History for the Holidays V

(Hosts: Christine, Lucy, Kristin)

Celebrate the end of 2025 with our annual selection of historical stories about the holiday season!  

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
[Christine] Hi everyone, Christine here. I love when we get to the History for the
Holidays time of the year, because it means I get to learn about things that happened in
the past surrounding my favorite season. You all know that I often draw from newspapers,
but this year I did something a little different. This time, I am drawing from an academic journal.
The journal in question is The American Journal of Nursing, more specifically volume 24,

(00:26):
which was published in December of 1924. I know you might be thinking, what could you
possibly find in an academic journal from 1924 that would be exciting for the holidays now?
Well, this volume contained a piece under the byline Edna L. Foley, RN and Department Editor,
that covers how Visiting Nurse Associations handled Christmas with their patients. It’s a

(00:50):
short article, only about three pages long, but it gives us some insight into how nurses in the 1920s
made sure their patients had something to enjoy for Christmas. The article came about because
the journal reached out to eight Visiting Nurse Associations to ask how they helped those who
were unwell find joy at Christmastime. Today, I’m going to share with you some of what they found:

(01:12):
One association noted that if the patient was a “shut-in”, that is, someone who doesn’t leave the
house, they would gift them a plant. If a child had cardiac issues, the nurses made sure that
they were given a toy that was fun and gave them entertainment while they were required to remain
in bed.The Chicago Visiting Nurse Association began its planning in November, creating lists

(01:34):
of families that would benefit from receiving special dinners and toys for their children
with the journal noting that, “Christmas is the happiest season of the year for the patients and
both happiest and busiest for the nurses.” I would bet that much hasn’t changed in the modern day.
In one location it took a full year to plan two parties for children.

(01:55):
They would attend the events, held in park field-houses, and find presents wrapped and
labeled with their names under a large tree. There would be ice cream and cake provided too, which
would for sure have made the children very happy.In addition to these little anecdotes, there are
more detailed ones provided as well. For example, apparently in 1923, a “tiny little woman, so tied

(02:19):
up by arthritis deformans that only the constant devotion of her husband keeps her alive” received

the gift of her dreams (02:25):
a blue silk dress with  a high neck and long sleeves. The dress, we are
told, was found by one of the Directors, who went to multiple stores to find the appropriate garment
in the correct size. Once the dress was purchased, “It was taken to the patient with a holly wreath
and a couple of pink roses and after contemplating it joyfully, she announced that it was pretty

(02:47):
enough to be buried in and that she would keep it for that purpose.” Don’t worry, though,
dear listeners, because those around her convinced her not to save the dress for when she died, and
she began to wear it for festivals and Sundays.Another fond memory that is shared of “Long
Ago Christmases” had to do with the Children’s Hospital in Boston. There,
the wards would be festively decorated and there was “the triumphal procession led by the cook and

(03:12):
a brandy-burning pudding around the gift-decked table.” The gifts included dolls and “pillow-cases
stuffed with teddy-bears of the finest quality”--exactly how it should be, if you ask me.
There was also special treatment for those registered with the Tuberculosis Clinic. One
such example, which I will give you fully in the words of the article, was that, “On Christmas Eve,

(03:34):
some jolly volunteers (including a young physician from Holland who had come over to study American
methods of combating tuberculosis) trimmed a tree in a home where there were four children,
all registered at the Tuberculosis Clinic, and the longshoreman tuberculosis father
and the little worried, cardiac mother did their best to conceal their own childlike

(03:55):
joy in the tree by describing Christmas as they both remembered it in their Newfoundland home.”
Finally, lest you think the wonderful nurses who do all of this work be neglected, we are assured
they were not. We are told that for the nurses, books were the gifts most often received. Some of
the titles that were given to the nurses include Cabot’s Social Service and the Art of Healing and

(04:18):
What Men Live By, Gardner’s History of Public Health Nursing, Addams’ Twenty Years at Hull
House, and Wald’s House on Henry Street. I have not personally read any of them, and even though I
love books, it doesn’t seem as exciting as a fancy new dress that you’ve always dreamed of, but I am
certainly not one to say no to a gift especially when that gift is a book. Whatever the nurses felt

(04:42):
when they received their books, I hope they at least did feel appreciated just as I hope their
patients truly felt the warm and fuzzy feelings that reading this article made me feel. Whether
you celebrate anything or nothing this December, I wish you the happiest end of the year possible.
[Lucy] Io, Saturnalia! You’re probably familiar with this phrase, whether from

(05:04):
middle school history or elementary Latin classes or both. Saturnalia is one of ancient
Rome’s most famous holidays — and one of its most misunderstood. It was celebrated in mid-December,
in the days leading up to the winter solstice. Like a similar festival in ancient Greece,
it was linked to the winter planting season, and thus to the god who oversaw
the harvest — in the Roman pantheon, Saturn. It was not only a celebration of future harvest,

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but also a time, in the darkest days of winter, for suspending work, business,
and traditional social rules. Even the statue of Saturn himself, in his temple on the Forum,
was unbound so that he could — at least symbolically — join the fun.
Clearly, a good time was had by all. From the 17th to the 20th, or 21st, or eventually

(05:50):
even 23rd of December (extended party times!) this is what Saturnalia was. And then there’s
what Saturnalia wasn’t, which is where the misconceptions come in. Even the Encyclopedia
Britannica will say that “the influence of the Saturnalia upon the celebrations of Christmas
and the New Year has been direct,” even though, conspicuously, that’s not when Christmas is,

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and Roman new year celebrations (on the kalends of January!) had very different customs.
The Roman holiday that is connected to Christmas, interestingly, is the dies solis invictus nati. To

which you may be saying (06:21):
the what? The dies solis  invictus nati, or, in English, “the day on which
the unconquered Sun was born.” This holiday was, in fact, on December 25th. And what I
find most interesting about this is that scholars don’t agree about which holiday — the dies solis
invictus nati or Christmas — came first. In the late Roman Empire, obviously, Christianity and the

(06:44):
worship of the sun god coexisted. But the origins of both holidays are somewhat unclear. Christmas
was not one of the earliest Christian holidays; early Christian authors argued that only sinners
(not saints) celebrated their birthdays, and that the idea of gods having birthdays was silly. Once
it did start being celebrated, it took a while for consensus on a date for its observance to

(07:05):
come together. The earliest link of Christmas with December 25th is found in a Roman calendar made
in 354, which says “Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea on the eighth day before the kalends of
January.” And the leading historian of the sun in Roman art and religion — an extremely cool
topic — argues that creating a special sun holiday on December 25 was the idea of the Emperor Julian,

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reacting to the December observance of Christmas, rather than the other way around. What’s very
clear is that by the late fourth century, people within the Roman Empire were disagreeing about it.
A Roman Christian treatise of that era argues that while some people call the date only “the
birthday of the invincible,” or “the birthday of the sun,” no one is more invincible than Christ,

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who was invincible even by death, and who is also the Sun of Justice. … thus proving that Latin
wordplay is really irresistible. The influential bishop Augustine of Hippo, with slightly less
wordplay, also noted in a Christmas sermon that December 25 was celebrated for both reasons.

So, in conclusion (08:06):
Saturnalia and Christmas were  definitely different things in the late Roman
Empire, though both holidays are, along with the dies solis invictus nati, obviously a good
reason to celebrate when everything is cold and dark and terrible. Whatever you’re celebrating,
gentle listeners, may you have winter holidays filled with warmth and light.

(08:28):
[Kristin] Hello, Footnoting History friends, it’s Kristin, here with a little bit about the history
of Hanukkah and some of the laws surrounding Jewish practice from the 14th century through
today. If you’ve listened to our previous episodes for History for the Holidays, you
may remember me talking about Moses Maimonides’ rules for lighting the Hanukkah lamps. But of

(08:49):
course Maimonides wasn’t the only one writing on Jewish laws and Hanukkah traditions – and
lamps and candles aren’t the only traditions Jewish communities have. Joseph ben Ephraim Karo
was a prominent Sephardic rabbi writing in 16th-century Spain and many Orthodox Jewish
communities consider him to be something of a gold standard for Jewish law, or halakha. People often

(09:13):
refer to him at “The Author” or “Our Master,” he’s that important. Karo was born in 1488 in Toledo,
Spain, but he and his family were part of the big expulsion of Jews in 1492 brought
to you by King Ferdinand and Isabella. He and his family first went to Portugal, then to Morocco,

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then to places in the Ottoman Empire, until he finally settled in Safed, Israel in 1536.
He was also very into Jewish mysticism and Safed was a center for that at the time.
Karo is particularly respected because he preserved a lot of Jewish traditions from
Spain after that expulsion when so much else was lost. Mostly he’s famous for writing a

(10:00):
work called “Shulchan Aruch,” which translates to “Set Table.” And it’s kind of a metaphor but it’s
also kind of what the work is – Jewish law can be very confusing, there are a lot of disagreements,
and this was supposed to be handy reference. It was very useful to people – however it did not
eliminate disagreements between Jewish people over interpretations of laws. That’s probably never

(10:25):
going to happen – but it was an incredibly popular work that was read and copied and reprinted a lot.
So much so that Moses Isserles would write glosses on the work and also add in Ashkenazic traditions
to the text. Moses Isserles was born in Kraków Poland around 1530 and was also a very prominent

(10:48):
Jewish writer and rabbi for European Jews at that time – you sometimes hear him go by the
nickname Rama or Rema (which stands for the first letters of Rabbi Moshe Asserles – Isserles was
sometimes spelled with an A instead of an I) – and Rama can mean “lofty” or “height” in Hebrew,
so it has a double meaning for Isserles. Isserles wrote a lot of other stuff too,

(11:13):
but for our purposes today, he worked on Joseph Karo’s Set Table – and he called his additions
“HaMapah,” or “The Tablecloth,” because it was supposed to be complimentary to Karo’s
“Table,” not be replacing it. The Tablecloth was also extraordinarily popular and from 1578 on,
basically all of Karo’s “Set Tables” also had “The Tablecloth.” It’s a pretty big work that is

(11:36):
measured in volumes – four if you don’t also have other commentaries attached to it but there are
often other commentaries attached to it. It was a little too much and too out of reach for many

people. Enter (11:49):
Solomon Ganzfried, a 19th-century  prodigy in Jewish law who was born orphaned in
Ungvár, Hungary in 1804. He saw that most people just couldn’t tackle the Table and the Tablecloth,
so he made a condensed version that written in a vernacular-style Hebrew and was meant to be

(12:11):
accessible by the general Jewish population in 1864 which he called “Kitzur Shulchan Aruch,” or
“The Abbreviated Set Table.” And it covers a lot of laws and traditions for daily life, holidays,
life rituals – but he definitely covers Hanukkah – and the work remains incredibly popular today

(12:32):
The Abbreviated Table has a lot to say on how and where and when to light the
Hanukkah lamps – but since we talked about Maimonides and the Hanukkah lamps previously,
I’m going to tell you some of the other ones. So. First, according to Karo, Isserles, and Ganzfried,
you must recite the story of the miracles of Hanukkah to your household – you gotta

(12:53):
tell the story about Judah Maccabee and how the candles in the Temple that was reclaimed
after a war with the Greeks burned for 8 nights when they only had enough oil for one and they
were able to rededicate the Temple. Also, you should generously give charity, or tzedakah,
because these days are about improving your character and you can really improve yourself

(13:14):
by giving to the poor – and really really improve yourself by giving to the poor so that the poor
can study Torah. You are not allowed to fast on Hanukkah, which is good because there are a lot
of delicious things to eat. You can fast the day before if you want – good sense, maybe, to prep
for all that fried food – and you can fast after the end of the holiday – which is maybe necessary

(13:37):
after eating all that fried food. You can work during the holiday (or the days that don’t fall
on Shabbat) – except for women – and this is my favorite rule and my favorite explanation.
Women are not supposed to work “the entire time the lights are burning” and this is the reason:
it’s because there was a “harsh decree affecting the daughters of Israel [during the Maccabean

(14:00):
period].” What follows is an elaboration/retelling of the Judith story that got changed a bit to fit
into the Hanukkah narrative. In the original, Judith is a widow and the story takes place
centuries before the Hanukkah events. This version is a little different and is originally found in

(14:20):
the 14th-century writings of Rabbi Nissim who was from Gerona, Spain before it was picked up
by Joseph Karo for the Set Table and so on. So … the Abridged Set Table says that any virgin to be
married was required to have sex with the monarch, who must have been a super busy guy. But one day,

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a very beautiful woman who was the daughter of the high priest Johanan [we don’t get her actual
name here but it’s Judith] was summoned to the king and she agreed to go along with this custom.
Then – and this is pretty good – she fed him a lot of cheese until the king became very thirsty. And

(15:03):
then he drank a lot of wine, got really drunk, and passed out. At which point this beautiful
daughter of Johanan cut off the king’s head and brought it to Jerusalem. I guess it was easy to
get out of the palace with a severed head. Just … walk like you know where you’re going and no one
will stop you. When the king’s general saw what happened, he and his army fled. Over the years,

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the story got further details about how the woman was related to the Maccabees and the foods
the woman fed the king – and in one, it’s cheese cooked into a pancake, basically a cheese latke,
which sounds pretty awesome. Certainly, this custom was still popular by the Abridged Table’s
time, but already by the 14th-century, in Europe, there was a strong tradition of eating cheese

(15:50):
during Hanukkah because of this association with Judith-not-Judith – and the cheese people were
probably eating in medieval Europe was from a goat or a sheep, and not a cow because that was
what they had access to. When Eastern European Jewish immigrants came to America, the latke
turned more to a potato treat, but Hanukkah still had – and has – dairy-based meals. So this year,

(16:15):
enjoy those blintzes, the kugels, and the donuts stuffed with sweet cheese. Sour cream has always
been the superior choice for latke toppings, but this is just one more reason why. Although,
if someone at the party keeps insisting you eat more cheese and have more wine,
maybe it’s time to go. Happy Hanukkah, everyone! Thank you from the entire Footnoting History Team

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for being with us for another wonderful year and we hope that no matter what you celebrate,
the next year has wonderful things in store for you. Happy Holidays, everyone.