Customer Reviews

Christmas in Pennsylvania

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"Christmas in Pennyslvania" is the best kind of research book! There are many lively and vivid newspaper accounts and diary exerpts combined with Shoemaker's research. The result is charming. I think that anyone interested in general history, Christmas customs, or Pennsylvania would love this book. I did. (Guess what people on my Christmas list are going to receive?)

Alfred Shoemaker said in the original Foreword to this 1959 book that its purposes were (1) to describe the folk-cultural background of Pennsylvania as it relates to Christmas, (2) to describe the many colorful folk practices at Christmas time in the commonwealth, and (3) to show how these Christmas folk practices fared in the acculturation process.

He said that in Colonial Pennsylvania, there was no uniform 18th century "Pennsylvania Christmas." Different groups (e.g., Episcopalians or Lutherans) celebrated it, while others (e.g., Quakers, Mennonites, or Presbyterians) ignored it. (Pg. xiv)

He further notes that the Quakers and Presbyterians eventually made "some accommodation" to Christmas by the mid-19th century. (Pg. xx-xxi)

He presents evidence to suggest that Christmas trees were put up---though sporadically---as early as the 1820s, throughout the Pennsylvania Dutch Colony. (Pg. 45)

This book is fascinating reading for anyone interested in the origin of Christmas customs.