Podcast appearances and mentions of Stephen Nissenbaum

Where did the Christmas tree come from? Is it rooted in pagan traditions, or does it carry a deeper Christian significance? In this episode, we explore the intriguing history of the Christmas tree, tracing its origins and development over time. Discover how this beloved holiday tradition was viewed, especially in 17th and 18th-century New England, including early Christian perspectives on celebrating Christmas during that time. Finally, we address the big question: Should Christians include a Christmas tree in their celebration of Christ's birth? What do you think? Time Stamps: 00:00 Introduction 03:36 Three Legends about the Origin of the Christmas Tree 12:49 The Use of Trees by Pagan Religions 18:38 The Positive Use of Trees in Scripture 22:42 Possible Forerunners of the Christmas Tree 30:09 American and the Christmas Tree 49:41 Should Christians Use a Christmas Tree? Resources Used in the Episode: Bruce David Forbes, Christmas: A Candid History (2007) Stephen Nissenbaum, The Battle for Christmas (1997, Pulitzer Prize Finalist) Stephen Nissenbaum, Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, April 1996 Vol 106, Pt 1, pgs 79-164 (https://www.americanantiquarian.org/sites/default/files/proceedings/44539478.pdf). About the authors: Stephen Nissenbaum received his A.B. from Harvard College in 1961, his M.A. from Columbia University in 1963, and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1968. He has taught at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, since 1968, and is currently professor of history there. He has been the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Antiquarian Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the Charles Warren Center at Harvard. In addition, he was James P. Harrison Professor of History at the College of William and Mary, 1989–90. Active in the public humanities, he has served as member and president of the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, and as historical advisor for several film productions. The Battle for Christmas was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in History in 1997. Bruce David Forbes received his B.A. from Morningside College, his M.Div. from the Pacific School of Religion, and his Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary. He served as a professor of Religious Studies at Morningside College (now Morningside University), where he contributed significantly to the institution's academic life, including chairing the Religious Studies department. Over the course of his career, he has received multiple teaching awards and has been honored with grants reflecting his commitment to scholarship in the humanities. Forbes's work explores the intersection of religion and popular culture, with a particular focus on American religious life. In addition to Christmas: A Candid History, he has co-edited several important volumes, such as Religion and Popular Culture in America, and has participated as a speaker and consultant in public humanities programs, aiming to make the study of religion accessible and engaging to both academic and general audiences. If you have found the podcast helpful, consider ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠leaving a review on Itunes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠rating it on Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. You can also find ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Bible Sojourner on Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Consider passing any episodes you have found helpful to a friend. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠petergoeman.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more information on the podcast or blog. Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ shepherds.edu⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more on Shepherds Theological Seminary where Dr. Goeman teaches.

Hello Interactors,On the day before many around the world pull out ‘T'was the Night Before Christmas' to read to their kids, maybe drop a little context to the origins of this tale. This is an excerpt from a longer post I did in 2021 on Black Friday. It touches on how the rising wealth in New York leading up to 1900 brought about shifts in attitudes around how the powerful elite should deal with ‘the masses' of poor, and increasingly urban, immigrants. Included are themes emerging today like immigration, laws outlawing voting to non-property owners, and even calls for an end to democracy.‘T'was the Night Before Christmas' was intended for the elite literate ruling class. It can be interpreted as a nostalgic romantic tale about how Christmas should be less about sharing with ‘the unruly masses' — communally seeking good tidings — and more about barricading private homes from potential invasion and keeping your wealth to yourself. It's a fantasy about letting a poor, kind peddler in a red tattered coat labor to bring gifts to affluent kids, quietly and calmly through the chimney of a fancy New York apartment.Merry Christmas!CLOTHES WERE ALL TARNISHED WITH ASHES AND SOOTBut the dawn of a new century, and the industrial age, brought a shift in attitudes around Christmas. The elite, like in centuries past, distanced themselves from the occasion. As urban cities grew and jobs shifted from the farm to the factory, winter brought new dynamics to the onset of the season. Some factories closed in the cold months as did shipyards along frozen waters.This brought unemployment and idle time to laborers. Whereas historically wealthy farm owners were willing to amuse the working class in a societal roll reversal – through transient and theatrical wassailing – the urban elite power structures were unwilling to participate. But it didn't stop the working class from venting.The once faint mockery of their employers – imbued with subtle hints of revenge should they not offer them gifts, food, or alcohol – turned fierce and riotous in the 1800s. Papers in both England and the United States barely mention Christmas at all between 1800 and 1820. But that was about to change.In the first decade of 1800, one of New York's most influential men, John Pintard, became particularly peeved by the seasonal banditti. He reminisced on ‘better days' when the rich and the poor got drunk together. And while he wished his wealthy friends reveled more among themselves, he grew concerned that “the beastly vice of drunkenness among the lower laboring classes is growing to a frightful excess…”And in a familiar tone, echoed to this day by many, he feared “thefts, incendiaries, and murders—which prevail—all arise from this source.”  Which is why he helped create the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism. This was an organization that sought to curb money directed at care for the poor, but to also stop them from begging and drinking. The white elite ruling class of the 1820s –- as well as many in the 2020s – complained of what one New York paper described as, “[t]he assembling of Negroes, servants, boys and other disorderly persons, in noisy companies in the streets, where they spend the time in gaming, drunkenness, quarreling, swearing, etc., to the great disturbance of the neighborhood.”Pintard was also hopelessly nostalgic. He founded the New York Historical Society in 1804 and was instrumental in establishing Washington's Birthday, the Fourth of July, and Columbus Day as national holidays. Pintard also introduced America's icon of nostalgia, Santa Claus. Seeking a patron saint for the New York Historical Society, and for all of New York City, he commissioned an illustration to be painted of St. Nicholas giving presents to children. While the icon was not intended to be seasonal, it was nonetheless printed on December 6th, St. Nicholas Day, in 1810.He pined for the days when the rich and powerful could rule over what was becoming a burgeoning working class. In 1822, as Jefferson had just passed a law allowing non-property owners to vote, Pintard wrote to his daughter,“All power is to be given, by the right of universal suffrage, to a mass of people, especially in this city, which has no stake in society. It is easier to raise a mob than to quell it, and we shall hereafter be governed by rank democracy.… Alas that the proud state of New York should be engulfed in the abyss of ruin.”WHAT TO MY WONDERING EYES SHOULD APPEAR1822 was also the year his friend, and wealthy land owner, Clement Clark Moore, wrote what was to become the most influential Christmas poem ever: “A Visit from St. Nicholas” or as it is known today, “T'was The Night Before Christmas.”This single poem, written for the elite upper class, encapsulates the nostalgia of wassailing Pintard and his friends pined for, while self-indulgently feeling good about themselves for ‘giving to the needy.' Moore did this by substituting the unruly lower working class, begging for gifts from their master, with children expecting presents on Christmas morning.He kept the gift giving mysticism of the centuries old St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, but removed the judgmental elements of a Bishop who may make them feel guilty for maintaining class divide by making him “merry”, “droll”, “rosy”, and “plump.” He also made him a lower class “peddler”. And while Santa made a loud noise “on the lawn” with a “clatter”, just as a lower class wassailer would have, he was but a small and unthreatening “right jolly old elf” who kindly left toys he had labored over for the children.And he asked nothing in return. With a “wink of his eye” and a “finger aside his nose” (a gesture meaning “just between you and me”) Moore gave the privileged class, who were fearful of home invasions at Christmas time, assurance they “had nothing to dread.” All they needed to do, was keep their wealth within the family and buy their kids and friends gifts at Christmas time. Forget the poor, they thought, they're as hopeless as democracy.The vision and version of Christmas and Santa Claus that Moore provided his haughty affluent peers, in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, was soon to be read by a growing middle class and an increasingly literate lower class. That's as true then as it is today.And while Moore was a country squire who never worked a day in his life, and hated the gridding up of property in a growing New York City, he grew to love the money he earned selling off family property he inherited. Geographer Simeon DeWitt was chopping Manhattan into a Roman style grid to make room for a population that grew from 33,000 in 1790 to nearly 200,000 by the time Moore's poem was written in 1822. He even included a chimney in his poem for Santa to climb down as a way for city folk to better relate to a scene he'd rather have happened in his bucolic hills of a New York of yore – an area today we call Chelsea.Reference:The Battle for Christmas. A Social and Cultural History of Our Most Cherished Holiday. Stephen Nissenbaum. 1997 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit interplace.io

Hello Interactors,[This is a repost from last Christmas eve. It's a great story worthy of another share!]For all you Christmas celebrators out there, happy Christmas Eve. Since many will be gathering ‘round a Christmas tree, I thought I'd tell the story of its origin. And like so much of American history, it has ties to immigrants and slavery; but in this case — anti-slavery.As interactors, you're special individuals self-selected to be a part of an evolutionary journey. You're also members of an attentive community so I welcome your participation.Please leave your comments below or email me directly.Now let's go…A TREE SO YEE MAY BE FREE“If the morning drives are extended beyond the city, there is much to delight the eye. The trees are eased in ice; and when the sun shines out suddenly, the whole scene looks like one diffused rainbow,—dressed in a brilliancy which can hardly be conceived of in England. On days less bright, the blue harbour spreads in strong contrast with the sheeted snow which extends to its very brink.”These are the words of Harriet Martineau. She was a English writer, journalist, and social theorist who pioneered observational methods that came to influence the field of sociology. One of her more popular books came at the end of her travels through the United States in the 1830s titled, Retrospect of Western Travel. The passage above describes what she saw as she left the Boston city limits in the snow the winter of 1835.You may have images of her bundled up in a one horse open sleigh, over the hills she went, dashing all the way. But according to Martineau, you can let go of any such romantic inclinations. Here's her take on sleighing.“As for the sleighing, I heard much more than I experienced of its charms. No doubt early association has something to do with the American fondness for this mode of locomotion; and much of the affection which is borne to music, dancing, supping, and all kinds of frolic, is transferred to the vehicle in which the frolicking parties are transported. It must be so, I think, or no one would be found to prefer a carriage on runners to a carriage on wheels,—except on an untrodden expanse of snow. On a perfectly level and crisp surface I can fancy the smooth rapid motion to be exceedingly pleasant; but such surfaces are rare in the neighbourhood of populous cities. The uncertain, rough motion in streets hillocky with snow, or on roads consisting for the season of a ridge of snow with holes in it, is disagreeable, and provocative of headache. I am no rule for others as to liking the bells; but to me their incessant jangle was a great annoyance.”And if that's not enough to convince you, she offers up a quote from unknown source that puts a finer touch on the realities of sleighing.“Do you want to know what sleighing is like? You can soon try. Set your chair on a spring board out in the porch on Christmas-day: put your feet in a pail full of powdered ice: have somebody to jingle a bell in one ear, and somebody else to blow into the other with the bellows,—and you will have an exact idea of sleighing.”Martineau was on her way to a Christmas evening celebration at the home of a former Harvard German language professor, Charles Follen. Although, due to scheduling conflicts the event was actually on New Years Eve and not Christmas Eve. The cozy holiday scene that Martineau proceeds to unfold came to be the most, though not the first, read articulation of what came to be the center piece of American Christmas celebration – the Christmas tree.Follen was a German immigrant so perhaps it's not that surprising that a Christmas tree would feature prominently in her story. It's been a long held belief that German immigrants brought their time-honored Christmas tree tradition with them. Though, as we'll soon see, the evolution of the Christmas tree tradition in America paralleled that of Germany.Martineau's account of that evening, while factual, leaves out important historical details as to why she was celebrating Christmas with Follen and his family that night. These were two radical Unitarian abolitionists who bonded over their insistence that slavery be eradicated totally and immediately. Northerner's, and New England Unitarians, were split on the matter of abolition. Follen's convictions are what got him fired from Harvard a year prior.As for Martineau, she was a well known and respected journalist but not yet a public activist. But after attending a women's abolitionist meeting that November, she was convinced she needed to act. She was asked at that meeting to write publicly avowing her beliefs. Being one of the only women writers of her time to sustain herself through writing and still requiring access to America's mainstream elite for her book, she faced an ethical dilemma.Later she wrote, “I foresaw that almost every house in Boston, except those of the abolitionists, would be shut against me; that my relation to the country would be completely changed, as I should suddenly be transformed from being a guest and an observer to being considered a missionary or a spy.…”News leaked of her position on slavery and Boston newspapers ridiculed her. Their headlines spread across the country and she was forced to alter her itinerary. The event she was attending at Follen's home wasn't just a Christmas celebration, but an anti-slavery strategy session. That spring, she (in the company of Charles Follen) took to the road not as journalist, but as an activist.CHRISTKINDLE AND BELSNICKELHistorians and folklorists have determined that the first Christmas tree in America was most likely in the home of a German immigrant in Pennsylvania. But it's unlikely to have occurred anytime before 1810. The first known sketch of a family celebrating Christmas, featuring a small tree atop a table, was not printed until recent decades but dates to either 1812 or 1819.Recall from my November posts on the origins of Thanksgiving, this was also the time when St. Nicholas was also entering the picture in New York. The Christmas tree tradition was also just emerging in Germany at this very same time. The Christmas tree, like Santa Claus himself, wasn't a long held German tradition but a story told by a select group of elites who latched on to a small, isolated, and obscure holiday event that was occurring in what was then Strasbourg, Germany but is now part of France.It was established sometime in the 17th century as a quasi-religious way of judging children on the basis of them being naughty or nice. If you were nice you got a visit that night from Christkindle (i.e. the Christchild) and if you were naughty you got a visit from Hanstrapp; Strasbourg's equivalent of what became known as Belsnickle (roughly translated: St. Nicholas in Fur). This character has echo's of behavior seen by Wassailers during Thanksgiving celebrations where men, often of lower class, would dress up and go door to door, often times even welcoming themselves in. Perhaps this offers a clue into how Santa became a home invader. Though, should Belsnickle determine a child in the home had been naughty, he gifted the parents with a stick with instructions to whip the poor child.The Christmas tree tradition expanded beyond Strasbourg around 1750. Its spread may have been accelerated by a young up and coming writer, naturalist, and scientist, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1771. Recall from my October post, that by the dawn of the 18th century Goethe had established himself as the go-to guy by the German government for writing, organizing, and evangelizing his opinions and observations on everything from gardening, to parks management, to economics.He had spent some time in Strasbourg and “discovered in this city a new sense of “German” identity that transformed his larger cultural vision.” His 1774 novel, The Sufferings of Young Werther, is a story of a love triangle that ends tragically. And in the lead up to this tragedy, Goethe writes how young Werther “spoke of the pleasure the children would feel and remembered how in times long past he had himself been transported to paradise by the surprise opening of a door and the appearance of the decorated tree with its candles, sweets, and apples.”It wasn't until 1810 that the Christmas Tree tradition made it's way to Berlin. It was introduced in Munich in 1830 by the Queen of Bavaria. Goethe had inspired a string of writers publishing stories of Christmas trees that were disseminated throughout Europe and the United States. And it was all happening at the same time of the first recorded evidence of a Christmas tree in America – 1820.And then, in 1836, came the first printed image of a Christmas tree in America. It was titled “Christmas Eve” and was featured in a story called The Stranger's Gift. It was written, as you might expect, by a German immigrant. But not just any German immigrant. It was written by Herman Bokum, the professor who replaced Follen after Harvard let him go for his public opposition to slavery just one year earlier.YOUR BOUGHS CAN TEACH A LESSONAfter Follen lost his job at Harvard he was hired by a family to home school their two children. Follen strictly followed a progressive teaching method derived from a Swiss educational reformer named Johann Pestalozzi. Pestalozzi had a child-centered and directed educational philosophy. He believed every child is born with inherently good qualities and it's the teachers role to find them and cultivate them. It's unclear whether Follen's enemies convinced the family to reconsider, the family themselves had a change of heart, or Follen, ever dogmatic in his principles, refused to budge on his teaching approach, but two weeks before Christmas of 1835 he was terminated.It is in this context that Harriett Martineau attended the Christmas celebration in Follen's newly built home on the corner of Follen Avenue outside of Boston. Martineau did not mention Follen by name in her retelling of their Christmas tree celebration, only Follen's son who everyone called “Little Charley.” She writes,“I was present at the introduction into the new country of the spectacle of the German Christmas-tree. My little friend Charley, and three companions, had been long preparing for this pretty show…I rather think it was, generally speaking, a secret out of the house; but I knew what to expect…The tree was the top of a young fir, planted in a tub, which was ornamented with moss. Smart, dolls, and other whimsies, glittered in the evergreen; and there was not a twig; which had not something sparkling upon it… Charley looked a good deal like himself, only now and then twisting himself about in an unaccountable fit of giggling. I mounted the steps behind the tree to see the effect of opening the doors. It was delightful. The children poured in; but in a moment, every voice was hushed. Their faces were upturned to the blaze, all eyes wide open, all lips parted, all steps arrested. Nobody spoke; only Charley leaped for joy.”It was two years before Martineau's book was published. She continued her friendship with Follen until his tragic death in 1841. He was killed when a steamship he was traveling on exploded. His photograph hung on the wall of her home until she died in 1876.And in the intervening years of her book being published, a writer friend of theirs, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, wrote a fictional story called “New Years Day” that included a brief mention of a Christmas tree celebration akin to what actually took place at the Follens. It was published that same year, 1835, making it the first piece of American literature to mentioned a Christmas tree.It's unfortunate America's Christmas tree origin story doesn't start with the telling of Charles Follen and Harriett Martineau and their New Years Eve anti-slavery strategy meeting around the Christmas tree. Not only is their relationship full of intrigue, but the idea of the Christmas tree immortalized as an historic symbol of freedom from slavery seems an appropriate American Christmas tale. Perhaps the story of Follen and Martineau is what we should be reading to children every Christmas eve and not just T'was the Night Before Christmas.Both the story of the Christmas tree as a time-honored German cultural tradition and America's favorite Christmas time fable, T'was the Night Before Christmas, were largely fabricated and perpetuated by a select group of elites on both sides of the Atlantic.Clement Clark Moore, the author of T'was the Night Before Christmas, — and his reactionary New York Episcopalian Knickerbocker friends — were interested in imbuing their Christmas tales with aristocratic authority. In contrast, Bollen and his Unitarian Christmas tree literary acquaintances used the Christmas tree to add momentum to the swelling progressive reformist movement of the 1830s.Stephen Nissenbaum, in his book The Battle for Christmas, explains the similarities between the unfolding of these two events, American traditions, and these two men,“There were important similarities between the antislavery sensibility and the new attitude toward children. Abolitionists and educational reformers shared a joint empathy for people who were powerless to resist the wrath of those who wielded authority over them—slaves and children, respectively. (Both types of reformers had a particular abhorrence of the use of the lash as a form of punishment.)”He continues,“In fact, what Charles Follen did in 1835 is similar in that sense to what Clement Clarke Moore had done more than a decade earlier, although his reasons—Moore was a reactionary, Follen a radical—were profoundly different. But both men had reason to feel alienated from their respective communities, and both responded by turning inward, to their own children, and using Christmas as the occasion for doing so.”And in both cases, literature, and access to it, played a starring role. Nissenbaum, writes,“As it turns out, the most important channels through which the ritual was spread were literary ones. Information about the Christmas tree was diffused by means of commercial literature, not via immigrant folk culture—from the top down, not from the bottom up. It was by reading about Christmas trees, not by witnessing them, that many thousands of Americans learned about the custom. Before they ever saw such a thing, they already knew what Christmas trees were all about—not only what they looked like, but also how and why they were to be used.”It seems another mythical folk tradition is still propagated from the top down more than experienced from bottom up. Recalling Harriet Martineau's American observation that “As for the sleighing, I heard much more than I experienced of its charms.” This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit interplace.io

Matthew 19:16-26Then someone came to him and said, "Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?" And he said to him, "Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments." He said to him, "Which ones?" And Jesus said, "You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother; also, you shall love your neighbor as yourself." The young man said to him, "I have kept all these; what do I still lack?" Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, "Then who can be saved?" But Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible." In last week's edition of “Christian Century” Peter Marty, the magazine's editor and fellow Lutheran, told about a thing that happened in the late 19th Century, in New York City, that I was stunned to learn about. (Marty, himself, learned about it from a book by Stephen Nissenbaum, called The Battle for Christmas, which tells about the history of Christmas as a holiday of excess in our country and culture.)Apparently, back in the late 1800's, well-to-do New Yorkers paid admission to watch the city's poor people eat.They staged enormous public dinners at the old Madison Square Garden during the Christmas season, with more than 20,000 people in attendance. They called these events “galas” – (in my mind I see something like a modern-day Met Gala) – that featured galleries and box seating filled with wealthy people, dressed in their finest, ready, willing and eager to watch hungry children eat, like it were some kind of sporting event.According to an 1899 New York Times article, titled “The Rich Saw Them Feast” children from, quote, “illimitable abodes of poverty and wretchedness,” stood in line to enter the arena for a meal while the wealthy, paying spectators found their seats. Those wealthy, paying spectators were described as “men in high hats, women in costly wraps . . . many who had come in carriages and were gorgeously gowned and wore many diamonds.” And it gets worse.“As if to keep the rich from mingling too closely with the poor,” Marty explains, “gifts for the children were dangled from ropes and lowered by pulley systems attached to the roof.”And, lest we think we've evolved beyond that sort of primitive, exploitative, obtuse expression of greed, privilege, classism, and humiliation, Peter Marty recalls that hockey game half-time in Sioux Falls, South Dakota – just last December – where a handful of public school teachers got on their hands and knees at center ice to scramble for and grab as many $1 bills as possible from a $5,000 pile of cash. (They've been doing this stunt since at least 2018, from what I could tell, so I'm not sure why it just made a stink last year.)Anyway, whether we're talking about the meals at Madison Square Garden in the 19th Century or the “Dash for Cash” sort of nonsense just last year, it all shines a bright light on our confused priorities, our misguided views about charity, and the power of greed's sin in our lives, which is something worth lamenting in these Lenten days, it seems to me.Greed is the sin that blinds us to what's most valuable in our lives and in this world. And it's more than that, too.Greed makes us imagine all the things and stuff and money that we COULD have, or SHOULD have, or DESERVE to have. Greed is that sinfulness in each of us that compares ourselves with the neighbors or with our friends or with our family members even. Greed is that broken, shallow sinfulness that keeps track of what we don't have; it's that sin that turns wants into needs; it's that incompleteness within us that convinces us that having more will make more of us – either because life will be easier then, or because we'll have succeeded then, or because we'll finally have as much as _____________ (you fill in the blank).And I'm not just pointing the finger, believe me. I had to look in the mirror more than once as I prepared for this evening. And one thing I see there, more often than I'd like to admit, is the way I keep track of things; how I compare with others; how I rationalize what I deserve or what I could get or what I should be able to have. (more square footage, more retirement savings, more money for college, more whatever …)But what I try to do – even though it's harder to swallow – is imagine what others might be giving up in order for me to have all of that “more.” Which hits me hard whenever I consider things like those meals at Madison Square Garden, those teachers on their hands and knees at the hockey game, my friends in Haiti, the refugees fleeing Ukraine, or those suffering so mightily in other places, like Yemen, these days.Because, if we're honest with ourselves – whether it's groceries or gasoline, square footage or our life savings, even – if we have more of whatever it is, it means there are people out there in the world who may not have as much, or even enough of what they need. Some of you have heard my spiel about Mary Poppins and stewardship before, so I'll keep it short and spare you the “Spoonful of Sugar” song and dance. But there's this point in the movie where Mary Poppins sings that song and shows the kids how fun it can be to clean the nursery, to the point that they want to keep cleaning the nursery, even when the job has been done. Mary Poppins tells them, simply, "Come now. Enough is as good as a feast." Which is the lesson and the challenge for me, where the lament of my greed is concerned. "Enough is as good as a feast." “Enough is as good as a feast.”In other words, you can only get a room so clean all at one time. Just like you can only wear so many shoes at once. Or eat so much food. Or live in so many rooms. Or drive so many cars. Or whatever. And while I'm pretty sure Jesus wasn't thinking a thing about Mary Poppins at the time, I do believe this is what he was getting at in tonight's Gospel. This rich man wants to know what it takes to enter into the Kingdom of God, and Jesus doesn't pull any punches. "If you really want to know, sell your possessions, give the money to the poor and follow me." And he goes on, "It is harder for a rich person to enter into the kingdom of heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle."It's not as sweet as Mary Poppins, so before we start rationalizing about how rich we aren't compared to those sitting around us … or about how much less we have than those who live next door … or about how much more we give away than some friends and family we know … let's notice that (even more clearly in Luke's Gospel) Jesus says to sell all of your possessions – ALL of them – not 10%, not half, not what we might comfortably be able to do without – but ALL. (This is where every Christian I know forgets about their need to take the Bible so literally.)Now, I happen to believe that grace changes hearts and lives more meaningfully than judgment and shame ever could, which is why I want us to see that Jesus gives us his own holy shot of sugar to help this medicine go down. Jesus says that, for us mortals it is, indeed, impossible. But for God, all things are possible. The power of God's resurrection in Jesus is our spoonful of sugar. The joy of God's forgiveness in spite of ourselves is our encouragement for tomorrow. The promise of God's unconditional love is all we need to make sharing our selves and our stuff – and wanting and needing less of it – part of our way of life in this world.So, in these days, as we recall the sacrifice of God in Jesus Christ for the sake of creation – and as we lament our greed for such small things in the face of that cosmic kind of sacrifice, generosity, and abundant love – let's recognize when enough is enough for us.Let's lament and be liberated from our greed.Let's lament for and with those who have less and let's make due with less, ourselves, so that they might have enough, for a change. Let's lament and learn to give freely, with gratitude and joy, because Jesus promises, when we do, that we'll know more about the Kingdom of God – on this side of heaven, right where we live. Amen

Hello Interactors,For all you Christmas celebrators out there, happy Christmas Eve. Since many will be gathering ‘round a Christmas tree, I thought I’d tell the story of its origin. And like so much of America history, it has ties to immigrants and slavery; but in this case — anti-slavery.As interactors, you’re special individuals self-selected to be a part of an evolutionary journey. You’re also members of an attentive community so I welcome your participation.Please leave your comments below or email me directly.Now let’s go…A TREE SO YEE MAY BE FREE“If the morning drives are extended beyond the city, there is much to delight the eye. The trees are eased in ice; and when the sun shines out suddenly, the whole scene looks like one diffused rainbow,—dressed in a brilliancy which can hardly be conceived of in England. On days less bright, the blue harbour spreads in strong contrast with the sheeted snow which extends to its very brink.”These are the words of Harriet Martineau. She was a English writer, journalist, and social theorist who pioneered observational methods that came to influence the field of sociology. One of her more popular books came at the end of her travels through the United States in the 1830s titled, Retrospect of Western Travel. The passage above describes what she saw as she left the Boston city limits in the snow the winter of 1835.You may have images of her bundled up in a one horse open sleigh, over the hills she went, dashing all the way. But according to Martineau, you can let go of any such romantic inclinations. Here’s her take on sleighing.“As for the sleighing, I heard much more than I experienced of its charms. No doubt early association has something to do with the American fondness for this mode of locomotion; and much of the affection which is borne to music, dancing, supping, and all kinds of frolic, is transferred to the vehicle in which the frolicking parties are transported. It must be so, I think, or no one would be found to prefer a carriage on runners to a carriage on wheels,—except on an untrodden expanse of snow. On a perfectly level and crisp surface I can fancy the smooth rapid motion to be exceedingly pleasant; but such surfaces are rare in the neighbourhood of populous cities. The uncertain, rough motion in streets hillocky with snow, or on roads consisting for the season of a ridge of snow with holes in it, is disagreeable, and provocative of headache. I am no rule for others as to liking the bells; but to me their incessant jangle was a great annoyance.”And if that’s not enough to convince you, she offers up a quote from unknown source that puts a finer touch on the realities of sleighing.“Do you want to know what sleighing is like? You can soon try. Set your chair on a spring board out in the porch on Christmas-day: put your feet in a pail full of powdered ice: have somebody to jingle a bell in one ear, and somebody else to blow into the other with the bellows,—and you will have an exact idea of sleighing.”Martineau was on her way to a Christmas evening celebration at the home of a former Harvard German language professor, Charles Follen. Although, due to scheduling conflicts the event was actually on New Years Eve and not Christmas Eve. The cozy holiday scene that Martineau proceeds to unfold came to be the most, though not the first, read articulation of what came to be the center piece of American Christmas celebration – the Christmas tree.Follen was a German immigrant so perhaps it’s not that surprising that a Christmas tree would feature prominently in her story. It’s been a long held belief that German immigrants brought their time-honored Christmas tree tradition with them. Though, as we’ll soon see, the evolution of the Christmas tree tradition in America paralleled that of Germany.Martineau’s account of that evening, while factual, leaves out important historical details as to why she was celebrating Christmas with Follen and his family that night. These were two radical Unitarian abolitionists who bonded over their insistence that slavery be eradicated totally and immediately. Northerner’s, and New England Unitarians, were split on the matter of abolition. Follen’s convictions are what got him fired from Harvard a year prior.As for Martineau, she was a well known and respected journalist but not yet a public activist. But after attending a women’s abolitionist meeting that November, she was convinced she needed to act. She was asked at that meeting to write publicly avowing her beliefs. Being one of the only women writers of her time to sustain herself through writing and still requiring access to America’s mainstream elite for her book, she faced an ethical dilemma.Later she wrote, “I foresaw that almost every house in Boston, except those of the abolitionists, would be shut against me; that my relation to the country would be completely changed, as I should suddenly be transformed from being a guest and an observer to being considered a missionary or a spy.…”News leaked of her position on slavery and Boston newspapers ridiculed her. Their headlines spread across the country and she was forced to alter her itinerary. The event she was attending at Follen’s home wasn’t just a Christmas celebration, but an anti-slavery strategy session. That spring, she (in the company of Charles Follen) took to the road not as journalist, but as an activist.CHRISTKINDLE AND BELSNICKELHistorians and folklorists have determined that the first Christmas tree in America was most likely in the home of a German immigrant in Pennsylvania. But it’s unlikely to have occurred anytime before 1810. The first known sketch of a family celebrating Christmas, featuring a small tree atop a table, was not printed until recent decades but dates to either 1812 or 1819.Recall from my November posts on the origins of Thanksgiving, this was also the time when St. Nicholas was also entering the picture in New York. The Christmas tree tradition was also just emerging in Germany at this very same time. The Christmas tree, like Santa Claus himself, wasn’t a long held German tradition but a story told by a select group of elites who latched on to a small, isolated, and obscure holiday event that was occurring in what was then Strasbourg, Germany but is now part of France.It was established sometime in the 17th century as a quasi-religious way of judging children on the basis of them being naughty or nice. If you were nice you got a visit that night from Christkindle (i.e. the Christchild) and if you were naughty you got a visit from Hanstrapp; Strasbourg’s equivalent of what became known as Belsnickle (roughly translated: St. Nicholas in Fur). This character has echo’s of behavior seen by Wassailers during Thanksgiving celebrations where men, often of lower class, would dress up and go door to door, often times even welcoming themselves in. Perhaps this offers a clue into how Santa became a home invader. Though, should Belsnickle determine a child in the home had been naughty, he gifted the parents with a stick with instructions to whip the poor child.The Christmas tree tradition expanded beyond Strasbourg around 1750. Its spread may have been accelerated by a young up and coming writer, naturalist, and scientist, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1771. Recall from my October post, that by the dawn of the 18th century Goethe had established himself as the go-to guy by the German government for writing, organizing, and evangelizing his opinions and observations on everything from gardening, to parks management, to economics.He had spent some time in Strasbourg and “discovered in this city a new sense of “German” identity that transformed his larger cultural vision.” His 1774 novel, The Sufferings of Young Werther, is a story of a love triangle that ends tragically. And in the lead up to this tragedy, Goethe writes how young Werther “spoke of the pleasure the children would feel and remembered how in times long past he had himself been transported to paradise by the surprise opening of a door and the appearance of the decorated tree with its candles, sweets, and apples.”It wasn’t until 1810 that the Christmas Tree tradition made it’s way to Berlin. It was introduced in Munich in 1830 by the Queen of Bavaria. Goethe had inspired a string of writers publishing stories of Christmas trees that were disseminated throughout Europe and the United States. And it was all happening at the same time of the first recorded evidence of a Christmas tree in America – 1820.And then, in 1836, came the first printed image of a Christmas tree in America. It was titled “Christmas Eve” and was featured in a story called The Stranger’s Gift. It was written, as you might expect, by a German immigrant. But not just any German immigrant. It was written by Herman Bokum, the professor who replaced Follen after Harvard let him go for his public opposition to slavery just one year earlier.YOUR BOUGHS CAN TEACH A LESSONAfter Follen lost his job at Harvard he was hired by a family to home school their two children. Follen strictly followed a progressive teaching method derived from a Swiss educational reformer named Johann Pestalozzi. Pestalozzi had a child-centered and directed educational philosophy. He believed every child is born with inherently good qualities and it’s the teachers role to find them and cultivate them. It’s unclear whether Follen’s enemies convinced the family to reconsider, the family themselves had a change of heart, or Follen, ever dogmatic in his principles, refused to budge on his teaching approach, but two weeks before Christmas of 1835 he was terminated.It is in this context that Harriett Martineau attended the Christmas celebration in Follen’s newly built home on the corner of Follen Avenue outside of Boston. Martineau did not mention Follen by name in her retelling of their Christmas tree celebration, only Follen’s son who everyone called “Little Charley.” She writes,“I was present at the introduction into the new country of the spectacle of the German Christmas-tree. My little friend Charley, and three companions, had been long preparing for this pretty show…I rather think it was, generally speaking, a secret out of the house; but I knew what to expect…The tree was the top of a young fir, planted in a tub, which was ornamented with moss. Smart, dolls, and other whimsies, glittered in the evergreen; and there was not a twig; which had not something sparkling upon it… Charley looked a good deal like himself, only now and then twisting himself about in an unaccountable fit of giggling. I mounted the steps behind the tree to see the effect of opening the doors. It was delightful. The children poured in; but in a moment, every voice was hushed. Their faces were upturned to the blaze, all eyes wide open, all lips parted, all steps arrested. Nobody spoke; only Charley leaped for joy.”It was two years before Martineau’s book was published. She continued her friendship with Follen until his tragic death in 1841. He was killed when a steamship he was traveling on exploded. His photograph hung on the wall of her home until she died in 1876.And in the intervening years of her book being published, a writer friend of theirs, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, wrote a fictional story called “New Years Day” that included a brief mention of a Christmas tree celebration akin to what actually took place at the Follens. It was published that same year, 1835, making it the first piece of American literature to mentioned a Christmas tree.It’s unfortunate America’s Christmas tree origin story doesn’t start with the telling of Charles Follen and Harriett Martineau and their New Years Eve anti-slavery strategy meeting around the Christmas tree. Not only is their relationship full of intrigue, but the idea of the Christmas tree immortalized as an historic symbol of freedom from slavery seems an appropriate American Christmas tale. Perhaps the story of Follen and Martineau is what we should be reading to children every Christmas eve and not just T’was the Night Before Christmas.Both the story of the Christmas tree as a time-honored German cultural tradition and America’s favorite Christmas time fable, T’was the Night Before Christmas, were largely fabricated and perpetuated by a select group of elites on both sides of the Atlantic.Clement Clark Moore, the author of T’was the Night Before Christmas, — and his reactionary New York Episcopalian Knickerbocker friends — were interested in imbuing their Christmas tales with aristocratic authority. In contrast, Bollen and his Unitarian Christmas tree literary acquaintances used the Christmas tree to add momentum to the swelling progressive reformist movement of the 1830s.Stephen Nissenbaum, in his book The Battle for Christmas, explains the similarities between the unfolding of these two events, American traditions, and these two men,“There were important similarities between the antislavery sensibility and the new attitude toward children. Abolitionists and educational reformers shared a joint empathy for people who were powerless to resist the wrath of those who wielded authority over them—slaves and children, respectively. (Both types of reformers had a particular abhorrence of the use of the lash as a form of punishment.)”He continues,“In fact, what Charles Follen did in 1835 is similar in that sense to what Clement Clarke Moore had done more than a decade earlier, although his reasons—Moore was a reactionary, Follen a radical—were profoundly different. But both men had reason to feel alienated from their respective communities, and both responded by turning inward, to their own children, and using Christmas as the occasion for doing so.”And in both cases, literature, and access to it, played a starring role. Nissenbaum, writes,“As it turns out, the most important channels through which the ritual was spread were literary ones. Information about the Christmas tree was diffused by means of commercial literature, not via immigrant folk culture—from the top down, not from the bottom up. It was by reading about Christmas trees, not by witnessing them, that many thousands of Americans learned about the custom. Before they ever saw such a thing, they already knew what Christmas trees were all about—not only what they looked like, but also how and why they were to be used.”It seems another mythical folk tradition is still propagated from the top down more than experienced from bottom up. Recalling Harriet Martineau’s American observation that “As for the sleighing, I heard much more than I experienced of its charms.” Subscribe at interplace.io

How did Americans celebrate Christmas in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era? This episode has a festive feel as I ask Thomas Ruys Smith about his new book Christmas Past: An Anthology of Seasonal Stories from Nineteenth Century America. We'll talk about household names such as Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, as well as stories you may have never heard from slaves, immigrants, Native Americans, and non-Christians. Essential Reading:Thomas Ruys Smith, Christmas Past: An Anthology of Seasonal Stories from Nineteenth Century America (2021).Recommended Reading:Penn Restad, Christmas in America: A History (1995).Stephen Nissenbaum, The Battle for Christmas: A Social and Cultural History of Our Most Cherished Holiday (1997).Karal Ann Marling, Merry Christmas! Celebrating America's Greatest Holiday (2000).Tara Moore, Victorian Christmas in Print (2009).Robert May, Yuletide in Dixie: Slavery, Christmas, and Southern Memory (2019). See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Santa's gearing up for his yearly delivery, but where does he stop to make special deposits on his yearly outing? And better yet, could we use this as a trap to finally catch Santa? -- Connect: privycast@gmail.com www.privycast.wordpress.com www.instagram.com/privycast www.twitter.com/privycast www.facebook.com/privycast privycast.tumblr.com www.tiktok.com/@privycast -- Music:  Intro and Outro: "Barroom Ballet" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/   Sleigh Bells: Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License -- Sources: https://www.history.com/topics/christmas/santa-claus "The Battle for Christmas" by Stephen Nissenbaum  

Hello Interactors,Today is Black Friday. It’s one of the most anticipated shopping days of the year. In Part 1 of this two part series, I talked about how the Christmas holiday season is rooted in consumption and classism. Its origins had little to nothing to do with Christianity, but everything to do with establishing social order. Black Friday is no different.As interactors, you’re special individuals self-selected to be a part of an evolutionary journey. You’re also members of an attentive community so I welcome your participation.Please leave your comments below or email me directly.Now let’s go…VISIONS OF SUGAR-PLUMS DANCED IN THEIR HEADSAmerican colonial settlers debated Christmas celebrations well in the 1700s. Bouts of drunken caroling, groveling, and fallacious philia raged from harvest season’s end through December. While the practice was as old as the Roman Saturnalia, Puritan settlers hoped to sever the European connection.One Puritan, Reverend Increase Mather, “accurately observed in 1687 that the early Christians who first observed the Nativity on December 25 did not do so ‘thinking that Christ was born in that Month, but because the Heathens Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian [ones].’”The harvest parties only increased until the colonists overthrew England’s Dominion of New England in 1689. One Connecticut almanac producer, John Tully, wrote in 1688,“The Nights are still cold and long, which may cause great Conjunction betwixt the Male and Female Planets of our sublunary Orb, the effects whereof may be seen about nine months after…”Tully also bravely printed Christmas Day on the 25th alongside his weather predictions.There was not another mention of Christmas until 1711 when Increase Mather’s son, Reverend Cotton Mather (who applauded Indigenous massacres because they “brought Indian souls to hell”) wrote in his December 30th diary,“I hear of a number of young people of both sexes, belonging, many of them, to my flock, who have had on the Christmas-night, this last week, a Frolick, a revelling feast, and Ball [i.e., dance].…”The following year, around Christmas time, he preached from the Bible criticisms of faux Christians who used religion to veil ungodly sexual acts, “‘giving themselves over to fornication’—'ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness.’”Despite Mather’s routine attempts to curb young people’s desire to turn religious events into parties, such at weddings or Sunday night revelry, it only increased. Population data from this time period shows a marked increase in unwed pregnancies. Records show seven month old marriages that featured an addition to the family a couple months later. Also, there’s a notable swelling of births roughly nine months after Christmas. That’s when I was born.By the early 1700s, Cotton Mather gave up. He reluctantly accepted that Christians could be both Christmas revelers and Christian reckoners; a weakening of Puritanism and a concession his father surely would have admonished. But it set the stage for moderation as evidenced in Benjamin Franklin’s older brother, James Franklin’s, 1733 couplet:  “Now drink good Liquor, but not so, / That thou canst neither stand nor go.”James was the one who trained young Ben to become a printer. Benjamin Franklin is also remembered as the nation’s model of self-restraint, but perhaps less so as a philanderer. He fathered an illegitimate child before entering a common-law marriage with his housekeeper’s daughter. Perhaps his rustles in the sheets started with a little wassail in streets.In December of 1734, Franklin wrote this in his second edition of his famed Poor Richard’s Almanac:“If you wou’d have Guests merry with your Cheer, / Be so yourself, or so at least appear.”Then again five years later:“O blessed Season! lov’d by Saints and Sinners, / For long Devotions, or for longer Dinners.”What Benjamin Franklin, and prolific almanac producer Nathanial Ames, aimed to do throughout the 1700s was to cast Christmas, through printed word, as a time to be merry – but in moderation. Slowly, by the late 1700s, Christmas carols began sneaking into America’s first printed hymnals. The Christmas celebration had finally made piece with Christianity. The Universalists were the first to hold a December 25th service in 1789.CLOTHES WERE ALL TARNISHED WITH ASHES AND SOOTBut the dawn of a new century, and the industrial age, brought a shift in attitudes around Christmas. The elite, again, distanced themselves from the occasion. As urban cities grew and jobs shifted from the farm to the factory, winter brought new dynamics to the onset of the season. Some factories closed in the cold months as did shipyards along frozen waters.This brought unemployment and idle time to laborers. Whereas historically wealthy farm owners were willing to amuse the working class in a societal roll reversal – through transient and theatrical wassailing – the urban elite power structures were unwilling to participate. But it didn’t stop the working class from venting.The once faint mockery of their employers – imbued with subtle hints of revenge should they not offer them gifts, food, or alcohol – turned fierce and riotous in the 1800s. Papers in both England and the United States barely mention Christmas at all between 1800 and 1820. But that was about to change.In the first decade of 1800, one of New York’s most influential men, John Pintard, became particularly peeved by the seasonal banditti. He reminisced on ‘better days’ when the rich and the poor got drunk together. And while he wished his wealthy friends reveled more among themselves, he grew concerned that “the beastly vice of drunkenness among the lower laboring classes is growing to a frightful excess…”And in a familiar tone, echoed to this day by many, he feared “thefts, incendiaries, and murders—which prevail—all arise from this source.”  Which is why he helped create the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism. This was an organization that sought to curb money directed at care for the poor, but to also stop them from begging and drinking. The white elite ruling class of the 1820s –- as well as many in the 2020s – complained of what one New York paper described as, “[t]he assembling of Negroes, servants, boys and other disorderly persons, in noisy companies in the streets, where they spend the time in gaming, drunkenness, quarreling, swearing, etc., to the great disturbance of the neighborhood.”Pintard was also hopelessly nostalgic. He founded the New York Historical Society in 1804 and was instrumental in establishing Washington’s Birthday, the Fourth of July, and Columbus Day as national holidays. Pintard also introduced America’s icon of nostalgia, Santa Claus. Seeking a patron saint for the New York Historical Society, and for all of New York City, he commissioned an illustration to be painted of St. Nicholas giving presents to children. While the icon was not intended to be seasonal, it was nonetheless printed on December 6th, St. Nicholas Day, in 1810.He pined for the days when the rich and powerful could rule over what was becoming a burgeoning working class. In 1822, as Jefferson had just passed a law allowing non-property owners to vote, Pintard wrote to his daughter,“All power is to be given, by the right of universal suffrage, to a mass of people, especially in this city, which has no stake in society. It is easier to raise a mob than to quell it, and we shall hereafter be governed by rank democracy.… Alas that the proud state of New York should be engulfed in the abyss of ruin.”WHAT TO MY WONDERING EYES SHOULD APPEAR1822 was also the year his friend, and wealthy land owner, Clement Clark Moore, wrote what was to become the most influential Christmas poem ever: “A Visit from St. Nicholas” or as it is known today, “T’was The Night Before Christmas.”This single poem, written for the elite upper class, encapsulates the nostalgia of wassailing Pintard and his friends pined for, while making themselves feel good about themselves for ‘giving to the needy.’ Moore did this by substituting the unruly lower working class, begging for gifts from their master, with children expecting presents on Christmas morning.He kept the gift giving mysticism of the centuries old St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, but removed the judgmental elements of a Bishop who may make them feel guilty for maintaining class divide by making him “merry”, “droll”, “rosy”, and “plump.” He also made him a lower class “peddler”. And while Santa made a loud noise “on the lawn” with a “clatter”, just as a lower class wassailer would have, he was but a small and unthreatening “right jolly old elf” who kindly left toys he had labored over for the children.And he asked nothing in return. With a “wink of his eye” and a “finger aside his nose” (a gesture meaning “just between you and me”) Moore gave the privileged class, who were fearful of home invasions at Christmas time, assurance they “had nothing to dread.” All they needed to do, was keep their wealth within the family and buy their kids and friends gifts at Christmas time. Forget the poor, they thought, they’re as hopeless as democracy.The vision and version of Christmas and Santa Claus that Moore provided his haughty affluent peers, in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, was soon to be read by a growing middle class and an increasingly literate lower class. That’s as true then as it is today.And while Moore was a country squire who never worked a day in his life, and hated the gridding up of property in a growing New York City, he grew to love the money he earned selling off family property he inherited. Geographer Simeon DeWitt was chopping Manhattan into a Roman style grid to make room for a population that grew from 33,000 in 1790 to nearly 200,000 by the time Moore’s poem was written in 1822. He even included a chimney in his poem for Santa to climb down as a way for city folk to better relate to a scene he’d rather have happened in his bucolic hills of a New York of yore – an area today we call Chelsea.What also changed was the gifts exchanged. Traditional Christmas gifts consisted of hand made food and goods forged from natural countryside surroundings. But as Christmas moved to the city, handmade gifts were displaced by store bought presents.The first known American Christmas advertisement came from one of the country’s busiest ports, Salem, Massachusetts in 1806. Then two more in 1808 in both Boston and New York in the New York Evening Post. By the 1820s they were everywhere. In 1834 a Boston magazine wrote,“’All the children are expecting presents, and all aunts and cousins to say nothing of near relatives, are considering what they shall bestow upon the earnest expectants.… I observe that the shops are preparing themselves with all sorts of things to suit all sorts of tastes; and am amazed at the cunning skill with which the most worthless as well as most valuable articles are set forth to tempt and decoy the bewildered purchaser.’”It went on to warn shoppers to “’put themselves on their guard, to be resolved to select from the tempting mass only what is useful and what may do good…’”Sounds like Black Friday.THE LUSTRE OF MID-DAY TO OBJECTS BELOWWhile there was aggressive advertising as early as the 1800s, there was a social stigma around being too showy with luxury purchases. It was a sign of European aristocracy that the colonists, of all economic strata, were keen to avoid. But Christmas time had long been a cyclical excuse to overconsume. Shopkeepers and manufacturers latched on this association tempting even the most tempered to exult in excess through advertising, promotions, and sales.It was the Puritans who invented Thanksgiving as way to celebrate the harvest separate from the religiosity of Christmas time. The specific day on the calendar bounced around until the late 1700s when regional governors dictated it be celebrated as close to Christmas as possible. It was even held on December 20th one year.It didn’t take long for Thanksgiving to become commercialized either. New England farmers and merchants would strategize on how to best profit from the carnival-like drunken festivals that surrounded Thanksgiving just as it did Christmas.Once Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November to be the official day of Thanksgiving in 1863, retailers could plan their profits around a firm date. Then, in 1934, Franklin Delano Roosevelt moved it back a week during the depression to extend the Christmas shopping season an extra week so retailers could reap more profits. It was a controversial ruling and FDR’s date came to be known as Franksgiving. Happy Franksgiving, everyone!The 1900s was also the time when the marauding tradition of parading through the streets became a sponsored event by department stores. Eaton department store sponsored the first in Toronto in 1905 and then Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade came along in New York City in 1924. These parades began an unwritten rule among retailers to refrain from advertising Christmas sales until the parade had commenced. That made the Friday after Thanksgiving the first day shops were open for business and the start of holiday shopping.The term ‘Black Friday’ didn’t enter the picture until 1961 in Philadelphia. ‘Black days’ were customarily days marking bad events. So much like the dread of the chaotic colonial traditions of parading wassailers, the Philadelphia police came to describe the traffic, congestion, and shopping hysteria the day after Thanksgiving as ‘Black Friday.’But retailers didn’t much like the negative association. It took 20 years before a new association was cemented. And it was, again, Philadelphia that led the charge. A November 28th, 1981 article in the Philadelphia Inquirer was the first to describe Black Friday as the day when retailers, who suffered ‘in the red’ for most of the year, could move their ledger into the ‘black’ during the holiday shopping season.Black Friday triggers an event, just as solstice did for the Romans, that offers an opportunity for those in power, capitalists in the form of retailers, to open their doors just as the wealthy land owners did, and offer great deals to those who can’t afford various luxuries, like figgy pudding, rum spiced pie, perry, or wassail.Just as Roman slave owners used the Saturnalia to remind slaves of their place in society, or wealthy land barons to remind peasant laborers of theirs, capitalists use the holiday season as an chance to remind us all who’s in charge. And what Pintard, Moore, and their band of wealthy Knickerbockers did was wrap it all up in a fairy tale that portrays it all as benevolence by tying it to the Christian saint known for charity – Ole St. Nick.They feared the masses becoming educated and empowered with the right to vote. They railed against democracy sensing it would only loosen their grip on power. And here we are on Black Friday of 2021, the start of the holiday shopping season, as powerful conservatives in Washington are drooling over ways to carve up a bill that represents the biggest investment in America’s most needy since FDR like it was a Thanksgiving turkey. Pass the wassail, please.Reference:The Battle for Christmas. A Social and Cultural History of Our Most Cherished Holiday. Stephen Nissenbaum. 1997 Subscribe at interplace.io

Hello Interactors,This is part one of a two part series on the role of economics in the holiday season. We’re a week away from Thanksgiving, but Christmas has already started to enter our lives. If it feels like it keeps creeping closer to Halloween, that’s because it is. Little did I know, it actually started out that way. As interactors, you’re special individuals self-selected to be a part of an evolutionary journey. You’re also members of an attentive community so I welcome your participation.Please leave your comments below or email me directly.Now let’s go…HOUSE INVASIONIt was 9:00 on Christmas night when four men forcibly entered the house. John Rowden, his wife, their adopted son, and a live-in helper, Daniel Poole, were all home. The four men made their way to the living room, sat on the couch in front of the fire, and starting singing Christmas carols. Clearly drunk, at some point one of the men turned to Rowden and said sarcastically, “How do you like this, father?” They demanded alcohol as payment for their ‘entertainment’. Rowden didn’t like it at all and asked them to leave.They had heard Rowden had fine wine in his collection. They said they’d happily pay him for the alcohol later, but demanded the wine now. Rowden’s wife stepped in reminding them that their house was not a bar and they should leave. Much to their surprise, the men did; only to return minutes later claiming they had the cash to pay for the wine.Fearing the scoundrels would break in if they didn’t take the money, the Rowden’s decided to sell them a bottle of their prized wine. But first they demanded proof that the men had the money. Rowden cracked open the door and one of the men shoved fake money in his wife’s face as the others tried to enter the house.The Rowden’s, with the help of Daniel Poole, managed to push them back and secure the door. The four men appeared to have given up. But moments later they heard them yelling sardonically from outside, “hello.” Poole tried to reason with them. He reminded them that it was Christmas night and they should be home. They saw this as a provocation and challenged Poole to come out and make them go home.Poole refused, of course, so they began throwing rocks at the house. They pried away siding, destroyed rockery, fences, and tore down poles. After an hour and a half of persistent vandalism, it finally subsided and the family was safe and sound. The house? Not so much. Merry Christmas.This true story is from 1649 and took place in Salam, Massachusetts. Two of those four men were later implicated in the Salem witch hunts. These intrusions were a common occurrence in the colonies during the holiday season, but more so in England. These four men were wassailing. Today we might call it caroling, but at the time it was really more a combination of Thanksgiving, Mardi Gras, trick-or-treating, and caroling. We don’t run into many drunk carolers these days, but we would have in 17th century England and their colonies.The Puritan settlers outlawed wassailing after colonizing. In fact, they banned any celebration of Christmas. Because the bible makes no mention of the birth of Jesus on any particular date, there was no cause for celebration. Of course, there was little cause for celebration among the Puritans at all; especially excesses of revelry, alcohol, and sex.The Puritans tried banning Christmas in London too. It prompted a book to be written in 1686 called The Tryal of Old Father Christmas. It featured a Puritan jury made up of “Mr. Cold-kitchen”, “Mr. Give-little”, and “Mr. Hate-good.” Perhaps these characters inspired Charles Dicken’s character, Ebenezer Scrooge, 150 years later.TRICK OR TREAT, SMELL MY FEET, GIVE ME SOMETHING GOOD TO EATThe Rowden’s were a relatively affluent family who owned a pear orchard from which they made pear wine or cider, known as “perry”. Those four young men were of a lower class, possibly even laborers for his orchard, and they came to Rowden’s house to be merry with his perry.It was common practice throughout Europe and England for wealthy land and farm owners to treat their lower class workers to a meal and/or gifts in late November and early December. After what must have been an intense and laborious season of harvesting, canning, slaughtering, and preparing for the coming winter months, December marked an end to a fruitful season worth celebrating. December 6th was the customary end of the harvest season in Western Europe, just a week and a half after America’s modern-day traditional harvest celebration – Thanksgiving.To recognize and honor their hard work, it became customary for workers to exchange gifts with their masters or employers. Some exchanges were initiated from the lower class workers and other times by the upper class employers. But every wealthy land owner knew that if they didn’t so something to commemorate their worker’s labor, they risk workers taking it upon themselves to come knocking.  Just as those four men did to old man Rowden, singing,Come bring, with a noise,My merrie, merrie boys,The Christmas log to the firing;While my good dame sheBids ye all be free [i.e., with the alcohol]And drink to your heart’s desiring…The upper class quickly learned that it’s best to open their doors to the peasant class, feed them, entertain them, and send them on their merry way…or else. As evidenced in this little jingle,We’ve come here to claim our right…And if you don’t open up your door,We will lay you flat upon the floorWhile I’m sure there were examples of benevolent exchanges between classes, the ritual also served as an explicit reinforcement of social order. You’re down there and we’re up here. Don’t think that we’re equals. We have the goods and you come begging. And begging they did, singing,Again we assemble, a merry New YearTo wish to each one of the family hereMay they of potatoes and herrings have plentyWith butter and cheese, and each other daintyChristmas was a time when the poor were excused for begging. If they were not happy with what was offered, they took revenge. Again, a bit like Halloween. Give me a treat, or you’ll get tricked. The privileged class knew they could do little to stop the raucous revelers, just as there’s little to be done should some kids decide to toilet paper your trees or egg your house on Halloween.THE POPE PULLS A TRICK, WITH OLE ST. NICKAnother hallows eve refrain was dressing in costumes. Often it was the lower class mocking the upper class by dressing and acting like them. Men would sometimes dress as women and women as men. Others would use it as a way to mock religious leaders or politicians.And it was almost always a rowdy and drunken celebration because one of the substances the merry bands would be begging for was alcohol – usually the cidery punch known as wassail. They’d run door to door and through the streets singing this familiar holiday tune,Here we come a-wassailing among the leaves so green;Here we come a-wandering, so fair to be seen.Love and joy come to you, and to you our wassail, too.And God bless you and send you a Happy New YearAnd God bless you and send you a Happy New YearWe are not daily beggars that beg from door to door;But we are neighbours' children whom you have seen before.Love and joy come to you, and to you our wassail, too.And God bless you and send you a Happy New YearAnd God bless you and send you a Happy New YearThis widespread postharvest behavior had been happening for thousands of years. It was so baked into the fabric of society that even the church began painting it with Christian imagery and metaphor. Because the celebrations occurred on or around the end of November and into December there were many elements of Christianity to which they could attach the events.During Roman times, December 17th marked the day of the Saturnalia – a festival honoring the god of agriculture, Saturn. All work halted for a week as people decorated their homes with wreaths. They shed their togas to dawn festive clothes, and they drank, gambled, sang, played music, socialized and exchanged gifts. It was a celebration of their agrarian bounty and the return of light at Winter solstice. It was also a time to invite their slaves to dinner where their masters would serve them food.One Christian Saint affiliated with early December – and the one most honored today in the form of a plump jolly man wearing a red velvet suit – is Saint Nicholas. December 6th is St. Nicholas Day. For many European countries this marked the official end of the harvest season. And even today it’s recognized in some countries as a kind of warm-up act to the more official and accepted Christmas day, December 25th.Nicholas of Bari was a Greek Christian bishop from modern day Turkey. Also known as Nicholas the Wonderworker, he earned a reputation during the Roman Empire for many miracles; all of which, were written centuries after his death and thus prone to exaggeration. But, he was most famous for his generosity, charity, and kindness to children, the poor, and the disadvantaged. He was said to have sold his own belongings to get gold coins that he’d then put in the shoes outside people’s homes. This is the origin of the tradition of putting shoes or stockings out on Christmas Eve.They say he also saved the lives of three innocent men from execution. He chastised the corrupted judge for accepting a bribe to execute them. You can bet St. Nick would have made sure old-man Rowden had shared his perry before things got too scary. And he certainly would have been watching over the peasant farmers and slaves to insure they were treated fairly. He seemed to always have an eye out for inequities and justice for common people. Maybe that’s what made him a saint. Or maybe he was just born that way. After all, Nicholas in Greek means “people’s victory.”DON’T GO HIDING, OFFER GOOD TIDINGThe Puritans obviously lost at their attempts to ban Christmas. Lacking any evidence from the Bible, the Christian powers that be eventually settled on the 25th of December as the day Jesus was born. They most likely picked the 25th because that was the day winter solstice landed on the Roman calendar. And while much is made of Christmas day, a certain song reminds us there are actually 12 days of Christmas. Maybe more.It may feel like Christmas creep when you see holiday decorations appear the day after Halloween, but historically speaking that’s when the party starts. Trick-or-treating kicks off two months of gorging on goodies, making merry with perry, and pleading, pestering, and pining for presents from parents. Just as peasants begged for bounty from their overlords.Christmas tradition is mostly a months long after-work party that celebrates wealth accumulation while reinforcing a certain economic relationship between the haves and the have-nots. Yes, there are “good tidings to you and all of your kin” and it is a celebration from the heart that can feed the soul with some warm “figgy pudding.” But lingering under the guise of generosity on the part of the giver is a threat of violence if it’s not shared equitably. “For they’d all like figgy pudding, so bring it out here!” And if you don’t, then “they won’t go until they get some, so bring some out here!”Maybe think twice before feeling too smug plopping a penny in the Salvation Army’s red pot while making pleasant with a nearby peasant. If your flush with funds this holiday season, and pay people to serve you, be mindful of who you snub. Tip graciously and share wisely. The ones who deserve it the most, may be the one’s who could do you the most damage. You’d hate for a worker’s revolt where the disadvantaged come knocking on the doors of rich people carrying a yule log, some drunken friends, a bit of angry resentment, and a nearly empty bowl of wassail.Reference:The Battle for Christmas. A Social and Cultural History of Our Most Cherished Holiday. Stephen Nissenbaum. 1997 Subscribe at interplace.io

Stephen Nissenbaum discusses the Puritan anti-Christmas campaigns in both New and Old England

Samuel Parris takes on the job as minister to Salem Village, a marginalized farming community split by rivalry and controversy. Salem Village is overshadowed by the larger and much more prosperous Salem Town, one of the two largest towns in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The colony is ruled by the Puritans, who have broken away from the Church of England and colonized New England in hopes of creating a model Christian society, a "City on a Hill”. Crisis evolves as newer generations lack the religious enthusiasm of the founders. Hardship presses down on the colony on many fronts: war with Native tribes, disease epidemics, religious controversy, political and economic crisis. The entry of Parris into the powder keg that is Salem Village sets off a firestorm of persecution and retribution. Episode 1 Parts: Part I - The Parsonage - Parris, with his family and Tituba, come to Salem Village Part II - The City on the Hill - the story of the Puritans and New England (music - Psalm 119 from the Bay Psalm Book) Part III - The Great Migration (w/ some lyrics borrowed from Michael Wigglesworth’s poem: “God’s Controversy with New England”, 1662) Part IV - Village vs. Town Part V - The Parsonage Reprise (w/ text taken from the sermon book of Samuel Parris, 1690-1691) The Great Migration We have crossed the ocean of rebirthPlanted seeds in this God given earth Behold the pleasures of the fruitful fieldsFlowing full of all good things that they yield Realize his will Let the world see the city on the hillHis word shall be fulfilled, his kingdom we shall build*Search your soul and pray for holy graceConfess your sins let the tears baptize your face Only a very few are chosen to be savedThe Devil takes the rest for his own to be enslaved By searching deep withinYou might find a clue and then beginTo see the holy truth, to realize your sin* We brought ourselves to plant on the western shoreWhere none but beasts and warriors did swarm One wave another follow and one disease beginsBefore another cease because we turn not from our sins Our fruitful seasons cast in doubtThrough great pain and dry and parching droughtDefenders in a route, our hopes are all dashed out*The clouds gather as if we finally will see rainBut for our sinfulness are scattered round again We pray and fast as if to take a turnBut we turn not and our fields and fruits will burn Oh sinful land don’t think it strangeIf judgement comes down on you unless you changeThe Devil in a rage, affairs must rearrangeBrian O'Connell - voice, bass guitar, fretless bass, 8-string bass, piccolo bass (solo on The Great Migration), 6 and 12-string acoustic guitars, keyboards, moog synthesizers, bass drum Mike Harmon - drums, cymbals, percussion Recorded at Studio Vinniechops and Wachusett Recording Sources"A Storm of Witchcraft - The Salem Witch Trials and the American Experience“ by Emerson W. Baker, Oxford University Press, 2015 "Salem Possessed - The Social Origins of Witchcraft“ by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Harvard University Press, 1974 "The Puritans in America - Narrative Anthology”edited by Alan Heimert and Andrew Delbanco, Harvard University Press, 1985Support the show (https://venmo.com/Brian-OConnell-74537)

This week: a whole lotta holiday. Including what winning the war on Christmas would really mean, in a conversation with Pulitzer Prize and National Book award nominee Dr. Stephen Nissenbaum from UMass. A look at the history of Kwanzaa with UMass Professor Dr. Amilcar Shabazz. A lot of Hannukah and even Boxing Day talk. Plus affordable not-Champagne sparkling wines for New Year’s. Does the Chair of The House Rules Committee, Congressman Jim McGovern, have to battle his Trump-supporting uncles on Christmas too? Plus the top astronomy stories of the year with Mr. Universe Dr. Salman Hameed.

Today, Alex, Grace, and Matt talk about Arthur Miller's 1953 play 'The Crucible' and its Salem Witch Trial and McCarthyite contexts. Miller in 1992 on why the market is failing theater and why the state needs to sponsor it. Arthur Miller, fellow-travelling and the House Un-American Activities Committee. Early witch culture that likely influenced the girls' performances/delusions. Samuel Parris fails at life, squanders fathers' plantation fortune. Tituba was more indigenous than black, and didn't introduce witchcraft to the community. The Putnam family and the rural/urban, agricultural/commercial divide. Abigail and Marilyn Monroe. How his relationship with Marilyn Monroe made Miller a target for HUAC. Hale and the limits of ideology. Proctor and the propaganda value of a name. @Alecks_Guns, @GraceJackson, @MattLech @LitHangover Act One of The Crucible here: https://youtu.be/Dtr9RGeHnPM References: An Unofficial Cultural Ambassador - Arthur Miller and the Cultural Cold War. Abrams, N. D., Romijn, P. (ed.), Scott-Smith, G. (ed.) & Segal, J. (ed.), 1 Jan 2012, Divided Dreamworlds? : The Cultural Cold War in East and West. 2012 ed. Amsterdam University Press, p. 13-32 American Masters: None Without Sin documentary (2003) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cf9r94ZIyg Baker, Emerson W. 2016. Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience. New York: Oxford Univ Press. Boyer, Paul S., and Stephen Nissenbaum. 1974. Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft. Hill, Frances. 2002. A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials. Cambrigde, MA.: Da Capo Press. Arthur Miller with Charlie Rose in 1992 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coWRDfpqa6A

Alex and Matt return, this time to discuss the social, political and material origins of the Salem Witch Trials. Indian and imperial war trauma in the late 1600s. The Glorious Revolution and the coup of Andros by puritan leaders in Massachusetts. The economic divide between mercantile Salem Town and the agricultural offshoot that was ground zero for the outbreak, Salem Village. Increase and Cotton Mather's responsibility in spreading belief in witches. The difference between witch hunts and awakenings being in the interpretation of adults. Gender and witch accusations. George Burrough's perfect recitation of the Lord's prayer. Sleep paralysis, conversion disorder, and fraud as all explanations for the witch accusations. Cotton Mather's damage control for the Puritan theocracy, The Wonders of the Invisible World. European witch history. @Alecks_Guns, @MattLech @LitHangover References: Baker, Emerson W. 2016. Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience. New York: Oxford Univ Press. Boyer, Paul S., and Stephen Nissenbaum. 1974. Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft. Hill, Frances. 2002. A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials. Cambrigde, MA.: Da Capo Press. Glorious Revolution by Jabzy on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g77WJU3aQEA))

Encore release October 16, 2018. Encore release July 9, 2017. Not much of a war this year, and if there is one it looks like Christmas is winning. The American Family Association's "Naughty or Nice" list features far more companies that are Christmas-friendly than not. Sarah Palin has a new book out: Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas. It's more word salad from the former governor of Alaska, in which she laments the supposed assault on the Baby Jesus' Birthday. Check out Katy Steinmetz's humorous review at TIME. Here are our suggestions for holiday gifts for non-believers: David's suggestions: 5. A gym membership ('cause this the only body you'll ever have) 4. One or more of the following books: The Great Agnostic by Susan Jacoby; What You Don't Know about Religion (but Should) by Ryan Cragun; Last Ape Standing by Chip Walter 3. A Nice Trip (David recommends Vegas) 2. Contribution in their name to American Atheists (or some other secular charity of your choice) 1. Binoculars (what non-believer doesn't enjoy sky gazing?) John's suggestions: 5. Cognitive Dissonance Combo Pack: Zealot by Reza Aslan & Killing Jesus by Bill O'Reilly 4. Books on the History of Christmas: The Battle for Christmas by Stephen Nissenbaum; Christmas in America by Penne Restad; Christmas Curiosities by John Grossman 3. Subscription to MUSE, a science magazine for 9 to 14-year-olds . 2. GoldieBlox - building toys aimed at getting girls interested in engineering. 1. Atheist Shoes  

Happy New Year, y'all!!  This week we take a look at the Salem Witch Trials and discuss some of the theories as to what might have caused that many people to act the way they did!  A big thank you to Brandon Adams for our music tracks!! If you want to hear more from Brandon check him out at: Soundcloud.com/brandonadamsj Youtube.com/brandonadams93 Or to get in touch with him for compositions email him at Brandon_adams@earthlink.net Email us at: GraveYardTalesPodcast@gmail.com Find us on social media: Twitter: @GrveYrdPodcast Facebook: @GraveYardTalesPodcast Find us on: Anywhere you get your podcasts!! Sources: https://roadtrippers.com/stories/joshua-ward-house-is-haunted-by-the-spirit-of-a-witch-and-the-man-who-killed-her?lng=-96.67528&lat=40.80972&z=4 http://www.history.com/topics/salem-witch-trials https://daily.jstor.org/caused-salem-witch-trials/ Salem Possessed by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum

What if I told you that Christmas—the holiday we know and love so well—was a capitalist Conspiracy to indoctrinate the working class into bourgeois culture and values? At one end of the Conspiracy was the very real circle of New York City antiquarians and aristocrats trying to snuff out earlier forms of the holiday, replacing these folk practices with the distinctly quiet, calm, peaceful, productive, contemplative, bourgeois form of the holiday we know today. At the other end stands their greatest creation—the defrocked bishop Santa Claus and his apparently vast, never-ceasing workshops fed by partially enslaved elf labor.Clement Clarke Moore, “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (1823)Pintard, Letters, Vol. II: 1821-1827; Vol. II: 1828-1831Clark, Christopher. Social Change in America: From the Revolution Through the Civil War. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher. 2006.Penne Restad, Christmas in America: A History, Oxford University Press. 1996.Stephen Nissenbaum, The Battle for Christmas: A Social and Cultural History of Our Most Cherished Holiday, Vintage. 1997. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On this episode of Impolite Conversation, Tim and Dan get into the holiday spirit by talking about the alleged war on Christmas with historian Jarret Ruminski, who is skeptical that the war amounts to much, and then chat about what it’s like to be in a Christmas-obsessed culture and not be Christian. And in One Last Thing, Dan’s been re-reading a classic novel, and Tim recommends a heavenly TV show. Some of the stuff we talked about this time: Dr. Ruminski mentioned John Gibson’s The War on Christmas, Stephen Nissenbaum’s The Battle for Christmas, and Corey Robin’s The Reactionary Mind. He also talked about the Coke web site that discusses the origins of A Charlie Brown Christmas. In our conversation about Hanukkah and related issues, Dan brought up the Friends episode entitled “The One With the Holiday Armadillo” and the South Park song “A Lonely Jew on Christmas,” and brought up the fact that Barbra Streisand has a Christmas album. (She actually has three.) In One Last Thing, Dan recommended A Confederacy of Dunces and Tim discussed this article about getting involved post-election, then recommended the NBC sitcom The Good Place. Original air date: 12/6/16.

On this week’s Past Present podcast, Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, and Neil Young discuss the war on Christmas, food politics, and political spouses. Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: The “war on Christmas” has become a regular part of the holiday season. The conservative website Newsmax has catalogued the big offenders of 2015. Neil argued the “war on Christmas” is largely a media phenomenon, noting that many religious leaders have chosen to ignore the controversy or to argue that the real war on Christmas is the holiday’s over-commercialization.  Neil also observed that the Puritans outlawed Christmas because the holiday had such decadent celebrations. To read more about the controversial history of Christmas, see Stephen Nissenbaum’s The Battle for Christmas.A new grocery store venture, Daily Table, seeks to provide low-income consumers with more affordable food by selling about-to-expire foods from farmers and wholesalers. Natalia noted that dates used for food expiration are largely made up and contribute to high rates of food waste. Natalia recommended the book, We the Eaters, and the documentary, A Place at the Table, for thinking more about the politics of food.The New York Times’ profile of Marco Rubio’s wife, Jeanette, is the latest example of our culture’s fascination with political spouses. America’s First Ladies have played a unique role in national politics, often using their ceremonial functions to extend their husbands’ political objectives. Neil noted that spouses play particularly important roles in political campaigns, but that women like Betty Ford and Nancy Reagan were also sometimes seen as liabilities for their husbands. In our regular closing feature, What’s Making History: Natalia discussed the history of why American Jews eat Chinese food on Christmas day.Neil commented on GQ’s profile of the international megachurch, Hillsong.Niki explained how in Soviet Russia the Christmas tree became the New Year’s tree.

Episode 2, September 21, 2015 Show NotesOn this week’s Past Present podcast, Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, and Neil Young discuss the Planned Parenthood video controversy, the IPO of SoulCycle, and the rise of corporate support for gay rights. Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: The release of undercover videos showing a Planned Parenthood official discussing the organization’s practice of donating fetal tissue have elicited outrage from conservative outlets. The videos stand in a long tradition of anti-abortion activism, but also demonstrate the increasing power of undercover videos as a form of political activism. SoulCycle’s initial public offering has attracted the attention of Wall Street investors, but the cycling brand has received steady criticism from cultural critics since its wheels first started spinning. For those interested in reading more about the history of fitness and wellness, be sure to check out Natalia’s essays on these topics.The Dorito’s Rainbow chips are raising money for the It Gets Better Project. Other recent gay-friendly marketing campaigns have included Chipotle’s “Homo Estas” ads and Ben & Jerry’s “I Dough, I Dough” ice cream. Aside from these marketing efforts, corporations have played a leading role in fighting for gay rights since the 1990s. In our regular closing feature, What’s Making History: Natalia responded to a recent New York Times editorial that parents rather than schools should have the ultimate say in their children’s lunches. While acknowledging the class and cultural dimensions of food, Natalia argued that food and nutrition experts needed to have the same educational authority in the classroom that math and history instructors also hold. Natalia has written about how school wellness programs may be the next frontier in the nation’s culture wars. Neil discussed Stacy Schiff’s New Yorker article, “The Witches of Salem.” (Schiff’s new book on the Salem Witch Trials comes out in late October.) Neil noted the rich historical literature on the Salem Witch Trials has included Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum’s Salem Possessed and Mary Beth Norton’s In the Devil’s Snare. Niki spoke about Ari Berman’s new book Give Us the Ballot which argues we are in the midst of a counterrevolution in voting rights. If you want to read more about the battle over the ballot while you are waiting for Ari’s book to arrive, Niki has written about the history of voting rights several times in her column at U.S. News. See here, here, and here.  

Discussion with my friend Frederica about the non-fiction book The Battle for Christmas by Stephen Nissenbaum.

Stories Discussed This Episode: Dream London by Tony Ballantyne Hawkeye by Matt Fraction The X-Files: Season Ten by Joe Harris (comics) The Battle For Christmas by Stephen Nissenbaum   Plus: Q&A