The History of Christmas

The History of Christmas PDF Author: Heather Lefebvre
Publisher: CF4Kids
ISBN: 9781527103344
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
History of Christmas from Bethlehem to today Bible readings, questions, recipes and activities Beautiful colour illustrations

The History of Christmas

The History of Christmas PDF Author: Heather Lefebvre
Publisher: CF4Kids
ISBN: 9781527103344
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
History of Christmas from Bethlehem to today Bible readings, questions, recipes and activities Beautiful colour illustrations

Christmas

Christmas PDF Author: Bruce David Forbes
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520933729
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
Written for everyone who loves and is simultaneously driven crazy by the holiday season, Christmas: A Candid History provides an enlightening, entertaining perspective on how the annual Yuletide celebration got to be what it is today. In a fascinating, concise tour through history, the book tells the story of Christmas—from its pre-Christian roots, through the birth of Jesus, to the holiday's spread across Europe into the Americas and beyond, and to its mind-boggling transformation through modern consumerism. Packed with intriguing stories, based on research into myriad sources, full of insights, the book explores the historical origins of traditions including Santa, the reindeer, gift giving, the Christmas tree, Christmas songs and movies, and more. The book also offers some provocative ideas for reclaiming the joy and meaning of this beloved, yet often frustrating, season amid the pressures of our fast-paced consumer culture. DID YOU KNOW For three centuries Christians did not celebrate Christmas? Puritans in England and New England made Christmas observances illegal? St. Nicholas is an elf in the famous poem "The Night Before Christmas"? President Franklin Roosevelt changed the dateof Thanksgiving in order to lengthen the Christmas shopping season? Coca-Cola helped fashion Santa Claus's look in an advertising campaign?

Christmas in America

Christmas in America PDF Author: Penne L. Restad
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199923582
Category : History
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.

Encyclopaedia Britannica

Encyclopaedia Britannica PDF Author: Hugh Chisholm
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Encyclopedias and dictionaries
Languages : en
Pages : 1090

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Book Description
This eleventh edition was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time and it is considered to be a landmark encyclopaedia for scholarship and literary style.

The World Encyclopedia of Christmas

The World Encyclopedia of Christmas PDF Author: Gerry Bowler
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
ISBN: 1551996073
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 1075

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Book Description
At last, a truly comprehensive look at Christmas and all of its customs with its long history around the world. The World Encyclopedia of Christmas contains articles on the history of Christmas baking, drinking, and merrymaking, and Christmas dramas, music, literature, art, and films. It includes entries on the evolution of the Christmas tree and the Christmas card, gift-giving, and decoration of church and home. There are profiles of the many gift-bringers, from Santa Claus to Babouschka, and miraculous tales of the numerous saints associated with the season. And there are histories of seasonal celebrations and folk customs around the world, from the United States to Japan, from Egypt to Iceland. Who, for example, knew the links between the Punch and Judy show and Christmas? That the medieval Paradise tree hung with tempting apples was the forerunner of the Christmas tree? About the Peerie Guizers, who terrorized the Shetland Islands, going door-to-door for Christmas charity? Or what Freudians make of our interest in Christmas stockings and Santa’s entrance through the chimney? There are detailed accounts of Wren Boys and Star Boys, mumming and wassailing, the Feast of Fools and the origins of eggnog. And of course stories of the Nativity and legends of the Magi. With beautifully illustrated accounts ranging from the pagan roots of Yuletide, through the birth of Christ, and the long and fascinating history of the festival ever since, The World Encyclopedia of Christmas, is a rich and continually surprising array of religious and secular history, trivia, literature, and art. This wonderful book deserves to find a home with every family that celebrates Christmas.

There Really is a Santa Claus - History of Saint Nicholas & Christmas Holiday Traditions

There Really is a Santa Claus - History of Saint Nicholas & Christmas Holiday Traditions PDF Author: William J. Federer
Publisher: Amerisearch, Inc.
ISBN: 9780965355742
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
"Includes U.S. president's Christmas addresses."

Christmas in the Crosshairs

Christmas in the Crosshairs PDF Author: G. Q. Bowler
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190499001
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
Is there a War on Christmas? This book surveys the history of the world's most popular festival and the never-ending battles it has engendered ever since its hotly-contested invention in the Roman Empire.

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.

Christmas in Germany

Christmas in Germany PDF Author: Joe Perry
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807833649
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
"Perry's work is original, comprehensively researched, and a major contribution to understanding the central importance of the evolution of a consumer culture in modern Germany. The scholarship is sound, impressive, and provocative."ùRudy Koshar, University of Wisconsin-Madison --

Christmas

Christmas PDF Author: Judith Flanders
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
ISBN: 1250118344
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
First published: Great Britain: Picador, 2017.