December 18, 2025 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, long before Christmas settled into the shape we know, the holiday moved through centuries of reinvention. Early Europeans marked the dark stretch of winter with fire and evergreens, while later religious debates pushed the season in new and sometimes unexpected directions. By the time America embraced Christmas as a public holiday, it had gathered customs from many cultures and carried stories far older than the Nativity itself. Here's the story of how Christmas as we know it came to be.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American Stories,
and welcome to our very special Christmas episodes. And we
love doing this at this time of year every year
to remind everybody why we're celebrating this season. Here's Greg
Hangler with the real story of our cherished Christmas holiday.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Ah Christmas, Up goes the tree and on go the lights.
An exciting season of presents and parties only a Scrooge
could hate. But where did all our traditions start? Why
do we bring huge evergreen trees into our homes? How
do we get Santa and his eight tiny reindeer? We
are about to pull back the curtain to unveil the
(00:54):
hidden history of our cherished holiday. These days, cities and
towns see to be dressing up earlier and earlier for
the Christmas season. And there are lights, lots and lots
of lights.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Two hundred and fifty strands of lights one hundred individual
bulbs per strand for a grand total of twenty five
thousand imported Italian twickle lights.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Twenty five thousand.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Drumroll, please, here's Ace Collins, author of Stories Behind the
Best Loved Songs of Christmas and Stories behind the Great
traditions of Christmas.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
Christmas trees would not be the same without Christmas lights
and yes, for hundreds of years there were Christmas trees
with no lights on him. As a matter of fact,
a man named Johnson, who worked for Thomas Edison, realized
that there was another way to use the light bulb
other than just illuminating a house. And he created a
strand of multicolored lights that twinkled ironically enough and flashed
(01:55):
and put them on his tree in the last twenty
years of the eighteen hundreds, and people came by from
everywhere to look at this magical picture in his window
of this tree with these lights. And he was such
an inventor. As a matter of fact, his tree actually
turned as well, so they had many, many reasons to
be impressed with it. Journalists from all of the United
(02:18):
States were sent east to report this story. What ultimately
happened was people who were wealthy wanted lights. Well, it
took a lot of money to buy lights. It would
not be until the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties when
a couple of different American companies developed very cheap lights
that you could put on trees for a dollar or two,
(02:38):
and that is when it came from being a rich
person's toy to a part of a standard American Christmas
and those lights on the tree. Initially people would put
seven lights on a tree. Why seven, because that's all
there was on a strand. Then they made strands that
you could hook into each other, and they started growing
(02:59):
to where now many people have thousands of lights on
their tree.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
The Christmas story is one we all know. After a
rude refusal by a local innkeeper, Mary and Joseph bedded
down in a barn in Bethlehem, where they gave birth
to a sun, the Son of God. Those are the
biblical origins of Christmas. But centuries before Jesus walked the earth,
early Europeans were celebrating light and birth in the darkest
(03:25):
days of winter. Every December, on the shortest day in
the year, when the earth was tilted furthest from the
sun came the winter solstice. It marked the darkest day
of the year, but also the time when the promise
of longer days gave cause to celebrate. To honor the occasion,
ancient Norse tribes held a twelve day festival. Here's the
(03:48):
director of Nordic's studies at the University of Colorado doctor
Jackson Crawford.
Speaker 6 (03:54):
Their holiday was called Yol, which also survives in the
form of an English word Yule, which is cognate with
the Norse word. We know that the festival contained a
lot of feasting and drinking, legally, that there was a
minimum amount of alcohol that had to be consumed by
each free man, and whereas measurements in the sagas are
(04:15):
not always very clear or very strictly defined, this amount,
as near as I can figure, it would be about
four gallons over the course of those three nights, so
a pretty considerable amount, leading to the only culture I'm
aware of in which you might have been pulled over
by the cops for drinking too little.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Fathers and sons dragged home the biggest log they could
find and set it on the fire. This Yule log
burned for all twelve days of the feast, and they
brought evergreens, furs, and holly into their homes. Over the centuries,
the concept grew, and later it was co opted into
our modern Christmas tree custom. Today, picking out a tree
(04:54):
as a family tradition, and in any given year, American
farmers are growing three one hundred and fifteen million trees
on fifteen thousand Christmas tree farms. One San Antonian couple
finds theirs at Pop and Noel's Christmas Tree Farm, which
has been in business for over forty years. Here's what
they look for in a tree.
Speaker 7 (05:17):
Just we look for the shape, you know, the fullness
of the tree, and we try to stay around six
seven feet to have the smell of the tree in
the house. It just feels more christmasy.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
So what does any of this have to do with
the birth of Jesus two thousand years ago? After all?
The Nativity, derived from the Latin word natal, which means birth,
is where the story of Christmas all begins. There are
two different sources from the New Testament for the Nativity.
There's the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke.
(05:52):
They tell us two different sets of things about Jesus birth.
And what we do is we put these two stories
together to get the full picture, which we call the Nativity.
Here's Archbishop Fulton Sheen with the story.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Mary and Joseph set out from the village of Nazareth
for the village of Bethlehem. Mary is now with child
waiting birth he searched for a place where he to
whom heaven and earth belonged, might be born. Certainly thought Joseph,
and there would be room in the village inn. The
(06:27):
inn is the gathering place of public opini, the rallying
place of the popular and the successful. But there's no room.
And the place where the world gathered stable Ah, that
is a place for outcasts, be ignored and the forgotten.
(06:48):
Shepherds and wise men came to visit him. Shepherds they
who know they know nothing. Wise they who know they
do not know everything.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
And you're listening to the real reasons behind our Christmas
season and to merely hear Fulton Sheen on the air,
what a blessing for all of us. This was a
voice that Americans heard across the country. When we come
back more of the real reasons behind our Christmas season
here on our American Stories. Lie Hibibi here, the host
(07:32):
of our American Stories. Every day on this show, we're
bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories from
our big cities and small towns.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
But we truly can't do the show without you.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not
free to make If you love what you hear, go
to Ouramerican Stories dot com and click the donate button.
Give a little, give a lot. Go to Ouramericanstories dot
com and give. And we continue with our American Stories
(08:11):
and we've been uncovering the reasons behind the Christmas season.
Let's pick up where we last left off with the
biblical origins of Christmas.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Here's Greg Hengel.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Matthew's Gospel gives us the Star of Bethlehem and the
wise Men, and no, contrary to popular belief, there were
not three wise men. The Bible only mentions that they
brought three gifts for baby Jesus, gold, frankinceens, and myrrh,
but the exact number of wise men is not included
in the scriptures. This is the first example of Christmas
(08:44):
gift giving, but nowhere in the New Testament is it
recorded when the birth actually happened. One of the few
things that all scholars seem to agree on is that
Jesus wasn't born in wintertime. Now, I know that's a
terrible thing to say, but let me explain. The early
followers of Jesus Christ weren't concerned with marking his birthday,
(09:07):
partially because they expected his imminent return, but this didn't
prevent early Christian scholars and present day historians from trying
to speculate when he was born. The one thing you
will get from their estimates on Christ's birth is that
they all occur in the springtime, because one of the
few details you'll find in the gospel accounts of the
(09:29):
birth of Jesus Christ is that it was a time
when the shepherds were with their flocks in the fields.
That could not have been in December, because what we
do know about the traditions of ancient Judaea is that
at that time shepherds took their flocks indoors so they
wouldn't get cold at night starting in November, and they
(09:49):
wouldn't bring them back out again until March. So how
did Jesus end up with the birthday on December twenty fifth.
Long before Jesus was born, Romans celebrated many pagan holidays,
especially in December. Here's scholar of religion Andrew Henry.
Speaker 8 (10:07):
Saturnalia is probably the most famous Roman holiday, which may
have something to do with its proximity to Christmas. But
what is Saturnalia? Quick summary? Saturnalia was the Roman festival
of the god Saturn. It began on December seventeenth with
a mass public sacrifice at the Temple of Saturn, followed
by several days of feasting, gambling, drinking, and most notably,
(10:28):
the role reversal between slaves and slave owners, a holiday
when slaves were encouraged to dine with their slavers, talk
back to them, and even make them serve the slaves.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
The second Roman party was New Year's. It lasted five
days and it was quite enjoyable as well. And in
between Saturnalia and New Year's there was a birthday for
a Roman god, Mithris, on December twenty fifth. So how
do we get from Mithris to Santa Here's Reverend Ken
and Jim Rosenthal, president and founder of the Saint Nicholas Society.
Speaker 9 (11:04):
The idea of Santa Claus. It comes from a long tradition,
and Santa Claus was a person, a real person, and
he had a real name, and his name was Nicholas.
Saint Nicholas was born in a place called Patara in
what is now Turkey. At a very young age, his
parents died. They happened to be very wealthy, so Nicholas
(11:26):
was well cared for for the future. Financially, and because
he had very few relatives, he was sent off to
a monastery to live with his uncle, who was a priest.
His whole being would be transformed. Why because he saw
people coming to the clergy, to the monks for help.
So he was ordained to the priesthood, and he was
(11:48):
a priest for a short time before he actually would
be made a bishop. And there's a famous story of
Nicholas helping three girls who would have been sold into
prostitution because their father did not have enough money for
dowries for them, and Nicholas comes to the rescue. He
hears about the story, and there we have the legend
(12:10):
of the climbing up on the chimney and dropping gold
in three nights consecutively, one bag of gold for each girl,
as they sought to have dowries and to be married.
The first night he gets away with it, he does it.
It drops into the stocking hanging by the chimney. The
second night, the father and the girls are so so
(12:32):
surprised because now one girl was saved, and now a
second girl. They wake up in the morning and there's
another bag of gold. The father decides to stay up
at night and see who this gift giver is. And
sure enough, the third bag of gold goes into the stocking,
and the father runs out and he's confronted by a
man in a cape, and it's good old Saint Nicholas.
(12:56):
And he falls on his knees and says, Nicholas, thank you,
thank you, thank you, And Nicholas says, don't thank me,
thank God, and don't tell anybody. He became, by legend
penniless because he gave everything away. He dies in three
point forty three in office as a bishop. It is
through him that we have many of the traditions that
(13:17):
we love at Christmas time. One the bishop's staff, the
candy cane, something that reminds us of his role as
a leader in the church. We have the gold coins
chocolate coins we get now, but in his day there
are real gold coins, and he gave them to people.
He becomes the figure of someone known as Santa Claus,
(13:37):
or in certain parts of the world, Father Christmas.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
After Christianity became Rome's official religion in the fourth century,
leaders chose to absorb pagan traditions rather than outlaw them.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
But in a prelude to.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Those who complain that it's such a shame we don't
celebrate Christmas the way they used to. That Christmas has
been commercialized. Well, sixteen centuries ago, Archbishop Gregory of Constantinople
urged that the Christmas celebration be conducted after a heavenly
and not an earthly manner, and he warned his congregants
(14:13):
against feasting to excess, dancing, and crowning the doors. Here
again is Ace Collins.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
One of the most interesting traditions, and I think maybe
the most fascinating tradition I have found, is missletoe, the
kissing plant. How did that become a part of Christmas?
The early missionaries did something that I thought was so brilliant.
They took the culture that was already there and found
a way to explain the Gospel to heathen people. When
(14:42):
they got to the Vikings and the Celts, they discovered
that these people looked up in trees in the winter time,
and they looked at the missiletoe plant, and they thought
it was this mysterious, wonderful sense of power. Here was
this green plant growing out of what looked like a
dead piece of wood. Well, they were so enamored with
(15:02):
mistletoe that they would not fight battles in force with mistletoe.
It was known as the plant of peace. Well, the
early missionaries looked at these plants that were green, and
in Europe had both white and red berries, And as
they were sharing the gospel, they pointed to that tree
and said, see that living sprig coming out of that
(15:25):
dead piece of wood. That represents Christ. On the crost
he came down, he lived again. That green represents the
everlasting life that you can receive from accepting Christ as
your savior. The white berries represent the purity of his life.
The red berries represent the blood He shed for you.
When these people became Christians, they fought so much of
(15:48):
that imagery created by these missionaries reinterpretation of mistletoe that
they would put it over babies cribs to remind them
of their faith, put it over their doors to signify
that they were Christians. And they thought so much of it,
and they wanted their young people to remember the lessons
(16:09):
of Christ's life and his faith so deeply that when
couples got married, they got married underneath a missiletoe plant.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
Well, what is.
Speaker 5 (16:20):
The last thing that happens in a marriage ceremony? You
kiss each other nowadays, we've lost the story and it's
been replaced as the kissing plant.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
At Christmas, the Church continued to absorb various ancient traditions
in what emerged were two experiences of Christmas, one sacred
and one secular. Each of these Christmases had their own music, just.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Like we have today.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Here's historian doctor James Palmer and Jim Rosenthal.
Speaker 10 (16:51):
We have stories from the fifteenth century about people singing
carols in the backs of churches and being asked to
leave by the priests who thought that they were inappropriate.
Speaker 9 (17:03):
They are very important. It's like stained glass. They tell
a story, and they do it in a non judgmental way,
and so people enjoy them. They were started basically as
as drinking songs and the songs that people would sing
in pubs and fairs and carnivals, and many of the
tunes come from those kind of traditions. But what do
(17:25):
they say, Hark the herald angels sing glory to the
newborn King. Charles Wesley, some of the greatest theologians of
all time give us the texts of these carols, and
they're the kind of things that we keep with us
for the rest of our life. We memorize them just
by nature of hearing them all the time, and they
become so important to us.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
And you're listening to stories behind the stories of our
Christmas traditions.
Speaker 4 (17:50):
These stories continue and.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Our special Christmas celebration here on our American stories, and
we continue with our American stories and the real reasons
behind our Christmas season. Let's pick up when we last
(18:16):
left off. Beginning in the fifteenth century, medieval Christmas carols
were gaining popularity. The holiday was establishing roots in both
the sacred and the secular traditions.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Let's continue with Greg Hangler.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
But medieval Caroline was not just about caroline. It was
about drinking. At every door, revelers begged for a gulp
from the household punch bowl, getting drunker with every note
they sang. Besides singing, they could also dance or act
a rude drama, mocking propriety and challenging the social order,
(18:51):
which was a reflection of the Saturnalia holiday. But all
of the celebration and merriment didn't sit well, particularly after
the protest Reformation. One of the hallmarks of Martin Luther's
message was to clear away from the entire church calendar
all the feast days and Saints days. Saint Nicholas Feast
Day was one of the most popular on the Catholic
(19:14):
Church calendar, perhaps because it also involved gift giving. So
what Martin Luther suggested was this, instead of telling kids
about Saint Nicholas bringing gifts, they would tell the kids
that the gifts were brought by the Christ Child himself. Now,
how do you say Christ's child in Luther's German language,
(19:34):
christ Kindall. Well, Luther's attempts failed, but christ Kindle got
swallowed up by Christmas and got transformed into Chris Kringle,
yet another endearing name for the big man in the
red suit. So why did Luther declara war on Saint
Nick He did because it wasn't mentioned in the Bible.
(19:57):
One of the messages of the Protestant or Protestant Reformation
was go back to the Bible, don't add to it,
don't subtract from it. A part of the logic behind
that argument was expressed by an American Puritan of a
later generation, Ezra Styles, who was one of the first
presidents of Yale College, who said, this, had it been
(20:18):
the will of Christ that the anniversary of his Nativity
should have been celebrated, he would have at least let
us know the day. By the seventeenth century, Christian reformers
were losing patience with the rowdier Christmas traditions. In sixteen
fifty two, after overthrowing King Charles, the First England's new
(20:39):
Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas. Ministers who preached about
the Nativity on Christmas Day could be imprisoned. Churches risked
fines if they tried to decorate their buildings. The law
said that shops must stay open on Christmas as if
it were any other business day, but Christmas would have
an equally hard time in New England. During the early
(21:02):
seventeenth century, the newly formed Puritan colony of Massachusetts wanted
no part of the holiday, and in sixteen fifty nine
it banned Christmas two and it stayed that way for
over two decades. Here again is Ace Collins.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
You know you really do not want an old fashioned Christmas.
And the reason you don't want an old fashion in
Christmas in the United States and Great Britain is because
if you go back before eighteen forty, Christmas literally was
Marty Graun steroids. I mean it is a combination of
also a bit of Halloween mixed in. But the old
song that everybody sings to this day, we wish you
(21:41):
a merry Christmas. There's a line in that song that
looks confusing, we won't leave until we get some. Well,
back in England and the United States, there would be
drunken bands of men in the sixteen seventeen and eighteen
hundreds that on Christmas Eve would go to the wealthy
sections of town and they would sing that, and then
they would put in there what they wanted. Usually it
(22:02):
was ale or money, you know, And then the line came, we.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Won't go until we got some.
Speaker 6 (22:08):
We won't go until we got some.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
We won't go until we got some, so bring some
out here.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
Therefore, in England and the United States, Christmas Eve was
a time when you kept the women and children at home.
You did not want them out on the streets.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
The city of New.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
York and Boston, for instance, tried to have curfews, and
they put extra police on the street to protect people
during Christmas. And unless you were a Lutheran or a Catholic,
you ignored Christmas altogether. In the United States, Congress met
on Christmas. The President's office was open on Christmas. The
(22:49):
Senate met on Christmas up until about eighteen forty eighteen fifty,
and they did it because America ignored Christmas.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
I'll bring us some figure pudding, Yes, some figure puddy. Oh,
bring us some figui puddy and bring it out here.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
During the Revolutionary War, America had still not yet embraced Christmas,
which in one instance was a blessing. One of the
key and most inspiring battles of the Revolution was the
Battle of Trenton. This battle has been immortalized in the
famous painting of Washington crossing the Delaware as he boldly
stands at the front of the boat next to the
(23:28):
American flag. Washington made that crossing on Christmas seventeen seventy six.
One of the primary reasons that the Americans were able
to prevail was because they surprised the Hessians the German
mercenaries who worked for the British at Trenton, New Jersey,
because they were all drunk. They had been celebrating Christmas,
(23:51):
but the Americans did not. In spite of the early
success at outlawing Christmas in the New World, boatloads of
immigrants soon overpowered the wishes of the Puritans. The anti
Christmas laws may have remained on the books, but they
were soon ignored. But as America matured, so did its
(24:11):
Christmas customs, thanks to the efforts of two very gifted
New Yorkers in the eighteen hundreds. Clement Clark Moore was
a professor of Oriental and Greek literature, as well as
divinity and biblical learning at the General Theological Seminary in
New York City. Saint Peter's Episcopal Church was developed on
(24:33):
land donated by Moore, land we now know as the
Chelsea Neighborhood, and in his spare time, Moore wrote poetry
for pleasure. In eighteen twenty two, Clement Clark Moore had
an idea that would change Christmas forever. Moore wrote a
fifty six line poem for his four children he called
(24:56):
a Visit from Saint Nicholas. Here's as Collins we know.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
It now, is twas the Night before Christmas. That poem,
which was just for his children to give them a
grasp of what Christmas was like in Germany and Austria,
ultimately was published in American newspapers. And here's one of
the most interesting things about it. It was the businesses
first that seized upon this. They thought, presence, we can
(25:23):
find a way to sell families gifts for children, and
they jumped on it. As a matter of fact, they
put these various Saint Nick's in stores starting in eighteen
forties and eighteen fifties to draw children in. By the way,
the Saint Nick's they put in stores looked nothing like
the Santa Claus that we have today. Most of them
were tall, and they wore green, and they had weird
(25:45):
little hats, and they didn't look anything like the Santa
that we had. That we can thank Coca Cola for
what it amounts to as much as anything else is.
The churches also realized that once Christmas is folk was
not on drunkenness and parting, but on children. They could
open their doors in the United States for Christmas Eve services.
(26:09):
The government eventually declared Christmas a holiday, and so literally speaking,
in the United States, it was Santa Claus that saved
Christmas for Christians.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Thanks to Moore's poem, one could say Santa had become
America's national saint.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
And you've been listening to the story of the real story,
the real reasons behind our Christmas seasons, Christmas Lights, Saint Nick,
Chris Kringle, Santa Claus himself, these stories. Well, now we
know a little more. I know I'm learning more by
the minute here and by the way, we always welcome
your stories here on our American Stories, send them to
(26:49):
our American Stories dot com. We love telling the stories
of this country, and we love telling the story of
the traditions of this country. When we come back, more
of this remarkable story, the unknown and untold story, the
story of the real reasons behind our Christmas season here
on our special Christmas episodes celebrating the season, here on
(27:11):
our American Stories. And we continue with our American Stories
(27:39):
and our special Christmas Season episodes, and we hope you're
enjoying them as much as we enjoyed making them. Let's
pick up where we last left off with Clement Clark
Moore's revolutionary poem we now Know is the Night before Christmas.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
Here's Greg Hanglar Moore's inspiration.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
We're two legendary christ Smith's figures of the Old World.
One was Saint Nicholas, the fourth century bishop renowned for
gift giving, legendary for leaving presents and stockings and the
other was cinter Claus, the Dutch version of Saint Nicholas.
Ciner Claus had merged a bit with Odin, the Norse
pagan god of Yule, who flew through the sky on
(28:20):
an eight legged horse. Both old world legends were rich
in details, many of which Moore chose to leave out.
One amission was a bizarre, dark devil like sidekick of
Saint Nicholas named Crampus. Crampis brought a switch to punish
naughty children or worse.
Speaker 11 (28:42):
Ho there, Crampus, there are two naughty children in the
house down the block. Why don't you pay them a
little visit choting center. That's what I'm here for. Maybe
later we can meet it to pea garden. Go gellum Crampus.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Here's historian of folklore Mario Christo.
Speaker 12 (29:07):
The half goat, half demon figure has often been described
as the anti Saint Nicholas. It is believed that Crampus
accompanies Saint Nicholas during Christmas, punishing those children who have misbehaved,
in contrast to Saint Nicholas, who rewards the world behaved children.
Crampus has been feared and celebrated in folklore for hundreds
(29:29):
of years, and his appearance is that of nightmares, with
large bearing horns, dark hair, sharp fangs, and a long
pointed tongue. He carries around chains which are thought to
be symbolic of the Christian Church binding the devil. As
well as these chains, Crampus carries a bundle of birch
(29:50):
sticks used to swat misbehaving children. Saint Nicholas would reward
the wear behaved children with gifts and presents, and he
would leave the misbe children with a lump of coal.
This would signal to Crimpus which children were to be
whipped and beaten. On occasion, Crimpus would throw misbehaving children
(30:10):
into his sack a basket and take them down to
his lair in the underworld.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
But Clement Clark Moore's Saint Nick embodied only good. Moore
introduced several new characteristics for Santa. He dressed him in
American fur, gave him a pipe, a huge belt, and
portrayed him not as a priest but a jolly, dimbled
elf with a twinkle in his eye. On his back,
he toted a sack full of toys, and Moore also
(30:37):
gave him a sleigh that he flew through the sky
led not by a horse, but by eight tiny reindeer, but.
Speaker 13 (30:45):
A miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Deer, each with its own name.
Speaker 13 (30:52):
Now Dagger, now Danzer, now Branza, and Vixen on comet on, Cubian,
on Dunda and Blipson.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Moore's poem, which has become the most famous poem in
the English language, enthralled nineteenth century Americans. It created a
new kind of Christmas, neither rowdy nor religious, but centered
on home and family. In the decades that followed, artists
would expand on Moore's imagery, but his would be the
(31:30):
vision that would endure. As iconic as Clement Clark. Moore's
Santa was, he still wasn't the fully formed Chris Kringle
we know today. This credit goes to another New Yorker illustrator,
Thomas Nast. He took more Santa and produced the definitive
version for generations to come. Here's political cartoonist Steve Brodner.
Speaker 14 (31:55):
He's most famous for inventing the Republican elephant. He's most
famous who were developing the Democratic donkey, which had been
there before, but he made the donkey a jackass. Uncle
Sam is developed by Thomas Nast. Uncle Sam existed before
in cartoons, but Nast really turns him into his own character.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Nast also transforms Moore's jolly old Elf into someone taller
and grander. In the middle of the Civil War, in
eighteen sixty two, one of America's major magazines, Harper's Weekly,
commissioned Nast to draw its Christmas illustrations. Nast gave Santa
the full flowing white beard, the red coat with the
(32:38):
white trim and black boots, the buckled belt, and a pipe.
Nast also gave Santa his own workshop, the Naudi and
nice List, and plants him on the north Pole. Here
again is Christmas historian Ace Collins.
Speaker 5 (32:54):
During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was so impressed with
this new Santa that a man named Nast had drawn
in Harper's wiekly of this Elf visiting with Federal troops
around a battlefield campfire on Christmas Eve. That the President
wanted children on both sides of the Mason Dixon Line
to know that Santa Claus stood for the preservation of
the Union. It is said that Nance's drawing had a
(33:16):
dramatic effect on morale in the North during that long
cold and bloody winter. We owe the look of Santa
today to Hayden Sunbloom, who was an artist in the
nineteen twenties and thirties and forties for Coca Cola. Hayden
Sunbloom's drawings became so attached to Father Christmas that literally
(33:40):
all across the globe, Santa looks like those old Coca
Cola advertisements.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
By the mid nineteenth century, the Christmas tree, a variation
of the ancient Norse custom, became the centerpiece to the
family oriented American Christmas, all because of one picture. On
December twenty third, eighteen, the London Illustrated News published an
image entitled Christmas Tree at Windsor Castle. The illustration depicted
(34:08):
the young Queen Victoria and her husband, the German born
Prince Albert, and their five children gathered around a Christmas
tree illuminated by candles and topped by an angel, and
this was all part of Albert's German tradition. England fell
in love with it immediately, and this illustration of the
Victorian Christmas Tree received a second life in America in
(34:31):
December eighteen fifty when an altered version of it appeared
in an influential American magazine. These alterations were made in
order to give it a distinctly American twist. Gone were
Victorious tiara and Albert sash and mustache. The caption simply
read the Christmas Tree. The Royal yule Tide had been
(34:54):
transformed into an all American Christmas. Just six years later,
in in eighteen fifty six, President Franklin Pierce was putting
one up in the White House. For as long as
we can remember, we bring in our greens and turn
on the lights. We hang our stockings and sing our
(35:15):
carols in church and in the streets. Amidst the chaos.
We even find time to rejoice at the birth of
a child two thousand years ago. Well, let's end this
story with these words from Ace Collins, author of Stories
Behind the Best Loved Songs of Christmas and Stories Behind
(35:37):
the Great Traditions of Christmas.
Speaker 5 (35:40):
Christmas is a time machine. Christmas is the only thing
that we have that's a part of our culture that
comes back and visits us for a month or more
each year. Therefore, every song and every tradition that is
a part of our lives, when we hear that song
or we see that Christmas ornament, we are transported back
(36:04):
to a time when we were much younger. It brings
out the child in us. We smell smells, we see sights,
we hear things otherwise would have been lost forever without
the tradition and the sounds of Christmas. Grandparents come alive,
the smells of their kitchens come alive, getting your first
(36:28):
Christmas present comes alive. All of those songs and traditions
become that time machine that transports us back to a
moment when we were loved and we were cherished, and
something magical happened, And thank goodness, we celebrated each and
every year for five or six weeks so that magic
(36:49):
can once again embrace us to realize that family is
still there in our hearts and our minds and our memories.
That's what makes Christmas different than the any other holiday
that we will ever experience or have.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Overhead for our American stories, I'm Greg Hengler, wishing you
and your family a very merry Christmas and.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Great job as always to Greg, and a special thanks
to all the contributors who play their part in this
remarkable story.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
And it's an ongoing story, but we hear all.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
The story of every tradition we know from Christmas lights
what a story just by itself. I mean, when there
was no electricity, there were no Christmas lights. So Edison
plays a role, Tesla plays a role, and we've told
stories about both, and the interconnectedness of all of this
is remarkable. But it is unimaginable to tell the story
of America without telling the story of Christmas and how
(37:43):
it's come to be from where it was. I mean,
the idea that we didn't celebrate Christmas, I didn't know that.
And by the way, we are always looking for your
stories here on our American Stories, and around this time
of the year we love to hear special Christmas stories
for our next season. Send them to our American stories
(38:04):
dot com. The story of Christmas, the real story behind
the Christmas traditions here in this great country, Here on
our American Stories
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American Stories,
and welcome to our very special Christmas episodes. And we
love doing this at this time of year every year
to remind everybody why we're celebrating this season. Here's Greg
Hangler with the real story of our cherished Christmas holiday.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Ah Christmas, Up goes the tree and on go the lights.
An exciting season of presents and parties only a Scrooge
could hate. But where did all our traditions start? Why
do we bring huge evergreen trees into our homes? How
do we get Santa and his eight tiny reindeer? We
are about to pull back the curtain to unveil the
(00:54):
hidden history of our cherished holiday. These days, cities and
towns see to be dressing up earlier and earlier for
the Christmas season. And there are lights, lots and lots
of lights.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Two hundred and fifty strands of lights one hundred individual
bulbs per strand for a grand total of twenty five
thousand imported Italian twickle lights.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Twenty five thousand.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Drumroll, please, here's Ace Collins, author of Stories Behind the
Best Loved Songs of Christmas and Stories behind the Great
traditions of Christmas.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
Christmas trees would not be the same without Christmas lights
and yes, for hundreds of years there were Christmas trees
with no lights on him. As a matter of fact,
a man named Johnson, who worked for Thomas Edison, realized
that there was another way to use the light bulb
other than just illuminating a house. And he created a
strand of multicolored lights that twinkled ironically enough and flashed
(01:55):
and put them on his tree in the last twenty
years of the eighteen hundreds, and people came by from
everywhere to look at this magical picture in his window
of this tree with these lights. And he was such
an inventor. As a matter of fact, his tree actually
turned as well, so they had many, many reasons to
be impressed with it. Journalists from all of the United
(02:18):
States were sent east to report this story. What ultimately
happened was people who were wealthy wanted lights. Well, it
took a lot of money to buy lights. It would
not be until the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties when
a couple of different American companies developed very cheap lights
that you could put on trees for a dollar or two,
(02:38):
and that is when it came from being a rich
person's toy to a part of a standard American Christmas
and those lights on the tree. Initially people would put
seven lights on a tree. Why seven, because that's all
there was on a strand. Then they made strands that
you could hook into each other, and they started growing
(02:59):
to where now many people have thousands of lights on
their tree.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
The Christmas story is one we all know. After a
rude refusal by a local innkeeper, Mary and Joseph bedded
down in a barn in Bethlehem, where they gave birth
to a sun, the Son of God. Those are the
biblical origins of Christmas. But centuries before Jesus walked the earth,
early Europeans were celebrating light and birth in the darkest
(03:25):
days of winter. Every December, on the shortest day in
the year, when the earth was tilted furthest from the
sun came the winter solstice. It marked the darkest day
of the year, but also the time when the promise
of longer days gave cause to celebrate. To honor the occasion,
ancient Norse tribes held a twelve day festival. Here's the
(03:48):
director of Nordic's studies at the University of Colorado doctor
Jackson Crawford.
Speaker 6 (03:54):
Their holiday was called Yol, which also survives in the
form of an English word Yule, which is cognate with
the Norse word. We know that the festival contained a
lot of feasting and drinking, legally, that there was a
minimum amount of alcohol that had to be consumed by
each free man, and whereas measurements in the sagas are
(04:15):
not always very clear or very strictly defined, this amount,
as near as I can figure, it would be about
four gallons over the course of those three nights, so
a pretty considerable amount, leading to the only culture I'm
aware of in which you might have been pulled over
by the cops for drinking too little.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Fathers and sons dragged home the biggest log they could
find and set it on the fire. This Yule log
burned for all twelve days of the feast, and they
brought evergreens, furs, and holly into their homes. Over the centuries,
the concept grew, and later it was co opted into
our modern Christmas tree custom. Today, picking out a tree
(04:54):
as a family tradition, and in any given year, American
farmers are growing three one hundred and fifteen million trees
on fifteen thousand Christmas tree farms. One San Antonian couple
finds theirs at Pop and Noel's Christmas Tree Farm, which
has been in business for over forty years. Here's what
they look for in a tree.
Speaker 7 (05:17):
Just we look for the shape, you know, the fullness
of the tree, and we try to stay around six
seven feet to have the smell of the tree in
the house. It just feels more christmasy.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
So what does any of this have to do with
the birth of Jesus two thousand years ago? After all?
The Nativity, derived from the Latin word natal, which means birth,
is where the story of Christmas all begins. There are
two different sources from the New Testament for the Nativity.
There's the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke.
(05:52):
They tell us two different sets of things about Jesus birth.
And what we do is we put these two stories
together to get the full picture, which we call the Nativity.
Here's Archbishop Fulton Sheen with the story.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Mary and Joseph set out from the village of Nazareth
for the village of Bethlehem. Mary is now with child
waiting birth he searched for a place where he to
whom heaven and earth belonged, might be born. Certainly thought Joseph,
and there would be room in the village inn. The
(06:27):
inn is the gathering place of public opini, the rallying
place of the popular and the successful. But there's no room.
And the place where the world gathered stable Ah, that
is a place for outcasts, be ignored and the forgotten.
(06:48):
Shepherds and wise men came to visit him. Shepherds they
who know they know nothing. Wise they who know they
do not know everything.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
And you're listening to the real reasons behind our Christmas
season and to merely hear Fulton Sheen on the air,
what a blessing for all of us. This was a
voice that Americans heard across the country. When we come
back more of the real reasons behind our Christmas season
here on our American Stories. Lie Hibibi here, the host
(07:32):
of our American Stories. Every day on this show, we're
bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories from
our big cities and small towns.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
But we truly can't do the show without you.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not
free to make If you love what you hear, go
to Ouramerican Stories dot com and click the donate button.
Give a little, give a lot. Go to Ouramericanstories dot
com and give. And we continue with our American Stories
(08:11):
and we've been uncovering the reasons behind the Christmas season.
Let's pick up where we last left off with the
biblical origins of Christmas.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Here's Greg Hengel.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Matthew's Gospel gives us the Star of Bethlehem and the
wise Men, and no, contrary to popular belief, there were
not three wise men. The Bible only mentions that they
brought three gifts for baby Jesus, gold, frankinceens, and myrrh,
but the exact number of wise men is not included
in the scriptures. This is the first example of Christmas
(08:44):
gift giving, but nowhere in the New Testament is it
recorded when the birth actually happened. One of the few
things that all scholars seem to agree on is that
Jesus wasn't born in wintertime. Now, I know that's a
terrible thing to say, but let me explain. The early
followers of Jesus Christ weren't concerned with marking his birthday,
(09:07):
partially because they expected his imminent return, but this didn't
prevent early Christian scholars and present day historians from trying
to speculate when he was born. The one thing you
will get from their estimates on Christ's birth is that
they all occur in the springtime, because one of the
few details you'll find in the gospel accounts of the
(09:29):
birth of Jesus Christ is that it was a time
when the shepherds were with their flocks in the fields.
That could not have been in December, because what we
do know about the traditions of ancient Judaea is that
at that time shepherds took their flocks indoors so they
wouldn't get cold at night starting in November, and they
(09:49):
wouldn't bring them back out again until March. So how
did Jesus end up with the birthday on December twenty fifth.
Long before Jesus was born, Romans celebrated many pagan holidays,
especially in December. Here's scholar of religion Andrew Henry.
Speaker 8 (10:07):
Saturnalia is probably the most famous Roman holiday, which may
have something to do with its proximity to Christmas. But
what is Saturnalia? Quick summary? Saturnalia was the Roman festival
of the god Saturn. It began on December seventeenth with
a mass public sacrifice at the Temple of Saturn, followed
by several days of feasting, gambling, drinking, and most notably,
(10:28):
the role reversal between slaves and slave owners, a holiday
when slaves were encouraged to dine with their slavers, talk
back to them, and even make them serve the slaves.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
The second Roman party was New Year's. It lasted five
days and it was quite enjoyable as well. And in
between Saturnalia and New Year's there was a birthday for
a Roman god, Mithris, on December twenty fifth. So how
do we get from Mithris to Santa Here's Reverend Ken
and Jim Rosenthal, president and founder of the Saint Nicholas Society.
Speaker 9 (11:04):
The idea of Santa Claus. It comes from a long tradition,
and Santa Claus was a person, a real person, and
he had a real name, and his name was Nicholas.
Saint Nicholas was born in a place called Patara in
what is now Turkey. At a very young age, his
parents died. They happened to be very wealthy, so Nicholas
(11:26):
was well cared for for the future. Financially, and because
he had very few relatives, he was sent off to
a monastery to live with his uncle, who was a priest.
His whole being would be transformed. Why because he saw
people coming to the clergy, to the monks for help.
So he was ordained to the priesthood, and he was
(11:48):
a priest for a short time before he actually would
be made a bishop. And there's a famous story of
Nicholas helping three girls who would have been sold into
prostitution because their father did not have enough money for
dowries for them, and Nicholas comes to the rescue. He
hears about the story, and there we have the legend
(12:10):
of the climbing up on the chimney and dropping gold
in three nights consecutively, one bag of gold for each girl,
as they sought to have dowries and to be married.
The first night he gets away with it, he does it.
It drops into the stocking hanging by the chimney. The
second night, the father and the girls are so so
(12:32):
surprised because now one girl was saved, and now a
second girl. They wake up in the morning and there's
another bag of gold. The father decides to stay up
at night and see who this gift giver is. And
sure enough, the third bag of gold goes into the stocking,
and the father runs out and he's confronted by a
man in a cape, and it's good old Saint Nicholas.
(12:56):
And he falls on his knees and says, Nicholas, thank you,
thank you, thank you, And Nicholas says, don't thank me,
thank God, and don't tell anybody. He became, by legend
penniless because he gave everything away. He dies in three
point forty three in office as a bishop. It is
through him that we have many of the traditions that
(13:17):
we love at Christmas time. One the bishop's staff, the
candy cane, something that reminds us of his role as
a leader in the church. We have the gold coins
chocolate coins we get now, but in his day there
are real gold coins, and he gave them to people.
He becomes the figure of someone known as Santa Claus,
(13:37):
or in certain parts of the world, Father Christmas.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
After Christianity became Rome's official religion in the fourth century,
leaders chose to absorb pagan traditions rather than outlaw them.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
But in a prelude to.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Those who complain that it's such a shame we don't
celebrate Christmas the way they used to. That Christmas has
been commercialized. Well, sixteen centuries ago, Archbishop Gregory of Constantinople
urged that the Christmas celebration be conducted after a heavenly
and not an earthly manner, and he warned his congregants
(14:13):
against feasting to excess, dancing, and crowning the doors. Here
again is Ace Collins.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
One of the most interesting traditions, and I think maybe
the most fascinating tradition I have found, is missletoe, the
kissing plant. How did that become a part of Christmas?
The early missionaries did something that I thought was so brilliant.
They took the culture that was already there and found
a way to explain the Gospel to heathen people. When
(14:42):
they got to the Vikings and the Celts, they discovered
that these people looked up in trees in the winter time,
and they looked at the missiletoe plant, and they thought
it was this mysterious, wonderful sense of power. Here was
this green plant growing out of what looked like a
dead piece of wood. Well, they were so enamored with
(15:02):
mistletoe that they would not fight battles in force with mistletoe.
It was known as the plant of peace. Well, the
early missionaries looked at these plants that were green, and
in Europe had both white and red berries, And as
they were sharing the gospel, they pointed to that tree
and said, see that living sprig coming out of that
(15:25):
dead piece of wood. That represents Christ. On the crost
he came down, he lived again. That green represents the
everlasting life that you can receive from accepting Christ as
your savior. The white berries represent the purity of his life.
The red berries represent the blood He shed for you.
When these people became Christians, they fought so much of
(15:48):
that imagery created by these missionaries reinterpretation of mistletoe that
they would put it over babies cribs to remind them
of their faith, put it over their doors to signify
that they were Christians. And they thought so much of it,
and they wanted their young people to remember the lessons
(16:09):
of Christ's life and his faith so deeply that when
couples got married, they got married underneath a missiletoe plant.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
Well, what is.
Speaker 5 (16:20):
The last thing that happens in a marriage ceremony? You
kiss each other nowadays, we've lost the story and it's
been replaced as the kissing plant.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
At Christmas, the Church continued to absorb various ancient traditions
in what emerged were two experiences of Christmas, one sacred
and one secular. Each of these Christmases had their own music, just.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Like we have today.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Here's historian doctor James Palmer and Jim Rosenthal.
Speaker 10 (16:51):
We have stories from the fifteenth century about people singing
carols in the backs of churches and being asked to
leave by the priests who thought that they were inappropriate.
Speaker 9 (17:03):
They are very important. It's like stained glass. They tell
a story, and they do it in a non judgmental way,
and so people enjoy them. They were started basically as
as drinking songs and the songs that people would sing
in pubs and fairs and carnivals, and many of the
tunes come from those kind of traditions. But what do
(17:25):
they say, Hark the herald angels sing glory to the
newborn King. Charles Wesley, some of the greatest theologians of
all time give us the texts of these carols, and
they're the kind of things that we keep with us
for the rest of our life. We memorize them just
by nature of hearing them all the time, and they
become so important to us.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
And you're listening to stories behind the stories of our
Christmas traditions.
Speaker 4 (17:50):
These stories continue and.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Our special Christmas celebration here on our American stories, and
we continue with our American stories and the real reasons
behind our Christmas season. Let's pick up when we last
(18:16):
left off. Beginning in the fifteenth century, medieval Christmas carols
were gaining popularity. The holiday was establishing roots in both
the sacred and the secular traditions.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Let's continue with Greg Hangler.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
But medieval Caroline was not just about caroline. It was
about drinking. At every door, revelers begged for a gulp
from the household punch bowl, getting drunker with every note
they sang. Besides singing, they could also dance or act
a rude drama, mocking propriety and challenging the social order,
(18:51):
which was a reflection of the Saturnalia holiday. But all
of the celebration and merriment didn't sit well, particularly after
the protest Reformation. One of the hallmarks of Martin Luther's
message was to clear away from the entire church calendar
all the feast days and Saints days. Saint Nicholas Feast
Day was one of the most popular on the Catholic
(19:14):
Church calendar, perhaps because it also involved gift giving. So
what Martin Luther suggested was this, instead of telling kids
about Saint Nicholas bringing gifts, they would tell the kids
that the gifts were brought by the Christ Child himself. Now,
how do you say Christ's child in Luther's German language,
(19:34):
christ Kindall. Well, Luther's attempts failed, but christ Kindle got
swallowed up by Christmas and got transformed into Chris Kringle,
yet another endearing name for the big man in the
red suit. So why did Luther declara war on Saint
Nick He did because it wasn't mentioned in the Bible.
(19:57):
One of the messages of the Protestant or Protestant Reformation
was go back to the Bible, don't add to it,
don't subtract from it. A part of the logic behind
that argument was expressed by an American Puritan of a
later generation, Ezra Styles, who was one of the first
presidents of Yale College, who said, this, had it been
(20:18):
the will of Christ that the anniversary of his Nativity
should have been celebrated, he would have at least let
us know the day. By the seventeenth century, Christian reformers
were losing patience with the rowdier Christmas traditions. In sixteen
fifty two, after overthrowing King Charles, the First England's new
(20:39):
Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas. Ministers who preached about
the Nativity on Christmas Day could be imprisoned. Churches risked
fines if they tried to decorate their buildings. The law
said that shops must stay open on Christmas as if
it were any other business day, but Christmas would have
an equally hard time in New England. During the early
(21:02):
seventeenth century, the newly formed Puritan colony of Massachusetts wanted
no part of the holiday, and in sixteen fifty nine
it banned Christmas two and it stayed that way for
over two decades. Here again is Ace Collins.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
You know you really do not want an old fashioned Christmas.
And the reason you don't want an old fashion in
Christmas in the United States and Great Britain is because
if you go back before eighteen forty, Christmas literally was
Marty Graun steroids. I mean it is a combination of
also a bit of Halloween mixed in. But the old
song that everybody sings to this day, we wish you
(21:41):
a merry Christmas. There's a line in that song that
looks confusing, we won't leave until we get some. Well,
back in England and the United States, there would be
drunken bands of men in the sixteen seventeen and eighteen
hundreds that on Christmas Eve would go to the wealthy
sections of town and they would sing that, and then
they would put in there what they wanted. Usually it
(22:02):
was ale or money, you know, And then the line came, we.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Won't go until we got some.
Speaker 6 (22:08):
We won't go until we got some.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
We won't go until we got some, so bring some
out here.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
Therefore, in England and the United States, Christmas Eve was
a time when you kept the women and children at home.
You did not want them out on the streets.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
The city of New.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
York and Boston, for instance, tried to have curfews, and
they put extra police on the street to protect people
during Christmas. And unless you were a Lutheran or a Catholic,
you ignored Christmas altogether. In the United States, Congress met
on Christmas. The President's office was open on Christmas. The
(22:49):
Senate met on Christmas up until about eighteen forty eighteen fifty,
and they did it because America ignored Christmas.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
I'll bring us some figure pudding, Yes, some figure puddy. Oh,
bring us some figui puddy and bring it out here.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
During the Revolutionary War, America had still not yet embraced Christmas,
which in one instance was a blessing. One of the
key and most inspiring battles of the Revolution was the
Battle of Trenton. This battle has been immortalized in the
famous painting of Washington crossing the Delaware as he boldly
stands at the front of the boat next to the
(23:28):
American flag. Washington made that crossing on Christmas seventeen seventy six.
One of the primary reasons that the Americans were able
to prevail was because they surprised the Hessians the German
mercenaries who worked for the British at Trenton, New Jersey,
because they were all drunk. They had been celebrating Christmas,
(23:51):
but the Americans did not. In spite of the early
success at outlawing Christmas in the New World, boatloads of
immigrants soon overpowered the wishes of the Puritans. The anti
Christmas laws may have remained on the books, but they
were soon ignored. But as America matured, so did its
(24:11):
Christmas customs, thanks to the efforts of two very gifted
New Yorkers in the eighteen hundreds. Clement Clark Moore was
a professor of Oriental and Greek literature, as well as
divinity and biblical learning at the General Theological Seminary in
New York City. Saint Peter's Episcopal Church was developed on
(24:33):
land donated by Moore, land we now know as the
Chelsea Neighborhood, and in his spare time, Moore wrote poetry
for pleasure. In eighteen twenty two, Clement Clark Moore had
an idea that would change Christmas forever. Moore wrote a
fifty six line poem for his four children he called
(24:56):
a Visit from Saint Nicholas. Here's as Collins we know.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
It now, is twas the Night before Christmas. That poem,
which was just for his children to give them a
grasp of what Christmas was like in Germany and Austria,
ultimately was published in American newspapers. And here's one of
the most interesting things about it. It was the businesses
first that seized upon this. They thought, presence, we can
(25:23):
find a way to sell families gifts for children, and
they jumped on it. As a matter of fact, they
put these various Saint Nick's in stores starting in eighteen
forties and eighteen fifties to draw children in. By the way,
the Saint Nick's they put in stores looked nothing like
the Santa Claus that we have today. Most of them
were tall, and they wore green, and they had weird
(25:45):
little hats, and they didn't look anything like the Santa
that we had. That we can thank Coca Cola for
what it amounts to as much as anything else is.
The churches also realized that once Christmas is folk was
not on drunkenness and parting, but on children. They could
open their doors in the United States for Christmas Eve services.
(26:09):
The government eventually declared Christmas a holiday, and so literally speaking,
in the United States, it was Santa Claus that saved
Christmas for Christians.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Thanks to Moore's poem, one could say Santa had become
America's national saint.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
And you've been listening to the story of the real story,
the real reasons behind our Christmas seasons, Christmas Lights, Saint Nick,
Chris Kringle, Santa Claus himself, these stories. Well, now we
know a little more. I know I'm learning more by
the minute here and by the way, we always welcome
your stories here on our American Stories, send them to
(26:49):
our American Stories dot com. We love telling the stories
of this country, and we love telling the story of
the traditions of this country. When we come back, more
of this remarkable story, the unknown and untold story, the
story of the real reasons behind our Christmas season here
on our special Christmas episodes celebrating the season, here on
(27:11):
our American Stories. And we continue with our American Stories
(27:39):
and our special Christmas Season episodes, and we hope you're
enjoying them as much as we enjoyed making them. Let's
pick up where we last left off with Clement Clark
Moore's revolutionary poem we now Know is the Night before Christmas.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
Here's Greg Hanglar Moore's inspiration.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
We're two legendary christ Smith's figures of the Old World.
One was Saint Nicholas, the fourth century bishop renowned for
gift giving, legendary for leaving presents and stockings and the
other was cinter Claus, the Dutch version of Saint Nicholas.
Ciner Claus had merged a bit with Odin, the Norse
pagan god of Yule, who flew through the sky on
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an eight legged horse. Both old world legends were rich
in details, many of which Moore chose to leave out.
One amission was a bizarre, dark devil like sidekick of
Saint Nicholas named Crampus. Crampis brought a switch to punish
naughty children or worse.
Speaker 11 (28:42):
Ho there, Crampus, there are two naughty children in the
house down the block. Why don't you pay them a
little visit choting center. That's what I'm here for. Maybe
later we can meet it to pea garden. Go gellum Crampus.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Here's historian of folklore Mario Christo.
Speaker 12 (29:07):
The half goat, half demon figure has often been described
as the anti Saint Nicholas. It is believed that Crampus
accompanies Saint Nicholas during Christmas, punishing those children who have misbehaved,
in contrast to Saint Nicholas, who rewards the world behaved children.
Crampus has been feared and celebrated in folklore for hundreds
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of years, and his appearance is that of nightmares, with
large bearing horns, dark hair, sharp fangs, and a long
pointed tongue. He carries around chains which are thought to
be symbolic of the Christian Church binding the devil. As
well as these chains, Crampus carries a bundle of birch
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sticks used to swat misbehaving children. Saint Nicholas would reward
the wear behaved children with gifts and presents, and he
would leave the misbe children with a lump of coal.
This would signal to Crimpus which children were to be
whipped and beaten. On occasion, Crimpus would throw misbehaving children
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into his sack a basket and take them down to
his lair in the underworld.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
But Clement Clark Moore's Saint Nick embodied only good. Moore
introduced several new characteristics for Santa. He dressed him in
American fur, gave him a pipe, a huge belt, and
portrayed him not as a priest but a jolly, dimbled
elf with a twinkle in his eye. On his back,
he toted a sack full of toys, and Moore also
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gave him a sleigh that he flew through the sky
led not by a horse, but by eight tiny reindeer, but.
Speaker 13 (30:45):
A miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Deer, each with its own name.
Speaker 13 (30:52):
Now Dagger, now Danzer, now Branza, and Vixen on comet on, Cubian,
on Dunda and Blipson.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Moore's poem, which has become the most famous poem in
the English language, enthralled nineteenth century Americans. It created a
new kind of Christmas, neither rowdy nor religious, but centered
on home and family. In the decades that followed, artists
would expand on Moore's imagery, but his would be the
(31:30):
vision that would endure. As iconic as Clement Clark. Moore's
Santa was, he still wasn't the fully formed Chris Kringle
we know today. This credit goes to another New Yorker illustrator,
Thomas Nast. He took more Santa and produced the definitive
version for generations to come. Here's political cartoonist Steve Brodner.
Speaker 14 (31:55):
He's most famous for inventing the Republican elephant. He's most
famous who were developing the Democratic donkey, which had been
there before, but he made the donkey a jackass. Uncle
Sam is developed by Thomas Nast. Uncle Sam existed before
in cartoons, but Nast really turns him into his own character.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Nast also transforms Moore's jolly old Elf into someone taller
and grander. In the middle of the Civil War, in
eighteen sixty two, one of America's major magazines, Harper's Weekly,
commissioned Nast to draw its Christmas illustrations. Nast gave Santa
the full flowing white beard, the red coat with the
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white trim and black boots, the buckled belt, and a pipe.
Nast also gave Santa his own workshop, the Naudi and
nice List, and plants him on the north Pole. Here
again is Christmas historian Ace Collins.
Speaker 5 (32:54):
During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was so impressed with
this new Santa that a man named Nast had drawn
in Harper's wiekly of this Elf visiting with Federal troops
around a battlefield campfire on Christmas Eve. That the President
wanted children on both sides of the Mason Dixon Line
to know that Santa Claus stood for the preservation of
the Union. It is said that Nance's drawing had a
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dramatic effect on morale in the North during that long
cold and bloody winter. We owe the look of Santa
today to Hayden Sunbloom, who was an artist in the
nineteen twenties and thirties and forties for Coca Cola. Hayden
Sunbloom's drawings became so attached to Father Christmas that literally
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all across the globe, Santa looks like those old Coca
Cola advertisements.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
By the mid nineteenth century, the Christmas tree, a variation
of the ancient Norse custom, became the centerpiece to the
family oriented American Christmas, all because of one picture. On
December twenty third, eighteen, the London Illustrated News published an
image entitled Christmas Tree at Windsor Castle. The illustration depicted
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the young Queen Victoria and her husband, the German born
Prince Albert, and their five children gathered around a Christmas
tree illuminated by candles and topped by an angel, and
this was all part of Albert's German tradition. England fell
in love with it immediately, and this illustration of the
Victorian Christmas Tree received a second life in America in
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December eighteen fifty when an altered version of it appeared
in an influential American magazine. These alterations were made in
order to give it a distinctly American twist. Gone were
Victorious tiara and Albert sash and mustache. The caption simply
read the Christmas Tree. The Royal yule Tide had been
(34:54):
transformed into an all American Christmas. Just six years later,
in in eighteen fifty six, President Franklin Pierce was putting
one up in the White House. For as long as
we can remember, we bring in our greens and turn
on the lights. We hang our stockings and sing our
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carols in church and in the streets. Amidst the chaos.
We even find time to rejoice at the birth of
a child two thousand years ago. Well, let's end this
story with these words from Ace Collins, author of Stories
Behind the Best Loved Songs of Christmas and Stories Behind
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the Great Traditions of Christmas.
Speaker 5 (35:40):
Christmas is a time machine. Christmas is the only thing
that we have that's a part of our culture that
comes back and visits us for a month or more
each year. Therefore, every song and every tradition that is
a part of our lives, when we hear that song
or we see that Christmas ornament, we are transported back
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to a time when we were much younger. It brings
out the child in us. We smell smells, we see sights,
we hear things otherwise would have been lost forever without
the tradition and the sounds of Christmas. Grandparents come alive,
the smells of their kitchens come alive, getting your first
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Christmas present comes alive. All of those songs and traditions
become that time machine that transports us back to a
moment when we were loved and we were cherished, and
something magical happened, And thank goodness, we celebrated each and
every year for five or six weeks so that magic
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can once again embrace us to realize that family is
still there in our hearts and our minds and our memories.
That's what makes Christmas different than the any other holiday
that we will ever experience or have.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Overhead for our American stories, I'm Greg Hengler, wishing you
and your family a very merry Christmas and.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Great job as always to Greg, and a special thanks
to all the contributors who play their part in this
remarkable story.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
And it's an ongoing story, but we hear all.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
The story of every tradition we know from Christmas lights
what a story just by itself. I mean, when there
was no electricity, there were no Christmas lights. So Edison
plays a role, Tesla plays a role, and we've told
stories about both, and the interconnectedness of all of this
is remarkable. But it is unimaginable to tell the story
of America without telling the story of Christmas and how
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it's come to be from where it was. I mean,
the idea that we didn't celebrate Christmas, I didn't know that.
And by the way, we are always looking for your
stories here on our American Stories, and around this time
of the year we love to hear special Christmas stories
for our next season. Send them to our American stories
(38:04):
dot com. The story of Christmas, the real story behind
the Christmas traditions here in this great country, Here on
our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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