Re-read: Christmas in America, Penne Restad Re-read: The Battle for Christmas, Stephen NissenbaumWhile watching the History Channel's Real History of Christmas, the presence of both Restad and Nissenbaum made me dig up these fairly similar histories of Christmas in the United States.
People wonder what some early Americans had against a nice family-oriented holiday like Christmas. Was it the gift-preparation frenzy that frustrates us today? Rather, it was because the early celebrations of Christmas—which combined the religious story of the birth of Jesus Christ with older midwinter festivals—had increasingly become a noisy, drunken celebration (think St. Patrick's Day combined with New Year's Eve and Cinco de Mayo) in which inebriated gangs of boys and men had a "right" to invade your home and demand liquor and food. Gunfire was often involved, as were fireworks. Children were still considered "small adults" and not worth petting and praising, let alone giving toys to. Toys supported idleness.
As both writers explain, all those traditions we consider "old fashioned" are less than 200 years old. Christmas started out being banned by strict Christians in New England, but it wasn't long before these strictures became loosened. The holiday was only "illegal" for less than twenty years, and even though well into the 1870s businesses might still be open on December 25, more and more people were taking up this "new" Christmas, that involved family, children's toys, reasonable feasting, and charity to the poor. It also involved a new figure: Santa Claus, who was, Birnbaum tells us, not only a gift giver, but an egalitarian man, one who smoked a short pipe! (Long pipes were for the wealthy!)
Incidentally, if you've complained about the commercialism of Christmas, you'll agree with this woman, who laments "Christmas is coming in a fortnight, and I have got to think up presents for every body!" It's so tedious! Everybody has got everything that can be thought of."
This was written in 1850!
Both books are interesting glimpses into U.S. Christmas history, but Birnbaum goes into more detail about the aspects: when the Christmas tree did arrive on these shores (it wasn't after Queen Victoria received a Christmas tree from Prince Albert) and the development of gifts solely as Christmas presents (like annual Gift Books). Both address the issue of Christmas in the slave states, where in general license was given to the workers during Christmas and New Year as a safety valve to keep them under control the rest of the year. (Drinking to excess was encouraged and even forced, so later the "massa" could say the slaves were irresponsible and not worthy of freedom. Again, Birnbaum goes into more detail.)
I recommend both.
Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Wonder of Christmas, edited by Amy NewmarkThis year's edition of 101 heartwarming and/or heart-tugging stories about the holidays (including Thanksgiving mishaps, Hanukkah tales, and even a New Year surprise or two). If you enjoy books of inspirational stories or like the other books in this series, this one should also be a winner.
The Christmas Book, Francis X. WeiserI've wanted this book for years. This is one of those volumes about Christmas that is quoted in numerous other volumes about Christmas, and it was only reprinted in 2017 by St. Augustine Academy Press.
Originally written in 1951, Weiser, a Jesuit priest, tells the story of Christmas from both a Christian and secular point of view, starting with the Biblical history of Jesus Christ and some of the misconceptions around His story (they were Magi, "wise men," probably astrologer/astronomers, not Kings, and nowhere in Biblical text does it mention there were three; there were three gifts). There are two interesting chapters on the history of ancient carols (a carol, originally, was sung to a dance in which the participants went in a circle) and also of carols in other countries before moving on to more modern songs like "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and "Silent Night."
Later chapters talk about gift giving, Christmas trees, and feasting before going on to Christmas customs in other countries.
This is a nifty little book of old fashioned customs which you might want to use to bring back to your own home if you feel Christmas has become too "electronic."
The Ghost of Christmas Past, Rhys BowenIn this latest of the Molly Murphy mysteries, Christmas is approaching, but Molly is not anticipating it as she might have. She has already received bad news on one front, and now she finds out her mother-in-law will be spending Christmas elsewhere with a friend, so she, husband Daniel, and toddler Liam won't be spending the holiday in the country. Worse, her friends Sid and Gus tell her that Bridie, the little girl Molly and Mrs. Sullivan have nurtured for years, will be leaving school because her workman father is finally returning. Molly's depression deepens until the friend of her mother-in-law generously invites them to their country house party as well. Once there, the Sullivans find an unsettled house and an old mystery. And there's nothing that piques Molly's interest like a mystery.
This is a nicely atmospheric Christmas mystery even if the villain is telegraphed almost from the beginning, with a Dickensian twist in a couple of places. All the old favorite characters return, but sadly two of them had to change to support the ending.
Top Elf, Caleb Zane HuettThis is a fast, funny, and very imaginative children's book that has a bit of resemblance to Christine Kringle in that Santa Claus is not an immortal, but instead "Santa Claus" is a job that's handed down from father to son (or perhaps to child). The current Santa Claus wishes to retire, and traditionally his eldest son, Klaus Klaus, an egotistical swaggerer, would take over the job. Instead Santa institutes a contest called The Santa Trials. Whomever wins the contest becomes Santa, even if it's not one of Santa's children (Klaus, Sally, Kurt and Bertrand). Our protagonist, good-natured Ollie Gnome (whose dad makes ice cream and whose mom is one of Santa's costume designers) decides to enter the contest with his best friend Celia Pixie, a prodigious inventor. Elf bully Buzz Brownie also enters the contest, a supposed kid named "Ramp" who looks like he's much older, and even a Claus cousin, the duplicitous Andrea. Day by day the entrants are led through increasingly tough trials, the situations get wilder, and cheating is rampant.
This is just a plain fun book, full of inventive inventions, puns, action, and novel characters and situations, like the reindeer Stable and "Crasher," Ollie's new reindeer buddy. Without making a big deal of the lesson, the author has Ollie persist without ever losing his ability to negotiate. Also, there are some very serious issues brought up in the text that add to the drama, such as a parent's expectations for their child and how it can harm them.
Amazon says this book is for Grades 3-5, and I guess in these sophisticated days kids don't believe in Santa much past age 6 or so, but if you have a child that still does believe in Santa in that age group, or a Grade 2 child who's an advanced reader, you might want to know that Santa reveals something that might upset a child.
Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, adapted by Frances FrostI found this 1952 book at a book sale and picked it up with fond memories of watching Amahl in my childhood. It's the story and the songs told in prose for children, with pen and ink illustrations, some of them colored. It was nice to relive the story, and then I found the original online (search YouTube), introduced by Menotti himself. If you can pick this up for a reasonable price it may bring back fond memories, and could also be used in homeschooling.
Re-read: Sleigh Bells for Windy Foot, Frances FrostThe Clarks are a small farm family in late 1940s Vermont in this classic four-book children's series by Frost, a Vermont native. In the opening book, 12-year-old protagonist Toby Clark received the dapple-grey pony Windy Foot as a birthday gift and raced him in the annual county fair pony competition, where he met 12-year-old Tish Burnham, a horse breeder's daughter. At Christmas, the whole family: dad, mom, Toby, 9-year-old Betsy, 5-year-old Johnny, and farmhand Cliff (who's pretty much family) are preparing to welcome Tish and her father Jerry for a visit as well as planning a true farm Christmas with homemade decorations, gifts ordered from the mail order catalog, caroling under the town Christmas tree and shopping at the general store, and Toby taking Tish out riding in the new sleigh he refit for Windy Foot.
Fifty years after I read it for the first time, I still get as much enjoyment out of this story as I did the first time, even if Johnny's little impromptu poems still make me roll my eyes and the girls' brief talk about dolls bore me. It's an annual read, and a portrait of a vanished era: cows milked by hand and barns lit by lanterns, kids going on their own showshoeing to gather Christmas greens or going skiing without adults keeping tabs on their every move, boys renovating things on their own, the family gathered by the fire instead of each around an electronic device. There's even a marauding bear, a skiing accident, and a stolen sleigh to add a little excitement. It's very easy to be taken into the warm home-circle and feel comfortable with these characters.
I have always found it notable that in a book written in 1948, Tish's ambition is to be a surgeon or at the least a medical doctor. Toby finds that this idea of "a girl being a doctor" fills him with "awe," but also thinks that she'd make a good one. There is no attempt by Toby or any other adult to try to dissuade Tish from this goal, a surprising attitude in an era when even "career girls" were eventually expected to quit their jobs in favor of marriage and a family. Also, Betsy is given an unusual Christmas gift and no one says that a girl should not be receiving such a gift.
Frost also has a talent with picturesque descriptions that remind me of Gladys Taber. Passages like this are common: "The village lawns about the white houses lay withered and rusty yellow; the leaves had long ago been raked to the roadsides and burned; and the only brightness was the dripping scarlet of the barberry bushes around the north side of the square." Or there's this: "Up on the south hill the snow lay heavily on the dark green boughs of spruce and hemlock, pine and fire. Silently Toby and Betsy snowshoed through blue shadows and brilliant patches of sunlight...[t]here at the farther edge of the clearing, on the verge of the dark woods, stood a young fox, curiously unafraid, his fur golden russet against the snow, watching them with burning eyes." This is a nostalgic book well worth seeking out for its approachable characters, family interactions, Christmas-cozy factor, and pacing.
Re-read: The Victorian Christmas Book, Antony and Peter MiallThis book was referenced so many times in The Country Diary Christmas Book that I finally hunted up a copy. The Miall brothers use catalogs, images, and books of the time to paint us a Victorian Christmas, from the historical events leading up to the Victorian revival of the holiday as a children's festival, then to each sequence in the celebration, from the changeover from goose for dinner to turkey to the presentation of the pantomime (a uniquely British theatre experience that does not involve mime), to finally end on Epiphany. Included are pages of old magazines, gift projects, household books, original recipes, period illustrations and liberal quotes from that most Victorian of books, A Christmas Carol. The only problem is that the book is only 7" x 9 1/4" and many of the reproduced ads are not legible, and one wishes some of the etchings were larger so the details could be made out. Wonderful historical treat; however, not as good as The Country Diary Christmas Book.😀
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