The Battle for Christmas [Hardcover]

Stephen Nissenbaum (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 5, 1996

In 1659 the Massachusetts Bay General Court declared the celebration of Christmas to be a criminal offense. What the Puritans were trying to suppress was a holiday marked by boisterous invasions of the homes of wealthy. As recently as the early 19 century, Christmas reveling often resulted in violence and riots. In this book, Nissenbaum explores the not-always-proud history of Christmas in American culture. 46 illustrations.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This scholarly analysis of our modern celebration of Christmas pulls together a thoroughly convincing case for the widely accepted notion that it is a 19th-century creation, indeed a deliberate reformation and taming of a holiday with wilder pagan origins. Christmas was set at December 25 in the fourth century, not for any biblical link with Christ's birth, but because the church hoped to annex and Christianize the existing midwinter pagan feast. This latter was based on the seasonal agricultural plenty, with the year's food supply newly in store, and nothing to do in the fields. It was a time of drinking and debauchery from the Roman Saturnalia to the English Mummers. The Victorians hijacked the holiday, and Victorian writers helped turn it into a feast of safe domesticity and a cacophonous chime of retail cash registers.

From Publishers Weekly

Christmas in America hasn't always been the benevolent, family-centered holiday we idealize. The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony so feared the day's association with pagan winter solstice revels, replete with public drunkenness, licentiousness and violence, that they banned Christmas celebrations. In this ever-surprising work, Nissenbaum (Sex, Diet, and Debility in Jacksonian America), a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, conducts a vivid historical tour of the holiday's social evolution. Nissenbaum maintains that not until the 1820s in New York City, among the mercantile Episcopalian Knickerbockers, was Christmas as we know it celebrated. Before Washington Irving and Clement Clarke Moore ("A Visit from St. Nicholas") popularized the genteel version, he explains, the holiday was more of a raucous festival and included demands for tribute from the wealthy by roaming bands of lower-class extortionists. Peppering his insights with analysis of period literature, art and journalism, Nissenbaum constructs his theory. Taming Christmas, he contends, was a way to contain the chaos of social dislocation in a developing consumer-capitalist culture. Later, under the influence of Unitarian writers, the Christmas season became a living object lesson in familial stability and charity, centering on the ideals of bourgeois childhood. From colonial New England, through 18th- and 19th-century New York's and Philadelphia's urban Yuletide contributions, to Christmas traditions in the antebellum South, Nissenbaum's excursion is fascinating, and will startle even those who thought they knew all there was to know about Christmas. Illustrations.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 381 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1 edition (November 5, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679412239
• ISBN-13: 978-0679412236
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,115,257 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We can reinvent Christmas - It's been done before!, January 25, 2005

By 

Albert M. Zaccor (Bridport, Vermont USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Battle for Christmas (Paperback)

Stephen Nissenbaum shows us that there is no "real" Christmas to which we must return to be authentic. While some will find his demystification of our cherished traditions depressing, I found it liberating. Christmas has always been a malleable tradition, according to Nissenbaum. That means that while it may be an "invented tradition", it is one we are free to reinvent for ourselves. Many of us are concerned about the extreme materialism and consumerism that rules our societies and hijacks our family and community life. The Battle for Christmas provides a roadmap of where we have been, and suggests where we might go to recapture the magic of this seasonal festival.

31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Rarity - Approachable, Readable Scholarship, February 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Battle for Christmas (Paperback)

This is an intriguing book which shows how deeply many of our Christmas traditions are rooted in social anxiety. In particular, Nissenbaum successfully argues that Christmas in America has always been infused with a pragmatic spirit of paternalism, and he explores several different guises this cultural tendency has taken. In making his point, Nissenbaum concomitantly shatters the pervasive myth that rampant consumerism at Christmas is a post-war phenomenon. The author is a wonderful scholar, and he is a master at gleaning telling details from the great mass of sources he has consulted. I am a student of literature, and Nissenbaum's study broadened my own perspective on how Christmas is portrayed in nineteenth century fiction. Many things I always found confusing in literary depictions of Christmas now make much more sense. I read this book while I was finishing my dissertation (in a completely unrelated area), and I found Nissenbaum's writing itself to be a real inspiration. This is what scholarly writing should be: lucid, to-the-point, substantial, and engaging. Nissenbaum's style is flexible and approachable, his scholarship impeccable. That's a rare combination! I definitely want to read other of Nissenbaum's works.

31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Full of guilt-busting information..., December 29, 1999

By 

Jennie Elliott - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Battle for Christmas (Hardcover)

How many of us feel guilty each year as the holiday season approaches, feeling that we are not celebrating the holidays with the spiritual ferver and simplicity of our ancestors? Well, it turns out that our ancestors, at least until the 19th century, were probably getting drunk, partying, and possibly taking in a bit of "chambering" (an old euphamism for fornication) during the Xmas season. This is a fascinating book that shows through solid data that our preconceived ideas of what Xmas used to be are largely incorrect. Cotton and Increase Mather both preached against the celebration of Christmas from the pulpit because the celebrations at the Xmas season in their lifetimes were seen to be so immoral as to be unfit for Christians. I found this book to be so interesting and pertinent that I spent a hour in a church class explaining its contents to my fellow churchgoers. I highly recommend this book for any curious and thoughtful person and bet it will liberate you from guilt and stress based on incorrect perceptions of Xmases past.