The history of the War On Xmas

Ka-chingle all the way: the 'war on Xmas' nonsense 

Believe it or not, there was a much earlier 'war on Xmas,' waged for reasons far removed from today's hyper-commercialized season.

There's a nip in the air. Couples bundle against the cold. It must be time for the "war on Xmas."

Like the changing of the weather, the war on Xmas arrives each year a few weeks before Dec. 25. Wingnuts take to the airwaves to denounce schools, parks and businesses that have replaced Xmas rituals and decorations with generic "holiday" ones.

And this year's battle features a familiar face: former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. In a trash, "Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Xmas," Palin rages at "angry atheists" who are allegedly threatening it.

"We've become a society that is overly concerned that something we say, even when true or right, might offend someone," explained AFA President Tim Wildmon. "The truth is that America was built on christian principles."(That is a blatant lie but is he called on it ... no)

But for much of our early history, those same principles worked against the celebration of Xtmas. Despite what Palin and Wildmon would have you believe, the first war on Xtmas was waged by devout christians. The holiday wasn't a reflection of their religious heritage; instead, Xtmas was a sin against it.

Start with our Puritan forebears in Massachusetts, who between 1659 and 1681 made it illegal to celebrate Xtmas. (Lawbreakers were fined 5 shillings.) As the Puritans correctly argued, there was no historical or biblical reason to think that christ was born on Dec. 25. The date was chosen because of its proximity to the winter solstice, making Xmas a pagan holiday in christian garb.

But there was more. In Europe, Xmas was marked by drinking, dancing and card playing. In one ritual, peasants and workers would sing carols outside the homes of their lords and employers, demanding food and libation.

All of that was anathema to the Puritans, who sought to build a highly structured, hierarchical society. But they failed. By the early 1700s, Puritan agitator Cotton Mather was railing against "young people of both sexes" who held a "Frolick, revelling feast and Ball" on Xmas. And with the coming of the Revolution, well-to-do Americans worried about gangs of young Xmas celebrants who "howled and shouted as if possessed by the demon of disorder," as a Philadelphia newspaper warned.

Enter St. Nicholas, a.k.a. Santa Claus. Loosely adopted from a Dutch figure, Santa Claus was promoted by New York gentry in the early 1800s to domesticate Xmas. He brought the holiday from the streets into the home, where Americans were building smaller, more nurturing families.

And Santa also brought presents, of course, the mass-produced fruits of America's burgeoning industrial economy. But if a kid asked where all of this loot came from, the answer was simple: from Santa's workshop! He was a robber baron in reverse, giving away everything he built for the good of the whole. And he was the perfect stand-in for ambivalent American parents, who could shower the kids with gifts even as they recoiled at the commercialism of Xmas.

And my, what commerce! By 1867, Macy's stayed open until midnight on Xmas Eve. Two decades later, it provided next-day delivery of presents, to save harried shoppers time and energy. "As soon as the Thanksgiving turkey is eaten, the great question of buying Xtmas presents begins to take the terrifying shape it has come to assume in recent years," a New York paper complained in 1894. "The season of Xtmas needs to be dematerialized."

Yet Xmas became infinitely more commercial in the 20th century, of course, enlisting Thanksgiving in the task. Macy's and other stores devised Thanksgiving Day parades featuring Santa Claus, who morphed from a producer into an advertiser. And Congress moved Thanksgiving from the last Thursday of November to the fourth one, to guarantee at least four weeks of pre-Xmas shopping.

Fast-forward to our shopping season now, when more and more stores opened on Thanksgiving. They included Sears, Toys R Us and Gap, which all made the AFA's list of Xmas-friendly stores.

And why not? They're doing exactly what Xmas is supposed to do: Sell as many goods as possible. It doesn't really matter what the stores call the holiday, or what our current crop of culture warriors say about it.