Brian Earl, host of the podcast Christmas Past and author, dives into the fascinating origins of our holiday traditions. He reveals how Christmas evolved from a minor religious observance to a massive cultural celebration. Listeners learn about the surprisingly recent image of Santa Claus, the reasons behind bringing evergreen trees indoors, and the quirky history of fruitcake. Earl also discusses the decline of quaint traditions like roasting chestnuts and shares tips on rekindling the Christmas spirit in today's festive landscape.
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insights INSIGHT
Christmas's Rise
Christmas wasn't a major holiday in the West or U.S. until the 19th century.
Though a Christian holiday, its cultural celebration grew larger than its religious observance.
insights INSIGHT
Early Christmas Observances
Pre-19th century Christmas celebrations were small religious observances, if celebrated at all.
Regional differences in the U.S. led to varied celebrations; some areas even banned it.
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Victorian Christmas Shift
Early American Christmases were not always family-centered; some were raucous public events.
The Victorians shifted Christmas to a domestic holiday, influenced by factors like rail travel.
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Jacqueline Goldfinger's adaptation of 'A Christmas Carol' is a family-friendly version that includes music, making it suitable for a wide range of audiences. This play retains the core themes and characters of the original while adding a musical element to enhance the storytelling and emotional impact.
The battle for Christmas
Stephen Nissenbaum
In this book, Stephen Nissenbaum charts the transformation of Christmas from its origins in ancient agricultural cycles and its early forms as a season of excess and public revelry, to its modern incarnation as a child-centered, domestic celebration. The book details how early Christmas celebrations involved drinking, parties, and social inversion, and how these were suppressed by Puritans and later transformed by New York's elite, including figures like Clement Clarke Moore and Washington Irving. Nissenbaum also explores the commercialization of Christmas and its impact on American culture and social hierarchy[1][3][4].
A Visit from St. Nicholas
Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas
Clement Clarke Moore
Henry Livingston Jr.
The poem, first published anonymously in 1823, tells the story of a family's Christmas Eve encounter with St. Nicholas. It describes the preparations for St. Nicholas's arrival, the noise on the lawn, and the delivery of presents through the chimney. The poem has had a profound impact on American Christmas traditions and the popular image of Santa Claus. Despite its widespread attribution to Clement Clarke Moore, there is ongoing debate about whether Moore or Henry Livingston Jr. was the actual author.
With Christmas coming up, you're likely in the full holiday swing of things — decorating your tree, eating certain foods, listening to particular music, and buying and wrapping gifts. But did you ever stop to think about why it is you're taking part in this slate of often weird-but-wonderful traditions?
Brian Earl has traced the backstories of our Christmas traditions in his podcast and book called ChristmasPast. Today on the show, he shares some of those backstories with us, and explains how many of our seemingly fated and timeless traditions actually came about in fluky and fortuitous ways and are a lot more recent than we think. He first unpacks how Christmas went from being a small religious observance to a huge cultural celebration and how our idea of Santa Claus evolved over time, with our current conception of Old St. Nick being less than a century old. We then discuss how it is we ended up taking evergreen trees inside our houses and decorating them, the origins of the most recorded Christmas song in history, why fruitcake became the butt of jokes, and why hardly anyone roasts chestnuts anymore, on an open fire or otherwise. Brian shares what new Christmas traditions he's seeing emerge and which classic ones are going away, and I offer an important PSA to future parents about Elf on the Shelf. We end our conversation with Brian's tips for getting into the Christmas spirit if you haven't been feeling it.
The Art of Manliness 
