How Santa Did Historically Change Christmas

Historic event! Book 2 A must. Santa is aging. World population has seen fast growth. What can be done to help him? Mrs. Claus is very concerned. As to Sandy, Santa's brother, who lives at the South Pole region, new Christmas plans are a must! Watch for a new book of the series each year. And soon to be introduced in book three, Santa and Sandy Claus's sister Sandra Claus! Thank you to those that voted and put your votes under the Christmas tree! That made it so much easier for Santa.

A poem about the visit that Santa Claus pays to the children of the world during the night before every Christmas.

Its Christmas Eve. A boy and girl set out on a cold night to do a favour for a neighbour. One of the children thinks Santa can help. But the other is far too smart to be taken in by all that kids stuff......

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

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.

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.

This is a comprehensive history of the world's midwinter gift-givers, showcasing the extreme diversity in their depictions as well as the many traits and functions these characters share. It tracks the evolution of these figures from the tribal priests who presided over winter solstice celebrations thousands of years before the birth of Christ, to Christian notables like St. Martin and St. Nicholas, to a variety of secular figures who emerged throughout Europe following the Protestant Reformation. Finally, it explains how the popularity of a poem about a "miniature sleigh" and "eight tiny reindeer" helped consolidate the diverse European gift-givers into an enduring tradition in which American children awake early on Christmas morning to see what Santa brought. Although the names, appearance, attire and gift-giving practices of the world's winter solstice gift-givers differ greatly, they are all recognizable as Santa, the personification of the Christmas and Midwinter festivals. Despite efforts to eliminate him by groups as diverse as the Puritans of seventeenth century New England, the Communist Party of the twentieth century Soviet Union and the government of Nazi Germany, Santa has survived and prospered, becoming one of the best known and most beloved figures in the world.

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?

Santa Claus is coming to town! No matter your religion, if you live somewhere other than the depths of the Amazon rainforest, you have heard of a jolly older gentleman named Santa Claus (although it is possible that Santa Claus has reached those sultry depths by now). Or perhaps you know him by his aliases, Saint Nicholas or Father Christmas. You may also know that Santa (he’s on first name basis with his friends) lives at the North Pole with his wife, Mrs. Claus, and countless elves who build toys year-round to deliver to good children all over the world via reindeer-pulled sleigh. (If you’ve been bad, you’ll be lucky to receive a lump of coal rather than a birch switch...) You can probably pick Santa out in a crowd: a bright red suit trimmed with white fur, impressive physical bulk (although considering all the treats and tipples he consumes, he’s practically svelte), an splendid white mustache-beard combination that strikes a nostalgic chord. But Santa’s image, cherished for years, is actually a composite of several traditions from different regions of the world. Look, we’re not saying that Santa isn’t real (what is “real,” anyway?), but he certainly did not spring fully-formed from the ice packs in the North Pole, intent on bestowing upon you the latest iPad (you have been very good this year). Santa has had quite a history and boasts quite the résumé: representing modern drink companies, living in medieval Italian cities, collecting funds for charity, and fulfilling the inventory for the wish lists of millions of children. He has been at the forefront of the so-called “War on Christmas” and served as a symbol of peace and goodwill, both domestically and overseas.

Who Is Santa Klaus? Just as the Christmas tree was brought over to this country by early German immigrants so Saint Nicholas, or Santa Klaus, came here in the train of the Dutch settlers of New York. He established himself first in the little island of Manhattan and then gradually spread all over the country. His Dutch origin is shown by the very name Santa Klaus, which is common alike to Holland and America, though it is elsewhere unknown. At first he was honored on his own day with the same observances that marked the festival in the Fatherland. Before the beginning of the nineteenth century St. Nicholas's day had been all but forgotten in New Amsterdam, and New Year's Eve was the occasion when he made his rounds as a gift bearer to the children. Later he transferred his activities to Christmas. To go further back, we know that even in the eighteenth century, when New York was still to a great extent Dutch in blood and in feeling, the little children of the Knickerbockers would gather expectant around the great hearth in the parlor on the eve of New Year and not on the eve of Saint Nicholas's feast. It was to Saint Nicholas they addressed the childish hymns and songs their forefathers had brought from Holland. It was about the middle of the nineteenth century that the funny men of America took the Saint under their special patronage. In Holland he had been austere and dignified, as became a bishop and a saint. In America he developed into the fat, jolly, pot-bellied old roisterer whom we all know and love and who reminds us at so many points of the fun loving Silenus of Pagan times. Undoubtedly it was the American, Clement C. Moore, who immortalized the figure and decided the model which all succeeding poets and artists have ever followed.