We wish you a merry Christmas, etc. etc., and a Happy New Year.
(and then the less often sung second and third stanzas)
We want some figgy pudding, etc. etc., and a cup of good cheer.
We won’t go until we get some, etc. etc., so bring it out here.

. . . but in the context of temporary inversion of the social order, the calling out for food and drink makes perfect sense. Then, the one that always baffled me, from “Here We Come A-Wassailing” . . .

We are not daily beggars who go from door to door,
But we are neighbor’s children, whom you have seen before.

. . . must date from the period of the holiday’s early “domestication”, as it reflects the softening of the social inversion into a plaything for the young. Not that it has been keeping me up at night all these years, but thanks for the clarification.

I am enjoying listening to this podcast, which I happily found because iTunes twittered about it today. However, I was a little disappointed on a history podcast to hear the theory that the 4th century church chose Dec 25 to compete with previously existing observations advanced as if it were proven fact…

Thanks, Beth. I put your challenge to our interviewee, Stephen Nissenbaum, and here’s what he had to say:

“I appreciate Beth’s comment about the reason why Christmas was placed on Dec. 25 by the fourth century Church. The article to which she links represents an effort to challenge the claim that the Church selected the Dec. 25 date in order to appropriate the Roman Saturnalia—in effect, to insulate Christmas from the possibility of pagan origins and to reclaim it for Christianity. This article points out that Dec. 25 happens to arrive exactly nine months after March 25, the approximate date of Jesus’ crucifixion. From that point, the article argues that certain early Christian theologians believed that Jesus was also conceived on that same date (March 25), so that his nativity would indeed have occurred on Dec. 25.

It’s an interesting idea—and one that is necessarily just as speculative as the Saturnalia theory. To the best of my knowledge, there is simply no direct evidence about the motives of the Church for placing Christmas on Dec. 25. Personally, I am not persuaded by the article Beth offers us. But in any case, I’ve always been inclined to think that there’s another reason altogether for the late fourth century decision to place Christmas in late December, and it is the reason I gave in my BackStory interview. Let me quote my words from that interview: ‘Christmas took place during a season when there was, at least for males in an agricultural society, not a lot of work to be done. It was also a season when there was plenty of fresh food and fresh alcoholic drink. So it’s a season of excess, of letting go.’ To be sure, that doesn’t offer anything resembling a religious reason for the decision to place the nativity on Dec. 25; but at least it disentangles Christmas somewhat from the “charge” that it originated in pagan rituals.”

Robert B. Barr, Rabbi
Congregation Beth Adam

In reality, Chanukah is tied as one of the _least_ important holidays in the Orthodox Jewish calendar. It is _*not*_ the Jewish x-mas. It is not based on a lie, as the rabbi you spoke to feels.

For more, better, and clear information from the Orthodox view you can look at http://www.aish.com/h/c/

…If Bradford’s text later became a source of holiday tradition for later Americans — and note that his famous description of the first “thanksgiving” comes two chapters later (1623), it is very interesting to see an early American Christmas at such odds with our “most wonderful time of the year” formulation of the holiday. What gives? Didn’t Andy Williams read his William Bradford?

David -

Your question is a perfect set-up to an interview we’re recording today with Stephen Nissenbaum, author of a fascinating cultural history from a few years back called “The Battle for Christmas.” Short answer is that the Puritan impulse to ban X-Mas was no match for the consumer revolution, which reached its fevered pitch in the early 19th century and gave birth to Santa. For the longer answer, tune into our show, when it’s completed. Or just track down the book! It’s a great read, highly recommended by all of us. Thanks for writing.

Today, we have preserved the two months of partying, but it has shifted from the old mid-December through mid-February. Now we see holiday displays going up already in September and October, office Christmas parties in November, and a constant drone of schloky music. But the more distressing part is that the same displays come down and the music stops on 26 December, when the traditional celebration is only beginning.

When did this great time shift happen?

“And herewith I shall end this year. Only I shall remember one passage more, rather of mirth than of weight. On the day called Christmas Day, the Governor called them [ie, all able-bodied hands] out to work as was used. But the most of this new company [that is, new arrivals to the colony who did not consider themselves Puritans] excused themselves and said it went against their consciences to work on that day. So the Governor told them that if they made it matter of conscience, he would spare them till they were better informed; so he led away the rest and left them. But when they came home at noon from their work, he found them in the street at play, openly; some pitching the bar, and some at stool-ball and other such like sports. So he went to them and took away their implements and told them that was against his conscience, that they should play and other work. If they made the keeping of it matter of devotion, let them keep their houses; but there should be no gaming or reveling in the streets. Since which time nothing hath been attempted that way, at least openly.”

In my edition of Bradford, this passage has a little annotation by the historian and editor S.E. Morison that “Puritans objected to the celebration of Christmas as a pagan revelry.”

If Bradford’s text later became a source of holiday tradition for later Americans — and note that his famous description of the first “thanksgiving” comes two chapters later (1623), it is very interesting to see an early American Christmas at such odds with our “most wonderful time of the year” formulation of the holiday. What gives? Didn’t Andy Williams read his William Bradford?

As visions of sugar pumbs and bicycles and trainsets danced in our head, we woke up xmas morning to a stern prerequisite – oatmeal and interminable prayers and religious pronouncements came before any access to the xmas tree.

This had two effects – heightened, bursting anticipation of what lay under the tree, soon followed by disappointment with the discovery of very practicle new pairs of socks and a set of pencils.

The family of one of my friends had what I think was the solution: they established a “Special Day” in the middle of July on which to exchange gifts. Xmas was reserved solely for its religious connotations.

Even today, I feel somewhat schizophrenic about xmas, usually preferring to skip it. Is it a day in which the most relevant question is “WHAT DID YOU GET?” Or, is it a day to revisit some of the wiser teachings of that fellow for whom the holiday is named?

I still cannot reconcile the two.

It feels like there are two Christmases in the United States now – the religious holiday and the secular holiday. When did the secular gift-giving extravaganza evolve? It is with the post-World War II rise in disposable incomes and baby boom?

Who were Belsnicklelers and Shanghai-ers?

December, 2007 Topics: Religion

At least as early as the 1850s, many German residents of the Valley of Virginia celebrated the Christmas season with the unique custom of “belsnickeling.” The tradition’s origins are murky but the name comes from the Germans of the Palatinate region where Belznickel, or Saint Nicholas, brought small gifts for good children. In the Valley of Virginia, this evolved into bands of costumed adults wandering on foot or horseback from house to house during the day or night, making as much noise as humanly possible. Belsnickelers disguised themselves with improvised masks. The trick was for the residents to guess who was behind the costume. Customs varied from community to community, and the practice was not appreciated among the Brethren, the Mennonites, and others who did not observe Christmas for religious reasons. Sometimes the Belsnicklers unmasked after the guessing, sometimes they were served spirits or food. In some areas the practice was restricted to Christmas Eve; in others it went on for the twelve days of Christmas. Belsnickeling, and a similar custom called Shanghai-ing which was practiced in Scots-Irish communities south of Winchester, declined in the twentieth century and finally disappeared after World War II.

Excerpted from Four Centuries of Virginia Christmas, Mary Miley Theobald and Libbey Hodges Oliver, Dietz Press, Petersburg, VA, 2000 (http://www.dietzpress.com/)

Brought to you by Encyclopedia Virginia at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.