EDITOR’S NOTE: Christmas is a time of commonality for many Americans as they join in celebrating the season of joy and merriment. This month, 828newsNOW will reveal the history of this sacred holiday and how the American mindset has influenced its development over the centuries.
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In American culture today, celebrating Christmas is one of the few matters of public opinion most can agree on. With the season growing longer each year, Christmas may seem like an institution with no precipice, as if it always was. For the early American colonists, this could not be further from the truth.
Christmas was a hotly contested matter, with many of the Puritan settlers rejecting it outright as a pagan institution while other settlers seeing it as it as a holy day. As with many other aspects of America, the divide between the north and south was apparent with opinions on Christmas.
On their rampage to purify the Church from any popish or Anglican practices, the Puritans irradicated Christmas entirely, rejecting it as a useless vestige of tradition. Proving this, their first Dec. 25 in the New World was spent starting construction on Plymouth Colony’s first house. Some later Puritans went so far as to call Santa Claus the Anti-Christ. Because of the Puritan influence, the northern colonies were mostly averse to the holiday.
Further south, the Jamestown Colony saw things very differently. As members of the Church of England, its inhabitants embraced Christmas as much as the rest of Britain and most of Europe.
While the British would lose the American Revolutionary War, the Anglican colonists would win the war for Christmas nearly 100 years earlier. In 1681, the Massachusetts Colony was pressured to repeal a law banning the celebration of Christmas under coercion from the Crown.
Most of the Christmas traditions we have come to know and love were not present in the original 13 colonies.
Early Americans celebrated Christmas by wearing costumes, drinking, feasting and wassailing, a practice similar to caroling except the carolers would bring bowls of spiced ale to the doors they knocked on, singing all the while. Depending on wealth, parties and balls were common too. Perhaps most shockingly, colonists often celebrated by firing muskets and cannons.
One of the few traditions to survive the generations unchanged is greenery, although Christmas trees would not arise for another few decades. Kissing beneath the mistletoe arose during the colonial period. Garlands of evergreen and mountain laurel commonly covered churches.
Several familiar Christmas hymns have survived including “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” “The First Noel” and later “Joy to the World.”
Today, we largely associate Christmas with childhood wonder, whereas in the 17th and 18th century, Christmas was almost exclusively for adults. It was a day set aside for feasting, drinking and merriment, a term whose meaning has shifted markedly in recent years.
Gift giving was somewhat common depending on wealth, although it had different social rules than it does today. The rich would give gifts to their inferiors, including servants, apprentices and children. A gift was not expected in return due to the wage gap. One gift would be doled out to each dependent with the singular item being of greater worth than most gifts given today. Gifts often included pocket watches, jewelry and other valuables.
Perhaps the greatest difference in Christmas tradition between then and now is religiosity. While still intrinsically tied to faith today, Christmas was much more of an endeavor in faith then, preceded by fasting and prayer during the Advent season. It was and still is for many Christians the second holiest day on the Christian calendar.
American culture would not fully embrace Christmas until after the American Civil War. Christmas Day did not become a federally recognized holiday until 1870. Indeed, Congress held its first session on Dec. 25, 1789. Even noted fan of the holiday, Gen. George Washington, ordered his troops to cross the Delaware River on that day in 1776. But from the very beginning of the United States, Christmas was a festive and beloved holiday for many, remaining so to this day.
For more on the history of Christmas in America, check out these articles: