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Speaker 1: Christmas is based on the story of the birth of Jesus,

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Speaker 1: which historians say was anywhere from two to four BC.

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Speaker 1: But then, where did Santa Claus, Christmas trees and Christmas

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Speaker 1: cards and the extra festive eggnog come from? I'm Patty

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Speaker 1: Steele the evolution of our very festive Christmas next on

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Speaker 1: the backstory. The backstory is back when you plunge deep

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Speaker 1: into the Christmas season, you probably have a bunch of

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Speaker 1: traditions you trot out just because it's what you've done

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Speaker 1: every year and your family before you. Right, But where

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Speaker 1: did all those traditions come from? Christmas is based on

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Speaker 1: the two thousand year old story of Jesus's birth. But

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Speaker 1: Santa Claus, Christmas trees, Christmas cards and stockings, not to

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Speaker 1: mention Black Friday? What's all that about? And why does

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Speaker 1: it happen on December twenty fifth when historians agree Jesus

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Speaker 1: was most likely born sometime between April and September in

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Speaker 1: four BC. Well, the celebration of Christmas on December twenty

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Speaker 1: fifth actually began in the fourth century, on the tail

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Speaker 1: end of Roman and other European pagan festivals, marking the

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Speaker 1: end of the harvest as well as the winter solstice.

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Speaker 1: The Roman emperor Constantine thought it would weaken those pagan holidays,

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Speaker 1: and he nailed it. It eventually did. It wasn't until

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Speaker 1: ten thirty eight, though, that the holiday was given the

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Speaker 1: name Christ's Mass or Christmas. In Europe. Right up through

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Speaker 1: medieval times and into the Renaissance, it was a twelve

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Speaker 1: day celebration filled with too much drinking, food, gift giving,

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Speaker 1: and partying. There were wild dances in plays, which is

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Speaker 1: where Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night actually originated. And there were

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Speaker 1: crazy Christmas games, including one called hot Cockles, where blindfolded

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Speaker 1: victims had to guess who slapped them from behind. If

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Speaker 1: the guests was right, the slapper became the next victim.

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Speaker 1: It was so not a holiday for kids. Queen Elizabeth

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Speaker 1: I loved read wild dancing so much at Christmas she

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Speaker 1: held dance parties in her private dancing chamber at one

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Speaker 1: of her castles. That would be quite an invite. All

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Speaker 1: this was Christmas in Europe for hundreds of years, right

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Speaker 1: up through the seventeen hundreds. But it's a whole different

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Speaker 1: scene once we get to Colonial America. In the early days,

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Speaker 1: there were no holidays here, no Christmas or Easter or

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Speaker 1: anything else. It was a stuffy conservative place. In fact,

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Speaker 1: in New England, where the Puritans called the Shots, celebrating

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Speaker 1: Christmas was illegal for decades. In Massachusetts, they had a

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Speaker 1: law called the Penalty for Keeping Christmas. You would be

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Speaker 1: fined if you celebrated, because they said festivals dishonored God

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Speaker 1: and were offensive. They felt they were only for commoners.

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Speaker 1: Excuse me now. As that attitude began to ease, Christmas

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Speaker 1: still wasn't a family or kid centric celebration. It was

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Speaker 1: actually a big time for weddings. Both George Washington and

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Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson got married during the Christmas season. The eighteen hundreds,

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Speaker 1: though changes everything. Christmas is no longer illegal, but it

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Speaker 1: still wasn't about family or kids are giving presents. There

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Speaker 1: were no Christmas trees, no cards, no Santa Claus, and

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Speaker 1: no kissing under the missiletoe. But there were some really

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Speaker 1: raucous sort of street festivals, almost similar to Marti Gras.

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Speaker 1: Lots of drinking, brawling, vandalism, even public sex. In fact,

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Speaker 1: a Christmas celebration, as they called it in New York

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Speaker 1: City in eighteen twenty eight, got so violent it led

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Speaker 1: to the formation of the city's first professional police force.

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Speaker 1: Now Around the same time, England's Queen Victoria, along with

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Speaker 1: evangelical Protestants in New York, decided Christmas should be a shorter,

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Speaker 1: more refined, more family centric celebration. At the same time,

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Speaker 1: Christmas trees, which were first popular in Germany, became a

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Speaker 1: thing decorated with ormen's and candles with gifts piled underneath.

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Speaker 1: Before that, greenery in the form of wreaths and garlands

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Speaker 1: was popular since in the midst of winter it symbolized

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Speaker 1: eternal life, and that went back to Greek and Roman times.

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Speaker 1: Also helping to invent our modern day Christmas was Washington Irving,

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Speaker 1: who wrote Rip van Winkle in the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

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Speaker 1: Irving also came up with a story that Columbus discovered

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Speaker 1: the earth was round, and he was also the inventor

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Speaker 1: of Santa Claus, which he based on the Dutch Saint Nicholas.

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Speaker 1: But in eighteen twenty two, the author Clement Clark Moore

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Speaker 1: gave us the first definitive description of Santa Claus that

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Speaker 1: we know today. His poem, written for his children, begins

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Speaker 1: with the words twas the night before Christmas when all

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Speaker 1: through the house not a creature was stirring, not even

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Speaker 1: a mouse. He turned Saint Nicholas into jolly Santa Claus,

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Speaker 1: a plump, sweet guy with a sleigh full of toys

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Speaker 1: and eight flying reindeer. He also chose December twenty fourth

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Speaker 1: Christmas Eve, as the knights said had brought toys to

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Speaker 1: children by dropping down their chimneys and tucking presents into

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Speaker 1: stockings hung on the mantle. He borrowed all of those

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Speaker 1: traditions from various European legends. How funny enough, someone published

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Speaker 1: the poem without telling him, and Moore claimed he was

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Speaker 1: embarrassed by it. He didn't publish it under his own

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Speaker 1: name until eighteen forty four, over twenty years later. Finally,

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Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty three, the political cartoonist Thomas Nast gave

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Speaker 1: us the visual image of the Santa Claus we know today,

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Speaker 1: although it wasn't till the eighteen eighties somebody dressed him

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Speaker 1: in a red suit. Nast, though, gave us his chubby

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Speaker 1: cheeks and fluffy white beard. With a twinkling smile. He

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Speaker 1: drew Santa Claus arriving at a camp of Union soldiers

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Speaker 1: in his sleigh, bringing a little joy to the guys

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Speaker 1: during the heat of the Civil War. As Christmas began

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Speaker 1: to commercialize, a store in Massachusetts introduced the first department store, Santa,

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Speaker 1: in the eighteen eighties, and soon every big store had one.

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Speaker 1: By the nineteen thirties, the Coca Cola Company refined Santa's

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Speaker 1: look into just what we see today. As for other traditions,

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Speaker 1: Christmas cards arrived in eighteen forty three but didn't fully

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Speaker 1: catch on until the beginning of the twentieth century, and

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Speaker 1: the Christmas carols we know and love today have only

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Speaker 1: been around since the early to mid eighteen hundreds. Finally,

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Speaker 1: one of our favorite traditions, eggnog, has a bit longer history,

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Speaker 1: first appearing in medieval times made with get this hot

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Speaker 1: curdled milk and wine. Yuck, But it got really popular

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Speaker 1: in America when colonists made it with eggs, cream and rum.

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Speaker 1: That's more like it. Even George Washington evolved the tradition

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Speaker 1: with his own special recipe. In George's words, mix one

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Speaker 1: court cream, one court milk, a dozen tablespoons of sugar,

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Speaker 1: one pint brandy, one pint rye whiskey, one pint Jamaica

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Speaker 1: rum and one pint sherry along with twelve eggs mix well,

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Speaker 1: leaving a cool place tasting frequently.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 1: George was a partier that had knocked you out right. So,

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Speaker 1: despite two thousand years of religious belief, the less religious

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Speaker 1: Christmas as we know it is mostly less than two

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Speaker 1: hundred years old. We realize that traditions aren't carved in stone.

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Speaker 1: We invent them. They're an outgrowth of what we need

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Speaker 1: and what we feel, and that joy is what we

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Speaker 1: pass on to the future.

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Speaker 2: Ss we frame Ssie.

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Speaker 1: I'm Patty. The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks,

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Speaker 1: the Elvis Durand Group and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer

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Speaker 1: is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new

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Speaker 1: episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out

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Speaker 1: to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram

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Speaker 1: at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The

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Speaker 1: pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.