Pulitzer Prize Finalist
Anyone who laments the excesses of Christmas might consider the Puritans of colonial Massachusetts: they simply outlawed the holiday. The Puritans had their reasons, since Christmas was once an occasion for drunkenness and riot, when poor "wassailers" extorted food and drink from the well-to-do. In this intriguing and innovative work of social history, Stephen Nissenbaum rediscovers Christmas's carnival origins and shows how it was transformed, during the nineteenth century, into a festival of domesticity and consumerism.
Drawing on a wealth of period documents and illustrations, Nissenbaum charts the invention of our current Yuletide traditions, from St. Nicholas to the Christmas tree and, perhaps most radically, the practice of giving gifts to children. He also explores the not-always-proud history of Christmas charity, and the story of Christmas among the slave community in the antebellum South--a celebration reminiscent of the carnival tradition. Throughout, Nissenbaum looks at what America's way of celebrating Christmas over the years reveals about the broad forces transforming our culture. And he shows us as well how it has been both an instrument and a mirror of social change in America.
"A vivid, engaging achievement in social and cultural history. Nissenbaum's interpretation of the centuries-long struggle to control and to shape our most popular holiday is a revelation."
--Richard D. Brown, University of Connecticut
"Nissenbaum uses the shifting rituals surrounding Christmas, and the forces behind them, to make sense of the transformation of nineteenth-century social relations. A brilliant interweaving of social and cultural history, of place and class."
--Sara Deutsch, Clark University
"Full of unexpected revelations about the evolution of Christmas, Nissenbaum's book is a stellar work of American cultural history. In probing the historical contexts of Christmas, Nissenbaum casts a fresh light on such diverse issues as consumerism, popular culture, class relations, the American family, and the African-American experience."
--David Reynolds, Baruch College
"Christmas . . . too often fails to wholly satisfy the spirit or the senses. How and why the yuletide came to this is the subject of historian Stephen Nissenbaum's fascinating new study. "--Newsweek
