How does Christmas work?

Christmas is the biggest holiday on the American calendar -- but how did it get this way? Travel back in time with Marshall Brain as he explores the evolution of Christmas in this special holiday episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to brain Stuff from how stuff Works dot com
where smart happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain with today's question,
how does Christmas work? Or, to put it in another way,
how stuff works as Christmas Special. Christmas is the biggest

(00:23):
holiday on the American calendar, but how did it evolve
into such a massive event? In the United States, Christmas
was not really anything special until the eighteen sixties. Eighteen
sixty seven was the first year that Macy's department store
in New York City remained open until midnight on Christmas Eve.
Eighteen seventy four was the year of the first window

(00:46):
displays with a Christmas theme at Macy's. It's snowballed from there.
The whole idea of giving presents on Christmas is something
that came from this retail push, along with the effect
of a single m It's amazing but true that the
common popular view of Santa that we all have today,
along with all the crazy things around Sata like the sleigh,

(01:09):
the reindeer, and the chimney, all came largely from two
publishing events that occurred in the eighteen hundreds and one
advertising campaign in the twentieth century. Clement Moore wrote the
night before Christmas in eighteen twenty two for his family.
It was picked up by a newspaper, then reprinted in magazines,
and it's spread like wildfire. If you've read the poem,

(01:31):
you will find that he names the reindeer, invents the sleigh,
comes up with the whole chimney thing, and the bag
of toys. Nearly everyone in America has been able to
recognize or recite this poem since the eighteen thirties. Then,
between eighteen sixty three and eighteen eighty six, Harper's Weekly,
a popular magazine at the time, ran a series of

(01:53):
engravings by Thomas Nast. From these images come the concept
so Santa's Workshop, sam are reading letters, Santa checking his list,
and so on. Coca Cola also played a role in
the Santa image by running a set of paintings and
its ads between nineteen thirty one. In nineteen sixty four,
the whole story of Rudolph appeared out of nowhere. In

(02:16):
nineteen thirty nine, Santa's at Montgomery Wards Stores gave away
two point four million copies of a booklet entitled Rudolph
the Red Nose Reindeer. The story was written by a
person in the advertising department named Robert May, and the
booklet was illustrated by Denver Gillen. In nineteen forty nine,

(02:36):
Gene Autry sang a musical version of the poem, and
it was a runaway bestseller. The Rudolph Song is second
only to White Christmas and popularity. That song, I'm Dreaming
of a White Christmas, written by Irving Berlin for the
movie Holiday In in nineteen forty two and sung by
Bing Crosby, is one of the best selling songs of

(02:58):
all time. The twelve Days of Christmas are the twelve
days that separate Christmas Day on December from Epiphany, which
is celebrated January six. Depending on the church, January six
may mark christ baptism that's the Catholic tradition, or it
may mark the day that the wise men visited the

(03:20):
baby Jesus with their gifts. The song demonstrates that some
people once stretched out their gifts and gave some fairly
elaborate gifts over the full twelve days, rather than stacking
them all up on the morning of December. The Christmas
tree began as a German tradition dating back as early
as seven a d. In the eighteen hundreds, the tradition

(03:43):
of a Christmas tree was widespread in Germany. Then it
moved to England and then America through Pennsylvania German immigrants.
In Victorian times, people had already started decorating trees with
candles and cakes hung with ribbon. In eighteen eighty what
We're sold the first manufactured Christmas tree ornaments, and they

(04:05):
caught on very quickly. Martin Luther in the sixteenth century
is credited as being the first person to put candles
on a tree, and the first electrically lighted Christmas tree
appeared in eighteen eighty two. Calvin Coolidge in nineteen twenty
three ceremoniously lit the first outdoor tree at the White House,

(04:25):
and that started that long tradition. Point Zetta's were attached
to Christmas starting in eighteen twenty eight. Joel Roberts point Zette,
then the first US ambassador to Mexico, imported the plant
for Mexico. Missiletoe has apparently been used as a decoration
in houses for thousands of years and is also associated

(04:46):
with many pagan rituals, so the Church wasn't very fond
of it and required that holly be used as a substitute.
Now everyone thinks holly is a part of the holidays,
And what about stockings? According to a very old tradition,
the original St. Nicholas left his very first gifts of
gold coins in the stockings of three poor girls who

(05:09):
needed the money for their wedding dowries. The girls had
hung their stockings by the fire to dry up. Until lately,
it was traditional to receive small items like fruit or
nuts or candy in your stocking, but these have been
replaced in the last half century by gifts in many homes.
Now that you understand where all these crazy traditions come from,

(05:29):
How stuff Works hopes that you have a happy Holidays
this year. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
is it how stuff works dot com