Inspired by this post I thought I’d reflect a bit on the influences that went into making the way we celebrate Christmas. I think they can be summed up as two English queens and three 19th century New Yorkers.
What do you think of when you think of Christmas? If you’re like most Americans, you think of a largely secularized holiday, decorating houses with lights, gifts, Christmas trees, Santa Claus, and reindeer. Christmas trees are a German custom, going back at least 400 years, and introduced to Britain by George III’s German wife, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. In 1832 a young Victoria, soon to become Queen Victoria wrote in her journal:
After dinner… we then went into the drawing-room near the dining-room… There were two large round tables on which were placed two trees hung with lights and sugar ornaments. All the presents being placed round the trees…
The custom began to spread beyond the royal family in England after Victoria’s marriage to the German Albert and her decision to have a Christmas tree in every room of her palace in the late 1840s.
It is said that Hessian troops put up Christmas tree during the War of the American Revolution but I doubt that had much effect on the colonials. I think it far more likely that Germans emigrating to the young United States brought their customs with them and as their numbers grew the Christmas tree began to catch on. Much later I also suspect their adoption was given a boost by fashionable wealthy and upper middle class Americans aping their English cousins.
By the 1830s there were depictions of Christmas tree in the American press, long before their adoption in the United Kingdom.
Lights, whether on trees or houses, were derived from the candles traditionally hung on Christmas trees.
But in my opinoin we owe most of our Christmas iconography to three New Yorkers in the first decades of the 19th century. In 1809 Washington Irving, writing under the pseudonym of “Dietrich Knickerbocker”, published A History of New York which contained the following passage:
And the sage Oloffe dreamed a dream,â€â€”‌and lo, the good St. Nicholas came riding over the tops of the trees, in that self-same wagon wherein he brings his yearly presents to children, and he descended hard by where the heroes of Communipaw had made their late repast. And he lit his pipe by the fire, and sat himself down and smoked; and as he smoked, the smoke from his pipe ascended into the air and spread like a cloud overhead. And Oloffe bethought him, and he hastened and climbed up to the top of one of the tallest trees, and saw that the smoke spread over a great extent of country; and as he considered it more attentively, he fancied that the great volume of smoke assumed a variety of marvelous forms, where in dim obscurity he saw shadowed out palaces and domes and lofty spires, all of which lasted but a moment, and then faded away, until the whole rolled off, and nothing but the green woods were left. And when St. Nicholas had smoked his pipe, he twisted it in his hatband, and laying his finger beside his nose, gave the astonished Van Kortlandt a very significant look; then, mounting his wagon, he returned over the tree-tops and disappeared.
In it you can see the seeds of what was to become Santa Claus. Then in 1821 an anonymous children’s poem was published, “Old Santeclaus with Much Delight”. Here is its first stanza:
Old SANTECLAUS with much delight
His reindeer drives this frosty night,
O’r chimney tops, and tracts of snow,
To bring his yearly gifts to you.
Finally, in 1823 “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, originally published anonymously but later claimed by Clement Clarke Moore, cemented our image of Santa Claus. Note how Dutch he was. That is something that could only have been produced in Knickerbocker New York.
I think some context is in order. In colonial America the great winter holiday was New Year’s. In the years following the revolution, the generation that came to maturity were eager to establish a uniquely American iconography for the young country, distinct from the English customs that colonial America had practiced. During that federal period most immigration to the United States was from Germany rather than from the United Kingdom. Protestant America became concerned about the influx of Catholics, first Germans and then later Irish, and the papist customs they brought with them. Consequently, they sought to secularize Christmas which had been a primarily religious holiday.
So, with all respect to Charles Dickens, I do not think that A Christmas Carol or his several other portrayals of Christmas customs among his works are particularly influential in forming our Christmas customs or imagery. He’s a latecomer. Most of our customs and iconography had already been formed by the time he came around.
I do not believe that the evolution in our Christmas customs and iconography has ended. IMO it’s inevitable that we increasingly adopt Mexican customs and imagery in our practicing or Christmas. I don’t expect Santa and his reindeer to disappear but I expect them to be increasingly accompanied by making tamales, posadas, and giant nacimientos.
And I expect these customs to be adopted by the Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim immigrants we will increasingly see here in the United States. One of the most highly decorated houses in my neighborhood at Christmas time is that of my Muslim South Asian neighbors.
