They just replaced pagan holidays with Christian holidays so people could continue to celebrate in the ways they always had but the church could just chalk it up to Christmas and it was fine. 

 

Because this time of year had always been a time to celebrate, even before Jesus was born. The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year (in the northern hemisphere). After that, days get longer and longer and you get closer and closer to spring. So they were celebrating that they were on their way out of the dark and cold of winter. But these celebrations weren’t just happening in Rome. In Scandinavia, the Norse celebrated Yule starting on December 21st to recognize the return of sunlight. They would bring home large logs, a yule log, and set it on fire. Then people would feast and party until the log burned out which could take as long as 12 days. The belief was that each spark from the fire represented a new pig or calf that would be born in the coming year. 

 

These winter solstice celebrations in various cultures were a bit hedonistic. Often many of the cows were slaughtered this time of year so they wouldn’t have to be fed through the winter, so they had tons of fresh meat which was a rare luxury. Also, this was the time that the wine and beer they had been fermenting throughout the year was finally ready. So it was a drunken, debaucherous time. In pre-Christian Germany people honored the pagan god Oden this time of year whom they were terrified of so there was also some dark scariness associated with Christmas’ pagan precursors.  

 

By the middle ages Christmas had pretty much replaced pagan winter festivals in Europe. But it was still pretty debaucherous. According to a History.com article about the history of Christmas, quote “On Christmas, believers attended church, then celebrated raucously in a drunken, carnival-like atmosphere similar to today’s Mardi Gras. Each year, a beggar or student would be crowned the “lord of misrule” and eager celebrants played the part of his subjects. The poor would go to the houses of the rich and demand their best food and drink. If owners failed to comply, their visitors would most likely terrorize them with mischief. Christmas became the time of year when the upper classes could repay their real or imagined “debt” to society by entertaining less fortunate citizens.” end quote. 

 

It wasn’t until Christmas became a thing in 19th century America that it was re-invented as less of a hedonistic carnival holiday and more of a family centered, peaceful, day of reverence. Because that’s what America needed at that time. We didn’t need more crazy. We needed unity and peace and love. And actually Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” helped with this reshaping of Christmas too with an emphasis on charity and goodwill and Dickens was, of course, English so it wasn’t all America trying to make Christmas more wholesome. All of this turned it into more of a family holiday with an emphasis on children. As History.com puts it quote “Christmas provided families with a day when they could lavish attention-and gifts-on their children without appearing to “spoil” them.” end quote. Which, I don’t know, I think we’ve surpassed the “not appearing to spoil them part.” That ship has sailed. But that’s when Christmas became about making things magical for your kids instead of getting drunk and running through the streets messing with rich people. 

 

And how did we make it magical for our kids? We started to adopt a bunch of old customs from around the world. All these immigrants are flocking to the US. They’re from all different countries. They all have their own Christmas traditions and we start to incorporate these into our collective American Christmas, a melting pot of Christmas customs. One of the most prevalent of course being Santa Claus, the big man himself, the legend, the myth, the man. If you’re listening to this with your children, skip ahead 3ish minutes. Just, you know, Santa’s pretty serious about his secret keeping.

 

So where did the legend of Santa Claus come from? According to History.com, Santa can be traced back to a monk named St. Nicholas who was born in Turkey in the year 280. I was not expecting Turkey. Were you? The story of St. Nicholas tells of how he gave away all of his wealth and possessions and chose to wander the countryside helping the poor and sick. And for this he became the patron saint of children and sailors mostly but, interestingly, he’s also the patron saint of merchants, archers, repentant thieves, brewers, pawnbrokers, and unmarried women. 

 

After the protestant reformation, people kind of got over the saints including St. Nick except in Holland where they continued to honor Saint Nicholas or Sint Nikolaas as they called him which was eventually shortened, colloquialized as Sinter Klaas. The Dutch brought this tradition, this legend of a friendly old jolly man who loves children, this Sinter Klaas with them when they immigrated to what is now New York but was originally called New Amsterdam in the 1600s. And then Sinter Klaas of course evolved into Santa Claus. But he’s not all Dutch, or Turkish, I guess, our Santa Claus is not just Saint Nicholas. He merged with another legendary figure, this time from old Nordic folktales, a magician who punished naughty children but rewarded well behaved children with presents. And actually a lot of different European cultures have this bad Santa character Krampus, Belsnickle, Knecht Ruprecht (yeah I butchered that) whatever you want to call him. These bad Christmas dudes were big in Germany and Austria too. But our American idea of Santa Claus kind of melds the child loving gift giving Saint Nicholas with these evil guys who punish naughty children at Christmastime. He becomes this dynamic character, the punisher and the rewarder, naughty and nice. 

 

In 1822 Clement Clarke Moore wrote a Christmas poem called “An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas” which came to be called by its first line “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” which I’m sure you’ve heard. “Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.” Yeah you know that one. Moore describes Santa, in detail, in this poem. He said “His eyes how they twinkled! His dimples how merry, his cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry, his droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow and the beard of his chin was as white as the snow. The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth and the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath. He had a broad face, and a round little belly that shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly.” This was the first official description of Santa Claus. Moore also kind of came up with the whole flying from house to house on a sled with reindeer thing in that poem too. And he didn’t even do it for money or anything. He just wrote it to entertain his kids. He never meant for it to even get published but it was leaked to a newspaper by a distant relative and there you go. Then in 1881 a political cartoonist named Thomas Nast used the description in Moore’s poem and created the image of Santa that we still think of today. And I have that drawing over on my instagram of course @historyfixpodcast if you want to see the first ever visual image of the Santa Claus we know and love. 

 

So that’s Santa but what about the trees? I literally have an 8 foot tall fir tree in my living room right now. And anyone who knows anything about Christmas would not even question that upon walking into my house. But, can you imagine if you didn’t know anything at all about Christmas and you walked into someone’s living room and there was just a giant real tree sitting there with lights and ornaments all over it? It’s very weird if you haven’t been indoctrinated. According to History.com 25 to 30 million real Christmas trees are sold in the US each year and each of these trees takes anywhere from 4 to 15 years to grow on one of around 15,000 Christmas tree farms nationwide. So this is a tradition we are quite invested in. And it turns out it’s actually quite an old one. 

 

Even in ancient times, evergreen trees, plants that stay green year round had significance, especially in the winter. Evergreen boughs were often hung over doors and windows where it was believed they would keep away witches, ghosts, evil spirits, and illness. During winter solstice celebrations, evergreen boughs served as a reminder that summer would return and green plants would grow again. Turns out this is pretty universal. Ancient Egyptians, ancient Romans, ancient Celts, ancient Norse - they all did this, decorating with green plants - evergreen plants had symbolic meaning for all of them. 

 

But Germany gets the credit for the invention of the Christmas tree as we know it. Apparently devout Christians in Germany were the first to decide it was a great idea to bring an entire tree into their house and decorate it. Some believe Martin Luther, like the protestant reformation guy, was the first to add lights to Christmas trees. The legend goes that he was walking home one winter night and was struck by the beauty of the stars twinkling through the branches of the evergreen trees so to try to recapture it in his home, he added lighted candles to his family's Christmas tree. Which I love, thank you Martin Luther, if that is even halfway close to a true story, I doubt it, but whatever I love Christmas lights. Do NOT love the idea of putting actual lit candles in a Christmas tree though. Like, how was that ever even possible? Christmas trees are incredibly flammable. Have you ever lit a Christmas tree on fire? I have. It’s gone in like seconds. Just whoosh. 

 

So how did Christmas trees make their way from Germany to America? Well, at first Americans were not into it. They thought it was super weird. And, granted, it is. But Moravian German immigrants, especially in Pennsylvania, persisted, decorating Christmas trees as early as 1747. But even 100 years after this arrival, as late as the 1840s, most Americans viewed Christmas trees as pagan symbols and did not accept the tradition. Which, if we’re being honest, they kind of were, pagan symbols. But then in 1846, the Illustrated London News printed a sketch, a drawing, of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert with some of their children standing around a Christmas tree and that’s all it took. Not 100 years of German immigrants being like “come on it’s fun and pretty and it smells good.” No. One picture in a newspaper of stylish British royals doing it and everyone hopped on board, in both countries. Because Albert was German, so there you go. I also have this drawing over on my instagram. 

 

Originally, the Germans were decorating Christmas trees with apples and nuts and marzipan cookies and they were typically pretty small in Europe averaging 4 feet tall. Americans took it to the next level, of course, preferring trees that extended from floor to ceiling and they started making their own manufactured ornaments because, I mean it was the industrial revolution, why not. Which has gotten just out of control. You can literally buy a Christmas ornament of anything these days. Which is fine. But it’s part of where that $960 billion dollars goes each year. I prefer the homemade ones. I’ve been turning our Christmas tree into, basically a scrapbook for a few years now. Lots of photo ornaments, crafts my kids have made, I have their hospital bracelets and little newborn hats stuffed into Christmas balls. 

 

Let’s talk about stockings. Big ‘ol socks you put presents in. These go all the way back to Saint Nicholas himself. Although, I do want to point out that Encyclopedia Britannica notes quote “Nicholas’s existence is not attested by any historical document, so nothing certain is known of his life” end quote. So these are all just legends passed down by word of mouth. There is nothing to substantiate this. But it’s still where stockings came from so here goes. According to a Smithsonian Magazine article by Emily Spivak called “The Legend of the Christmas Stocking” quote “The most popular legend about why stockings are hung at Christmas goes something like this:  A recently widowed man and father of three girls was having a tough time making ends meet. Even though his daughters were beautiful, he worried that their impoverished status would make it impossible for them to marry. St. Nicholas was wandering through the town where the man lived and heard villagers discussing that family’s plight. He wanted to help but knew  the man would refuse any kind of charity directly. Instead, one night, he slid down the chimney of the family’s house and filled the girls’ recently laundered stockings, which happened to be drying by the fire, with gold coins. And then he disappeared. The girls awoke in the morning, overjoyed upon discovering the bounty. Because of St. Nick’s generosity, the daughters were now eligible to wed and their father could rest easy that they wouldn’t fall into lonely despair.” end quote. Which, patriarchy patriarchy blah blah blah, I’ll spare you. 

 

Then Clement Clarke Moore immortalized the stocking tradition as well in “A Visit from St. Nicholas” AKA “Twas the night before Christmas” when he mentions Santa filling all the stockings then turning with a jerk. So the stockings were actually the original place to put presents, which, you’d need like the hugest ever stocking now to accommodate how much gift giving has grown, thank you capitalism for that. This tradition is slightly different in Holland, which, remember, is where Santa Claus came from, Dutch immigrants. In Holland children put out wooden shoes filled with carrots and hay for St. Nicholas’ horses and he fills them with candy and cookies and maybe a small toy. So that’s really the original inception of Santa Claus bringing gifts. But gift giving also links back to the nativity story when the three wise men bring gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the baby Jesus. But, when Christmas trees took off in the mid 1800s thanks to Queen Victoria and her German husband, they kind of replaced stockings as the place to leave the presents. Although most people still do stockings with little trinkets and candy and such. 

 

But let’s talk about a newer tradition, one that has taken off like a virus. Elf on the Shelf. And once again if you’re listening with kids skip forward # minutes. I don’t know if this is just an American thing or if other countries are doing it. If you’re not doing it in other countries, get ready, it’s coming. So it’s basically a very cheaply made like, felt elf doll. It doesn’t even have feet, this thing and yet it costs $35. Yeah. I mean it comes with a book too but it’s not like Dr. Seuss or anything, okay. It appears in your house at the beginning of December and every day it's in a new spot. It’s a scout elf. So it watches you and reports back to Santa whether you’re being naughty or nice. Which, kind of creepy, but whatever. I was not into the Elf on the Shelf thing. It’s just one more thing I have to do every day. I didn’t want to do it, wasn’t planning to do it. And then last year, my 6 year old niece came over and proceeded to tell me that she wrote a letter to Santa asking for an Elf on the Shelf and then her elf, Honey, appeared. And I was like “whoa, cool, that’s so neat.” And she was like “you should write a letter to Santa and ask him for an elf.” And I was like “yeah, cool, maybe I’ll do that.” and she was like “No, do it right now. Write it right now. I’ll watch.” So I was forced to write a letter to Santa and then I was forced to go out and buy a $35 felt elf toy with no feet. And now I’m forced to move said elf to a new, creative, exciting location every night. But I’m not buying it outfits guys or doing the like flour snow angel on the counter mess. I refuse. 

 

But it did get me thinking, like, holy cow, this is the craziest business model. A six year old just got me to buy this thing I was pretty adamantly against buying like that. Like it was nothing. So I started digging into where this whole elf on the shelf thing came from. Turns out a mom from Georgia and her daughters self published this book based on their own family tradition and started selling the elves. Actually, they put all their eggs in this basket. According to an interview with Christa Pitts, one of the daughters, in Business Insider magazine, quote “We had absolutely no money. [My sister] took out credit cards, my parents took money from their small 401(k), and I sold my home in Pennsylvania. Each of us invested personally in the company.” end quote. And amazingly, the elves just absolutely took off. The company they created, the Lumistella company has sold more than 22.5 million of these things and have over 150 products licensed including clothing for the elves and pets for the elves. They have deals with Netflix and McDonalds. This is not Matel or Hasbro. This is a mom from Georgia. As a female entrepreneur myself I can't help but  be super impressed. I mean you go ladies. But at the same time… $35 for something parents are forced to buy to avoid destroying the magic of Christmas for their children? I can’t decide if it’s an inspiring Cinderella story or extortion. Whatever it is, it’s an interesting phenomenon for sure, and I guess it makes kids happy. The elves are taking over. If they haven’t already infiltrated your house, get ready. It’s happening. 

 

And there are more, there are so many more Christmas traditions and every family does things a little bit differently. I’d love to hear some of yours. If you’re one of the 3,549,600,000ish people on Earth that celebrates Christmas and you have an interesting Christmas tradition you want to share, hit me up. You can reach out to me on Instagram @historyfixpodcast or email me historyfixpodcast@gmail.com. 

 

In recent years, certain factions in the United States have accused other factions of waging a quote “War on Christmas,” pointing to phrases like “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” as attacks on the Christian religion. And I think, you know, saying happy holidays is just a way to include everyone in the season, it doesn’t exclude people of other faiths who may celebrate, Hanukkah, for example. I once asked my Jewish roommate in college if she had a good “Christmas break” and immediately felt terrible. I just said it without thinking but of course she didn’t celebrate Christmas. And it was fine, whatever, I don’t think it upset her, really, but I still felt bad. Because it seemed like I didn’t know that about her, like I wasn’t paying attention to details about her, didn’t care about her life and what she believed in and I was just projecting my own self onto her. It felt selfish and insensitive. Even though I did know those things about her, and it just kind of slipped out. I still felt bad. So, I don’t know, I don’t think saying “Happy Holidays” is bad. I think it’s considerate, especially if you’re saying it to the masses or you don’t know if someone celebrates Christmas or not. But I think it’s also okay to say Merry Christmas if you celebrate Christmas and I don’t think most people are offended by that. It’s all whatever. Lets stop making up fake wars over things that are supposed to be fun and magical. After all, technically, the first “War on Christmas” was waged by the Puritans of Massachusetts in the 1600s and Puritans are some of the strictest and most loyally faithful of all the Christians. 

 

So whether Christmas is strictly a religious holiday for you, or a fun festive secular celebration, or maybe you don’t celebrate at all or you celebrate a totally different winter holiday - Hanukkah, Kwanza, Yule, Diwali, Ashura, St. Nicholas Day, Bodhi Day, Las Posadas, Toji, - whatever, let’s just be kind to each other this season. Whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever you celebrate - it’s a season of love and peace and acceptance. That’s the whole reason Jesus was born. That’s the message he was trying to spread, one of love and forgiveness, the Prince of Peace. No war on Christmas. No wars at all. It’s about the stillness of Christmas Eve night, the twinkling of the lights, the soft shimmer of the ornaments, the sweet, soulful reverence of the music, the sweet smell of cookies baking, cinnamon, carmel, peppermint, the giddy excitement of the children, joy bubbling up like glittery Christmas baubles, threatening to spill over, it’s about the magic. Let’s keep the magic alive. 

 

Thank you all so very much for listening to History Fix. I hope you found this story interesting and maybe you even learned something new. Be sure to follow my instagram @historyfixpodcast to see some images that go along with this episode, including those drawings I mentioned, and to stay on top of new episodes as they drop. I’d also really appreciate it if you’d rate and follow this podcast on whatever app you’re using to listen, that’ll make it much easier to get your next fix.  

 

Information used in this episode was sourced from the National Retail Federation, Gallup, the Pew Research Center, the New York Times, Time Magazine, Library of Congress, Live Science, History.com, Encyclopedia Britannica, Smithsonian Magazine, and Business Insider. As always, links to these sources can be found in the show notes.