Early church decided to capitalize on the preexistence of the pagan Saturnalia in selecting December 25 as the date for Christmas. "Men dishonour Christ.

• Early church decided to capitalize on the preexistence of the pagan Saturnalia in selecting December 25 as the date for Christmas.

• "Men dishonour Christ more in the twelve days of Christmas, than in all the twelve months besides.“

– English bishop Hugh Latimer, 16th-century

Holiday misrule

• Concerned Puritan fathers of New England• attempted to thwart the transplantation of

English Christmas to America• Puritan Parliament outlawed the celebration

in England during the 1640s and 1650s. • Similar laws held sway in New England long

after restoration of the monarchy in 1660 reestablished Christmas in the mother country.

• We have come to claim our right.... And if you don't open up your door, We'll lay you flat upon the floor.

•

Boston divine Cotton Mather wrote in 1712 that the "Feast of Christ's Nativity is spent in Reveling, Dicing, Carding, Masking, and in all Licentious Liberty ...by Mad Mirth, by long eating, by hard Drinking, by lewd Gaming, by rude Reveling. . . ." Christmas caroling was condemned, as well, since it occurred in parallel with these other acts. In Massachusetts, seafaring communities like Nantucket and the town of Marblehead continued particularly notorious celebrations, despite officials' best efforts to quash Christmas observance throughout the colony.

Historian Stephen Nissenbaum recounts an instance of Christmas keeping in seventeenth-century Massachusetts as an example of a wassailing gone very bad. On Christmas night of 1679, four young men of the village of Salem entered the house of septuagenarian John Rowden, who was known to make pear wine, called "perry," from trees in his orchard. The men made themselves at home in front of the fire and began to sing. After a couple of songs they tried to cajole Rowden and his wife into bringing them some of the new wine. Rowden refused and asked the intruders to leave, to which they responded that "it was Christmas Day at night and they came to be merry and to drink perry, which was not to be had anywhere else but here, and perry they would have before they went."

When the visitors promised to return later and pay for the drink, Mrs. Rowden said, "We keep no ordinary to call for pots." By "ordinary" she meant tavern, and by "pots" she meant alcohol. The four men left, but three returned a quarter-hour later and tried to pass a piece of lead as payment in coin. The Rowdens and their adopted son, Daniel Poole, got the men out the front door, but they wouldn't leave and called sarcastic taunts from the street. John Rowden later testified to the violence that broke out next: They threw stones, bones, and other things at Poole in the doorway and against the house. They beat down much of the daubing in several places and continued to throw stones for an hour and a half with little intermission. They also broke down about a pole and a half of fence, being stone wall, and a cellar, without the house, distant about four or five rods, was broken open through the door, and five or six pecks of apples were stolen. No exchange of gifts and goodwill there.

Practices embodying the idea of wassailing continued into the nineteenth century, and other wassail-like drinks, especially eggnog, gained popularity.

• In the 1820s, American novelist Washington Irving did much to fix an idealized view of old English Christmas, complete with wassailing, in the minds of his readers. In England, the works of Charles Dickens portrayed continued gatherings around the wassail bowl. In Victorian times, caroling came into its own, distanced from its context of alcohol consumption and rowdiness.

• Christmas in the New World • Americans brought with them the various European attitudes toward Christmas.

Generally, the members of the Church of England, the Dutch Reformed Church, Lutherans, and Roman Catholics celebrated the festival. As early as 1607, Virginians observed Twelfth Night, burned yule logs, sang carols, decorated churches and houses with evergreens, rang bells, and held feasts (Gulevich 2000). In contrast, the Puritans, Baptists, Presbyterians, and Quakers strongly opposed the observance of Christmas. Puritans, for example, viewed Christmas as Popish and the secular festivals as “wanton Bacchanalian Feasts” (Golby 1986). Following the example of the Commonwealth, they declared December 25th a day of fasting and penance, and any who abstained from labor, engaged in feasting, or made any other acknowledgment of the day would be fined five shillings. Even after the law was repealed in 1681, the festival was largely ignored in much of New England, particularly in the cities. After the American Revolution, Christmas festivities also slowed because there was a tendency to associate the holiday with Toryism and Loyalism. Christmas remained fragmented and inchoate, often overshadowed by other holidays. This would all change in nineteenth century when old traditions were reinterpreted and rewoven to fit the needs of an increasingly urban and modern society.

• A Victorian Refashioning of Christmas • Charles Dickens' tale was key in reinterpreting Christmas for a changing industrial

society From the mid 1830s on, there was a resurgence of interest in Christmas from newspapers and periodicals which had previously given little attention to Christmas. In the face of an increasingly urban and industrial society which seemed to corrode old-world values, Victorians began to long for a half-imagined recent Christmas imbued with a medieval ethic. In short, Victorians attempted to ameliorate their urban anxieties during what they perceived to be an insecure and ugly present with the glow Old Christmas where all the classes met together to celebrate Christmas. In this sense, the Victorian Christmas was not so much a revival as it was a newly invented tradition that reinterpreted various Christmas pasts to cater to Victorian needs, such as the paradoxical need for conspicuous and extravagant consumption during expanding retail and leisure activities as well as their desire to recapture Old Christmas’ emphasis on class equality and hospitality to the poor, at least for a day.Perhaps the most famous text that demonstrates the refashioning of Victorian Christmas is Charles Dickens' (A Christmas Carol) and Washington Irving’s (“Old Christmas”) works which act as a metaphor of human sympathy associated with childhood and family tenderness in the backdrop of social unease (Golby 1986).

• Christmas dinner• Christmas card• Christmas tree • mistletoe

• It was also the Victorians who made Santa Claus popular. Modern Santa Claus is based on Bishop Nicholas of Smyrna (Izmir in modern-day Turkey) who was famous because of his generosity. Perhaps his most famous story is when he saved three sisters by filling their stockings with gold coins, providing them a dowry which allowed them to marry rather than be sold into slavery or prostitution. Children observed the day of his death (December 6th) by putting out shoes for him to fill with candy. Modern Santa Claus evolved from the Dutch nickname for Saint Nicholas, Sinter Klauss, and draws from an amalgam of various countries’ rendering of the story. Santa Claus would be unified and made iconic through the work of Professor Clement Clark Moore (“Twas the Night Before Christmas”), Washington Irving (Knickerbocker’s History of New York), and Thomas Nast who illustrated Santa Claus a as the large, jovial, white-bearded figure dressed in a red suit with white fur trimmings (Siefker 1997).

Thomas Nast is credited with creating the iconic image of Santa Claus widely recognized today

Thomas Nast

• More than a mere cartoonist, Nast was an innovator of icons, popularizing or instituting many now familiar subjects such as the Republican elephant, the Democratic donkey, John Bull, Uncle Sam, and Columbia. Perhaps his most lasting creation was his interpretation of Santa Claus, modeled from Clement Moore’s Visit from Saint Nicholas, which persists as our present-day image of St. Nick himself.

"Santa Claus in Camp," Harper's Weekly, January 3, 1863, cover.

"Merry Old Santa Claus," Harper's Weekly, January 1, 1881, p.8-9.

Thomas Nast (American, 1840-1902). Christmas Furlough. Harper's Weekly, December 26, 1863.

“The Same Old Christmas Story Over Again.” January 4, 1873.

"Santa Claus's Mail." December 30, 1871

"Christmas-Eve -- Santa Claus Waiting for the Children to Get to Sleep." January 3, 1874.

January 1, 1876.

“A Christmas Sketch–‘Five O’Clock in the Morning.’” January 5, 1878.

"Merry Christmas." January 4, 1879.

Civil War Harper's Weekly, December 31, 1864

"Hello! Little One." "Hello! Santa Claus.!" December 20, 1884.

“Santa Claus’s Route.” December 19, 1885.

C.S. Reinhart after Thomas Worth. "Santa Claus is Coming!" From Harper's Weekly. December 26, 1874.

The world's first commercially produced Christmas card, made by Henry Cole in London, 1843.

Louis Prang, a German lithographer who moved to the United States in 1850, popularized greeting cards. Introducing Christmas cards to America in 1875

"Bristol" Rods “desirable for boys, owing to [its] great strength and durability.”Youth's Companion 1904

Schwarz's Toy Bazaar"Santa Claus Buys all his Toys, Dolls, Games, Etc., of us."Youth's Companion 1899

• [N]o other region incorporates all the images and mythology of an American Christmas so completely as does Vermont. Being a Vermonter and cognizant of Vermont attitudes, I believe this isn't because of an exceptionally Christmasy outlook. No more sugar plums dance in our heads than in the skulls of Hawaiians, for instance. I attribute the Vermont/Christmas association to hard luck.

• Vermont became a rich source of Christmas imagery for artists like Norman Rockwell and made some noise in Hollywood with the 1954 Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye film White Christmas, albeit the "Vermont" scenes were shot on California sound stages (the station wagon that picks up Crosby and Kaye at the "Vermont" train depot has black and yellow California license plates). Television has also mined Vermont Christmas iconography, favoring it as background for musical specials featuring performers like Andy Williams, who sang "Moonlight in Vermont" for one Christmas effort.

Vermont• The Christmas card pictures are more and more a

record of a bygone era that exists only in memory. Perhaps this is fitting, for Christmas is a holiday of memories. We recall old times and remember family members who are no longer here to join in our festivities. It's sad to think of things lost, but it helps us value those things we have. We should try to fill the present with holiday cheer, creating new Christmas images and memories while heeding the old song's injunction to "have yourself a merry little Christmas, now."

• JB And I think you also told me about Christmas, it was sort of the town celebrated Christmas.• FF Well they always used to have a, Christmas time the church, they had a big, Christmas tree inside the church,

and they always used to have a, program and then the people would bring a lot of, for the kids, and that like, presents and put them on the tree and then we'd go in at night, down to the church, and a, the minister would be there, and have a sermon, a little sermon, and then they'd, pass out all the gifts for the little kids around and but, I never had a, Christmas tree when I was to home. We never had a tree to home. We, we got a few presents, some of them was hand down, mine was from my brothers had out grown. But. That's the way we had Christmas. We didn't go out like they do today. And I remember my uncle had named me, gave me one year a little sled, the first real sled I had. And I'm telling you I felt pretty big with that little sled that my uncle gave me for, cause he named me. And he's the one that give me my bank account. And so.

• JB Yeah now, as a kid, did you ever ride a jack jumper or?• FF Oh yes we used to, we had a, a traverse sleds, there would be 5 or 6 boys, kids get onto and ride. And then we

made our own jumper out of a barrel stay. Wooden barrel stay. And, nailed a piece of two by four on it and a little flat seat on top of that, and we would take that and go up in the field and go down over across the crest and over the field with, setting on that jumper, sometimes you, you did jump and you fell off and ha, ha! But that's the way we used to, used to get our own entertainment. And we used to when I went to school, they rolled the roads with the snow rollers. And the outside of the track, where the track was, the snow would be smooth and that like. So when I went to school, in the town of Warren, at noon time, Gardner Hayes had a set of traverse sleds, and there's five of us boys would, go up to what they called Thayer turn, it's on the road to my father's house, and we could have time for one slide during the noon time we'd go down there and we'd go down through and pass right down through Warren clear down beyond the lumber mills, at one slide, and we used to go pretty fast but this time in particular, in January it had a thaw, and then it, froze up, and it was pretty slippery, and we went up there, and we didn't make the turn down by Gerod Long's, we went through a barb wired fence and ended up in his blackberry patch. And got scratched up a little but we lived through it. Ha! Ha! Ha!

• And at Christmas time, what I don't know what is in there now, but across from the, old post office was Jone's Store, and at Christmas time he opened the upstairs up which is now apartment, and we could go up there and do our Christmas shopping. And two dollars would go quite a ways.

• JB I also wanted to ask you a, a little bit about the differences or, the samenesses of the Christmas' you both talked about that before, Christmas in Warren, Christmas in Waitsfield. [33.31] Growing up.

• AL We didn't have some of the things they did, we had a, a church Christmas tree, where Sunday school we'd draw names. And then a, oh three or four days before Christmas, they'd, open the church and the parents would come, we'd have a little program. But at school all we had was drawing of names, you know, just the parents didn't come. But we'd draw names, and have our exchange I guess, and as I say we had the Christmas shop we called it, and a, I don't remember not having Christmas tree lights, but they were the old fashioned kind when one went they all went. And a, I can remember stringing popcorn, to trim the tree with. And a, but I remember we always had, as far as I know we always had the lights. But a, I grew up with lights, because they had them here in the village. So I was lucky I guess to, so we had our Christmas tree light up but, I guess some of them probably didn't, you know that lived back but we did and a, but we didn't, I don't think had the good times in the school that they had. [34.44]

• JB Is that true?• JL Yeah they had a lot of things going on. Oh maybe twice a month, a month, the schools would have these box socials. The girls would pack a box

and then, the boys and the men used to buy them, and then you could eat what, what the girl had packed for lunch out of a box and take out a little money to help the school out for different activities. [35.13] But I think the first school I went to there might of been a, 1718 there, and that consisted of all 8 grades. Now the teachers would think they was kind of abused if they had to teach 8 grades during the day. And in the wintertime they used to let, cut your noon hour short, a half an hour so you could get home before dark but I think the schools didn't get out of school until four o'clock then. But in the wintertime they might take an hour off your noon and let you go home three-thirty so you could get home before dark. [35.54] But I guess that was before the change of time. I'm sure it was.

• JB Yeah I thought that one of the people we were going to interview was Alice DeLong, who taught I think in Warren and a, Fayston. What about Christmas in Warren?

• JL Well it was, of course you didn't have any electrical lights for the Christmas trees but, everybody in town they had, they had farms and you'd go out, maybe you'd spend a whole day, picking out the Christmas tree that you thought was the best one on the property. It was a lot of fun, you'd go out in the snow and drag it in. And decorate it with what you had. But then you didn't spend a lot of money on Christmas, kids maybe got something to wear or clothing or boots or something like that for Christmas, and they were happy. Didn't have all these toys and things then, that they gave away at Christmas. And then the school had Christmas parties too.

• JB And wasn't there a, didn't you have Christmas at the church? Do you remember that?• JL No. Of course we was, three miles from the church, anyway and, if they did I don't remember going.