Inventing the Christmas Tree

Inventing the Christmas Tree PDF Author: Bernd Brunner
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300186525
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 109

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Book Description
Explores the roots of the Christmas tree tradition, tracing customs from the Middle Ages to the present day to reveal how it first became part of mainstream American culture and has since become popular worldwide.

Inventing the Christmas Tree

Inventing the Christmas Tree PDF Author: Bernd Brunner
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300186525
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 109

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Book Description
Explores the roots of the Christmas tree tradition, tracing customs from the Middle Ages to the present day to reveal how it first became part of mainstream American culture and has since become popular worldwide.

Inventing Christmas

Inventing Christmas PDF Author: Jock Elliott
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
Looks at the origins of modern Christmas traditions, which evolved over a twenty-five year period, beginning in 1823 with the publication of Clement Clarke Moore's "A Visit from St. Nicholas," to 1848.

Christmas in America

Christmas in America PDF Author: Penne L. Restad
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199923582
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
The manger or Macy's? Americans might well wonder which is the real shrine of Christmas, as they take part each year in a mix of churchgoing, shopping, and family togetherness. But the history of Christmas cannot be summed up so easily as the commercialization of a sacred day. As Penne Restad reveals in this marvelous new book, it has always been an ambiguous meld of sacred thoughts and worldly actions-- as well as a fascinating reflection of our changing society. In Christmas in America, Restad brilliantly captures the rise and transformation of our most universal national holiday. In colonial times, it was celebrated either as an utterly solemn or a wildly social event--if it was celebrated at all. Virginians hunted, danced, and feasted. City dwellers flooded the streets in raucous demonstrations. Puritan New Englanders denounced the whole affair. Restad shows that as times changed, Christmas changed--and grew in popularity. In the early 1800s, New York served as an epicenter of the newly emerging holiday, drawing on its roots as a Dutch colony (St. Nicholas was particularly popular in the Netherlands, even after the Reformation), and aided by such men as Washington Irving. In 1822, another New Yorker named Clement Clarke Moore penned a poem now known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," virtually inventing the modern Santa Claus. Well-to-do townspeople displayed a German novelty, the decorated fir tree, in their parlors; an enterprising printer discovered the money to be made from Christmas cards; and a hodgepodge of year-end celebrations began to coalesce around December 25 and the figure of Santa. The homecoming significance of the holiday increased with the Civil War, and by the end of the nineteenth century a full- fledged national holiday had materialized, forged out of borrowed and invented custom alike, and driven by a passion for gift-giving. In the twentieth century, Christmas seeped into every niche of our conscious and unconscious lives to become a festival of epic proportions. Indeed, Restad carries the story through to our own time, unwrapping the messages hidden inside countless movies, books, and television shows, revealing the inescapable presence--and ambiguous meaning--of Christmas in contemporary culture. Filled with colorful detail and shining insight, Christmas in America reveals not only much about the emergence of the holiday, but also what our celebrations tell us about ourselves. From drunken revelry along colonial curbstones to family rituals around the tree, from Thomas Nast drawing the semiofficial portrait of St. Nick to the making of the film Home Alone, Restad's sparkling account offers much to amuse and ponder.

A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol PDF Author: Charles Dickens
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1105116190
Category : Cities and towns
Languages : es
Pages : 162

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Book Description
A miser learns the true meaning of Christmas when three ghostly visitors review his past and foretell his future.

How Christmas Became Christmas

How Christmas Became Christmas PDF Author: Nathaniel Parry
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476647089
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
In some respects, the contrasts of Christmas are what make it the most delightful time of the year. It is a time of generosity, kindness and peace on earth, with broad permission to indulge in food, drink and gifts. On the other hand, Christmas has become a battleground for raging culture wars, marred by debates about how it should be celebrated and acknowledged as a uniquely Christian holiday. This text argues that much of the animosity is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the holiday's core character. By tracing Christmas's origins as a pagan celebration of the winter solstice and its development in Europe's Christianization, this history explains that the true "reason for the season" has as much to do with the earth's movement around the sun as with the birth of Christ. Chapters chronicle how Christmas's magic and misrule link to the nativity, and why the carnival side of the holiday appears so separated from traditional Christian beliefs.

A Kosher Christmas

A Kosher Christmas PDF Author: Joshua Eli Plaut
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813553814
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
Christmas is not everybody’s favorite holiday. Historically, Jews in America, whether participating in or refraining from recognizing Christmas, have devised a multitude of unique strategies to respond to the holiday season. Their response is a mixed one: do we participate, try to ignore the holiday entirely, or create our own traditions and make the season an enjoyable time? This book, the first on the subject of Jews and Christmas in the United States, portrays how Jews are shaping the public and private character of Christmas by transforming December into a joyous holiday season belonging to all Americans. Creative and innovative in approaching the holiday season, these responses range from composing America’s most beloved Christmas songs, transforming Hanukkah into the Jewish Christmas, creating a national Jewish tradition of patronizing Chinese restaurants and comedy shows on Christmas Eve, volunteering at shelters and soup kitchens on Christmas Day, dressing up as Santa Claus to spread good cheer, campaigning to institute Hanukkah postal stamps, and blending holiday traditions into an interfaith hybrid celebration called “Chrismukkah” or creating a secularized holiday such as Festivus. Through these venerated traditions and alternative Christmastime rituals, Jews publicly assert and proudly proclaim their Jewish and American identities to fashion a universally shared message of joy and hope for the holiday season. See also: http://www.akosherchristmas.org

Waiting for Christmas

Waiting for Christmas PDF Author: Kathleen Long Bostrom
Publisher: Zonderkidz
ISBN: 0310866995
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 35

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Book Description
Little children throughout the world wait impatiently for Christmas to arrive. As parents know, it can seem as if the days just crawl by. Now your family can learn and put to use Advent traditions from the country of Germany during the Christmas season. No doubt mothers have long been inventing ways to keep young children occupied during the Advent season—like Gerhard Lang’s mother, who in the mid-1800s helped her young son count the days on a calendar of cookies. In 1908, the grownup Gerhard, a printer, created the first commercial Advent calendar, twenty-four tiny pictures in the form of a calendar, from his fond memories. Waiting for Christmas tells the story of the young Gerhard—a story children everywhere will recognize as their own—and teaches us that we must wait patiently as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Inventing Christmas

Inventing Christmas PDF Author: Jock Elliott
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
Looks at the origins of modern Christmas traditions, which evolved over a twenty-five year period, beginning in 1823 with the publication of Clement Clarke Moore's "A Visit from St. Nicholas," to 1848.

The Man Who Invented Christmas

The Man Who Invented Christmas PDF Author: Les Standiford
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307449734
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
As uplifting as the tale of Scrooge itself, this is the story of how Charles Dickens revived the signal holiday of the Western world—now a major motion picture. Just before Christmas in 1843, a debt-ridden and dispirited Charles Dickens wrote a small book he hoped would keep his creditors at bay. His publisher turned it down, so Dickens used what little money he had to put out A Christmas Carol himself. He worried it might be the end of his career as a novelist. The book immediately caused a sensation. And it breathed new life into a holiday that had fallen into disfavor, undermined by lingering Puritanism and the cold modernity of the Industrial Revolution. It was a harsh and dreary age, in desperate need of spiritual renewal, ready to embrace a book that ended with blessings for one and all. With warmth, wit, and an infusion of Christmas cheer, Les Standiford whisks us back to Victorian England, its most beloved storyteller, and the birth of the Christmas we know best. The Man Who Invented Christmas is a rich and satisfying read for Scrooges and sentimentalists alike.

Canadian Christmas Traditions

Canadian Christmas Traditions PDF Author: Mandryk, DeeAnn
Publisher: James Lorimer & Company
ISBN: 1459405609
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
Included in this book are 28 traditional recipes by Chef Jeff O'Neill, showcasing Canada's multicultural heritage, plus a special section of 18 Christmas recipes from across the country, highlighting Canada's regional diversity. The origin of a Canadian Christmas is a fascinating blend of different traditions and festivities. The stories behind the celebration originate from around the world, and paint a wonderful picture of a season of joy, faith, superstition, and celebration stretching back over thousands of years.