Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren bogabam Here. Once upon a time in America,
Speaker 1: Christmas was not a big deal. It might be difficult
Speaker 1: to fathom now when ads for chocolates and jewelry pop
Speaker 1: up around Halloween and decked out trees appear in living
Speaker 1: rooms by Thanksgiving. In fact, Christmas used to be flat
Speaker 1: out illegal. When the Mayflower landed at what is now
Speaker 1: Cape Cod, Massachusetts in sixteen twenty, the Pilgrims brought some
Speaker 1: serious baggage. They were aiming to establish a colony and
Speaker 1: a new way of life in the New World. One
Speaker 1: thing the Puritans wanted to leave behind was Christmas. In England,
Speaker 1: as in much of Europe, Christmas was rife with unbridled partying.
Speaker 1: The harvests were done, The cattle were slaughtered so that
Speaker 1: they wouldn't have to be fed throughout the winter, and
Speaker 1: that made fresh meat and fresh wine, as well as
Speaker 1: time to eat, drink and carry on plentiful. Pure didn't
Speaker 1: buy into the idea of Christmas. The Bible notes no
Speaker 1: date for Jesus's birth, a Scholars still disagree about why
Speaker 1: Christmas is celebrated on December though one popular theory goes
Speaker 1: that the date was picked to overlap Saturnalia, a celebration
Speaker 1: honoring Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture. In effect, the
Speaker 1: date could have co opted a pagan holiday to encourage
Speaker 1: the acceptance of Christianity throughout the world. At any rate,
Speaker 1: in the Puritan mind, there was nothing to celebrate. But
Speaker 1: we spoke with Penny Reestad, a history professor at the
Speaker 1: University of Texas and author of the book Christmas in America,
Speaker 1: a History. She said, Christmas time has really gotten out
Speaker 1: of hand. What was going on in England with the
Speaker 1: feasting and the gambling and the general debauchery. They took
Speaker 1: as a sign of the decline of civilization and a
Speaker 1: decline of all the things that they valued. So they
Speaker 1: were really positing this idea of not celebrating Christmas as
Speaker 1: an opposition to all the decay of English society. They
Speaker 1: were so serious about treating December twenty five as just
Speaker 1: another day that everyone on the Mayflower, some of whom
Speaker 1: mind were not Puritans, worked on the first Christmas Day
Speaker 1: in America. They didn't get time and a half either.
Speaker 1: The non Puritans in the bunch were not as keen
Speaker 1: on a Christmas van Riese Dad says it wasn't long
Speaker 1: before they acted out. She explained some of these newcomers
Speaker 1: refused to work. One of those first Christmas is William Bradford,
Speaker 1: the English separatist and early governor of Plymouth Colony, said okay,
Speaker 1: that's fine, until you're better informed. That's okay. Apparently they
Speaker 1: went out on the street. The word at the time
Speaker 1: was frolicking, playing street games. He basically told them to
Speaker 1: take it indoors, and he said, I don't mind if
Speaker 1: you're doing this, but I don't want to see any
Speaker 1: of it. It sets a bad tone that those were
Speaker 1: not his exact words. Not all of the colonies were
Speaker 1: so against the idea of celebrating Christmas, though settlements further south,
Speaker 1: like the one in Jamestown, Virginia, let loose. The ban
Speaker 1: in New England never was completely successful. Here's a quote
Speaker 1: from Stephen Nissenbaum's book The Battle for Christmas, A Social
Speaker 1: and Cultural History of our most cherished Holiday. It was
Speaker 1: fishermen and mariners who had the reputation of being the
Speaker 1: most incorrigible centers in New England. The region's least reformed
Speaker 1: inhabitants maritime communities such as Nantucket, the Isles of Shoals,
Speaker 1: and especially the town of marble Head were notorious for irreligion,
Speaker 1: heavy drinking, and loose sexual activity. There were also repositories
Speaker 1: of enduring English folk practices, places that ignored or resisted
Speaker 1: orthodox New England culture. It's no coincidence that marble Head
Speaker 1: was also a site of ongoing Christmas keeping. A changing society,
Speaker 1: though would not be denied. Here's a quote from Christmas
Speaker 1: in America, a history in the end. Whether slowly in
Speaker 1: New England or more rapidly in the Middle Colonies. In
Speaker 1: the South, the forces of pluralism and the need for
Speaker 1: social harmony shaped and encouraged Christmas celebration, Yet its status
Speaker 1: as a holiday remained haphazard and varied widely. It would
Speaker 1: take the project of nation building in the wake of
Speaker 1: the Revolution to begin to define an American conception of Christmas.
Speaker 1: Even after the colonies declared independence, years passed before Christmas
Speaker 1: became the holiday we know it as today. Congress was
Speaker 1: in session on Christmas Day in seventeen eighty nine, the
Speaker 1: year after the Constitution was ratified. The Senate worked on
Speaker 1: Christmas Day in seventeen ninety seven, the House met on
Speaker 1: Christmas Day. In eighteen o two, Christmas began to take
Speaker 1: its present form. Later in the eighteen hundreds, different religions
Speaker 1: and denominations, Protestants and Catholics among them, emerged in America,
Speaker 1: and they held Christmas as both the Holy day and
Speaker 1: a day of celebration. The Puritans couldn't help but be influenced.
Speaker 1: People of different religions made up local governments, and trade
Speaker 1: between various networks helped calm the antipathies between the factions.
Speaker 1: As America prospered, partially thanks to the labor of the
Speaker 1: enslaved and partially thanks to win US realization, a middle
Speaker 1: class was born, and the idea of giving and receiving
Speaker 1: Christmas gifts took hold. An emphasis on home and family
Speaker 1: followed away from the frolicking in the streets and raucous drinking,
Speaker 1: feasting and sex. Finally, in eighteen seventy two, and fifty
Speaker 1: years after the Puritans landed at Plymouth and put the
Speaker 1: squeeze on the idea of Christmas as a celebration, the
Speaker 1: US declared Christmas a national holiday. Ever since, celebrations big
Speaker 1: and small, secular and non secular, have marked the day.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by John Donovan and produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. For more on this amounts of other merry topics,
Speaker 1: visit hous to forks dot com. Brainstuff is production of
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Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.