ISBN: 0307760227 9780307760227

Category: History / United States / General

Page count: 400

<b>PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • Drawing on a wealth of research, this "fascinating" book (<i>The New York Times Book Review)</i> charts the invention of our current Yuletide traditions, from St. Nicholas to the Christmas tree and, perhaps most radically, the practice of giving gifts to children. <br></b><br>Anyone who laments the excesses of Christmas might consider the Puritans of colonial Massachusetts: they simply outlawed the holiday. The Puritans had their reasons, since Christmas was once an occasion for drunkenness and riot, when poor "wassailers  extorted food and drink from the well-to-do. In this intriguing and innovative work of social history, Stephen Nissenbaum rediscovers Christmas's carnival origins and shows how it was transformed, during the nineteenth century, into a festival of domesticity and consumerism. <br>   <br>Bursting with detail, filled with subversive readings of such seasonal classics as "A Visit from St. Nicholas” and<i> A Christmas Carol</i>, <i>The Battle for Christmas</i> captures the glorious strangeness of the past even as it helps us better understand our present.