The Battle for Christmas

A detailed Summary of The Battle for Christmas


In The Battle for Christmas, Stephen Nissenbaum traces how Christmas came to be celebrated and how Christmas has evolved and been made popular in America.

The Puritans in fact outlawed Christmas, which was celebrated much differently in the nineteenth century than it is today. New England, as well as many states, did not grant legal recognition to Christmas until the middle of the nineteenth century arguing that Christ's birth was not on December 25th. Christmas was set at December 25 in the fourth century, not for any biblical link with Christ's birth, but because the church hoped to annex and Christianize the existing midwinter pagan feast. This season was based on the seasonal agricultural plenty, with the year's food supply newly in store, and nothing to do in the fields. In pre-Christian and even post-Christian ag


ricultural societies, late December was a time of leisure and bountiful food. The harvest was in, meat was fresh, and beer was in surplus. After a period of hard work, the Christmas season was a time to relax and unwind, in other words, to "party." Nissenbaum says, "It was a time of heavy drinking when the rules that governed people's public behavior were momentarily abandoned in favor of an unrestrained 'carnival,' a kind of December Mardi Gras."

Nissenbaum challenges many modern day conceptions of where this holiday came from and what it meant. Nissenbaum confirms that, as most of us understand, the date of Jesus' birth is found nowhere in the Bible, and was chosen by the Church in an effort to co-opt pagan holidays that were traditionally held at the end of the year to coincide with the winter solstice.

With urbaniz

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Approximate Word count = 557
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Religion

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