December 16, 2012

Stephen Nissenbaum: The Battle for Christmas

This book has argued there never was a time when Christmas existed as an unsullied domestic idyll, immune to the taint of commercialism. It has argued that the domestic Christmas was the commercial Christmas — commercial from its earliest stages, commercial at its core. Indeed, the domestic Christmas was itself a force in the spread of consumer capitalism.

Whereas 4,000 Years of Christmas pictures the evolution of Christmas celebrations as pagan customs gradually tamed by the one true faith, historian Stephen Nissbaum describes the change as a battle (in America) between the older, rowdy, carnival celebrations of the solstice and, well, every force in society opposed to rowdy, drunken reveling, be they reactionary or radical.

Nissbaum starts with the New England Puritans, who outright and unsuccessfully banned Christmas in their colonies. (He does not mention the Pennsylvania Quakers, who also declined to celebrate Christmas, or how Christmas was celebrated in the other colonies.) By the time of the Revolution, Christmas was, if not celebrated, at least acknowleged even in New England. For those who did not engage in the old pasttimes of wassailing (begging for or demanding food and drink or small change in exchange for a "performance " of a song), it was acknowledged with only a family dinner.

By the early 1800s, at least in urban areas of the Northeast, the more prosperous engaged in rounds of visiting. Well, the men visited, and the women did the work of hosting, supplying food and drink. The practice seems to have been much like a modern bar crawl, with the same intoxicated results. For the working men, restaurants and bars would offer free food and drink, with the same results.

In Agrarian times, these rituals of drinking and feasting far beyond normal happened during the natural idle time following the harvest (early winter), and served as a release valve for the social pressures of a feudal society. (Nissbaum makes a good comparison to post-finals partying by college undergraduates.) With undustrialization, there was no slow time at the factory, and the rituals began to be viewed with suspicion that they were undermining the fabric of society.

And this is where Clement Moore comes in to the story. Moore was attempting to re-direct Christmas celebrations from public rowdiness to the private, domestic, controlled. And he succeeded.

Before the 1800s, there were no exchanges of presents, at least not as we think of them. In the Middle Ages, the lord and lady of the manor would feast with all their dependents, but trinkets were not exchanged.

Industrialization and mass production made it possible for people to give each other gifts. These gifts were given mostly to children. Which, it turns out is a lot of fun. A situation that led immediately to the problem of the commercialization of Christmas.

The simple, family centered Christmas we long for never existed. Christmas celebrations were either rowdy affairs, adult-centered, or the child and gift-centered celebration of today.