Bursting with detail, filled with subversive readings of such seasonal classics as "A Visit from St. Nicholas to the Christmas tree and, perhaps most radically, the practice of giving gifts to children. In this intriguing and innovative work of social history, Stephen Nissenbaum rediscovers Christmas's carnival origins and shows how it was transformed, during the nineteenth century, into a festival of domesticity and consumerism.ĭrawing on a wealth of period documents and illustrations, Nissenbaum charts the invention of our current Yuletide traditions, from St. The Puritans had their reasons, since Christmas was once an occasion for drunkenness and riot, when poor "wassailers extorted food and drink from the well-to-do. Anyone who laments the excesses of Christmas might consider the Puritans of colonial they simply outlawed the holiday.
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