A nice short history of various Christmas customs and how the current American Christmas developed. The author is a professor of religious studies with a particular interest in the intersection of religion and popular culture, and he also cites many other similar authors with a good bibliography for further reading. ( )

This short book gives a fairly thorough overview of the history of Christmas. If you have read any of the annual articles about Christmas and its history, you'll likely have heard some (but not all!) of what Forbes mentions. Forbes does a good job of showing how Christmas, even though a Christian holiday, has always co-existed, often uneasily, with non-religious celebrations.

Perhaps the most surprising thing I learned was that Christmas as we know it is just as manufactured a holiday as modern Valentine's day. Before the mid-19th century, Christmas was a religious holiday that some people observed and others did not -- Forbes compared it to Epiphany. In the US, many Protestants intentionally deemphasized Christmas. As a secular holiday, Christmas was, in large part, a big party for adults with only minor emphasis on gifts and family. Most of the trappings of a "traditional" Christmas were missing or much smaller scale.

However, between the mid-19th century a movement started to intentionally transform the holiday into a family and gift oriented one, and by the early 20th century, the holiday had taken on more or less the form we recognize today. But even that transformation was not that radical -- Christmas has been, like a snowball rolling down a hill, picking up and shedding traditions throughout its whole hisotyr.

Definitely an interesting read for those interested in the history of Christmas. ( )

This is a wonderfully readable and succinct history of a most misunderstood holiday. The author is a Christian who understands that people have been throwing late-December parties for much more than two thousand years. As he puts it, "A midwinter carnival is a very understandable way for human beings to cope with winter, and yes, the widespread human impulse to party in the face of winter has influenced the development of Christmas." Early Christians, however, did *not* celebrate Christmas; and when they did, the holiday looked nothing like it does now.

None of this is news to admirers of Stephen Nissenbaum's outstanding "The Battle For Christmas," which Forbes respectfully cites. But Forbes manages to gather a great deal of information in his little book, much of which *was* new to me. I didn't know before I read this book that:

--Norman Rockwell's parents decided to send him to art school after seeing a drawing he did of Ebenezer Scrooge.

--One of the earliest legends told about Saint Nicholas insisted that as an infant, he refused to breast-feed on Wednesdays and Fridays, the traditional days of fasting.

--"Kris Kringle" is an American mutilation of the German word "Christkindel," which means "Christ-child."

--The author of the famous "Yes, Virginia" letter wasn't given a byline, so his identity wasn't revealed to the public until after his death.

--The founder of Hallmark was a woman, Joyce Hall.

This book isn't a collection of Christmas trivia, though. Forbes does an excellent job of mapping the evolution of the holiday. He also keeps a cheerfully level tone, though his affection for the holiday shines through. He urges tolerance toward those people who "really enjoy Christmas [but] are not especially interested in its religious aspects," and brings up an unusual example of the holiday's secular appeal: Christmas is *huge* in Japan.

"There never was a pure spiritual Christmas," Forbes points out in his last chapter, "Wrestling With Christmas":

"We human beings have a tendency to create golden ages of the past, when all was supposedly wonderful before complicating factors intruded and ruined everything. In most cases, the golden age is an idealized dream: the actual Christmas that early Christians experienced was both a boisterous seasonal party and a religiously meaningful observance. Both."

This book is an excellent resource for anyone who'd like to learn the real story behind Christmas. Forbes also offers some moving (but not mawkish) ideas for those who want the holiday to be more meaningful and less commercial. All this *and* an annotated biography, yet the book weighs in at under 200 pages. It's a perfect read for a busy month. ( )

I really enjoyed this little book about how Americans came to celebrate Christmas in the way(s) that we do. Easy to read and interesting text with a number of facts that I didn't actually already know. The author also includes some notes and a nice bibliography.

Bruce David Forbes' book on Christmas is an enjoyable read.

Beginning with pre-Christmas Pagan winter festivals, he traces the development of a European, and in particular English, Christmas on to its American expression. Along the way I have learnt a great many interesting is suggestive pieces of information. It certainly seems clear that any claim to a "traditional" Christmas will often need to be strongly qualified – since many of the traditions have been invented either to recover or to replace pre-existing activity.

His six chapters cover, in order...
Christmas origins in winter festivals
the (somewhat slow) Christian adoption of Christmas as a significant festival
the tendency of Christmas traditions to gather various accretions as they develop (he has a particular focus on Christmas trees)
the transformation from St Nicholas to Santa Claus over the centuries (with a very interesting Italian detour)
the commercial aspects of Christmas
ways to cope with the various struggles that Christmas causes(religious, commercial, social)

I found it fascinating. As a Christian minister, I regularly look for a new "angle" to introduce a relatively familiar story to an audience often more intent upon the commercial and social aspects of Christmas - this book has quite a lot to offer in that regard because of the author's pleasure of passing on a whole range of different interesting historical notes, for example the puritan suppression of Christmas and its revival both in Victorian England and in America.

I hadn't expected to find the last chapter, where I was particularly interested in his attempt to find ways forward to those who struggle with Christmas. Since it is written by an academic, I'm not surprised to find properly referenced notes and a reasonable index, but the provision of a bibliography with a brief paragraph explaining the nature and value of each book is an unexpected and yet very helpful extra.

Christmas:
A Candid History
Bruce David Forbes
University of California Press
12 b/w photographs
186 pages
Softcover $19.95
978-0-520-25104-5

The word Christmas conjures up all sorts of associations: the holiness of the birth of Jesus, the beauty of the lights and evergreen decorations, and the frantic shopping for last-minute presents, to name just a few. In his six-chapter overview, Bruce David Forbes touches on various aspects of the holiday’s history, both secular and religious, resulting in an accessible and informative read.
Forbes is a professor of Religious Studies at Morningside College and the co-editor of Religion and Popular Culture in America.
In the book’s opening chapters, he describes how mid-winter celebrations took place all over Europe long before the existence of Christianity; in fact, early Christians initially did not celebrate the birth of Jesus. The ancient Roman festival Saturnalia, for example, arose as an agricultural holiday, where work ceased, slaves and noble-born had temporary equality, greenery and candle decorations abounded, and people exchanged small trinkets. Similarly, in northern Europe, Vikings celebrated Jul after slaughtering cattle, with feasting and beer drinking, stories, and bonfires. Only due to the observance of Epiphany—how Jesus was shown to be the son of God—did western European Christians in the fourth century begin to celebrate Christ’s birth. With Constantine’s acceptance of Christianity, the recognition of Jesus’ birth at Christmastime merged with the familiar winter celebrations as a way for the religion to spread throughout the Roman Empire.
Forbes uses the image of a growing snowball to illustrate how the Christmas holiday adopted components of European winter festivals while Christianity was expanding from the Mediterranean region into central and northern Europe. Many legends, for example, describe the origin of the Christmas tree. The Benedictine monk Boniface instructed Germans that the triangular shape of a fir tree represented the Trinity. Germans also traditionally constructed a Lichstock, a small wooden pyramid hung with figures and treats.
At least as many theories focus on how the legendary Turkish bishop Saint Nicholas evolved into the modern American gift-giving Santa Claus. In various tales Saint Nicholas gave three bags of gold, raised three boys from the dead, and walked on water. So popular was Saint Nicholas that merchants from Bari, Italy stole his relics in order to attract religious pilgrims to their city; thus Saint Nicholas’s reputation expanded into western Europe, especially into the Netherlands (“Sinter Klaas”) and Germany. In the United States, the early Puritans discouraged rowdy Christmas celebrations, but in locations colonized originally by Dutch or Germans, such as New York, the character Saint Nicholas continued to develop. The famous 1823 poem “The Night Before Christmas” was crucial in introducing several new components: Saint Nicholas traveled in a sleigh which was pulled by reindeer, he visited on Christmas Eve, he wore no bishop’s robe, and he was portrayed as an elf.
Various other contributions helped to establish Santa Claus as primarily a gift-giver, paralleling the United States’ rise of modern consumerism. Until the nineteenth century, gifts were not emphasized in celebrating Christmas, but rather were associated with the nearby holidays of Saint Nicholas’s Day and New Year’s Day. Only with the industrialization of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries did merchants begin to view holidays as profit opportunities, since people started to purchase manufactured presents as opposed to hand-made ones. Commerce—not Christianity—made Christmas the central holiday in the present United States. Along with the proliferation of gifts, Christmas also has spawned entire businesses of cards, decorations, wrapping paper, music, and movies.
Concluding that while tension certainly exists between a religious and a cultural Christmas, Forbes maintains that a purely spiritual Christmas never did exist and that many people do thoroughly enjoy Christmas without its religious aspects. He offers some ideas for coping with the associated holiday stress or even ways for experiencing Christmas differently. One of his thoughts is to expand Christmas to the twelve days of Christmas for a more rested spiritual focus. Another proposal is to limit the dollar amount of Christmas presents.
Readers should not expect to become experts on the topic of Christmas when they finish this summary. Forbes rightfully acknowledges that the volume serves as “a brief, accessible overview,” and it is not filled with novel historical theories or groundbreaking discoveries. For those who are inspired to learn more, the author includes a thorough bibliography with useful annotations. But for the many who do not wish for added stress during the holiday season, this book will provide readers with basic history in a highly manageable and enjoyable way. (October)
Beth Hemke Shapiro