[Many, many, many times over the last year, I’ve wished that more Americans would have the chance to read my writing and learn even a few of the many lessons I believe it offers for us in 2025. So for my annual Wishes for the Holiday Elves series, I wanted to revisit my six books, highlighting something specific from each that I think we could takeaway today. Leading up to this special post on my awesome wife’s Christmastastic new book!]
I wrote
back in September about my wife Vaughn Joy’s then-forthcoming and
now-released first book, Selling
Out Santa: Hollywood Christmas Films in the Age of McCarthy; I’ll write
more about it as part of a late-March series on her many book talks across a
number of different media and formats. But I couldn’t share a blog series on my
own books without highlighting Vaughn’s, and I do have a few specific wishes
for the Holiday Elves related to Selling Out Santa specifically:
1)
Redefining American Christmas: One of the most
consistent and most striking responses that we’ve seen to Vaughn’s book is from
folks who see Christmas as an overtly and centrally Christian holiday, and thus
for example take issue with Vaughn’s claim (the center of her main book talk)
that Christmas
= America. But Vaughn’s argument, and it’s both incredibly convincing and
hugely important, is that American Christmas has always been an amalgamated,
multicultural, secular and civic holiday—while of course Christians can
celebrate their version of the holiday, that’s just one of countless layers to
American Christmas, and one that came along much later in the historical
development of our holiday than (for example) Santa
imagery. Vaughn seems to be fighting an uphill battle to remind people of
these vital histories and realities, but it’s a fight well worth fighting, and one
that I wish all Americans could really take to heart.
2)
Cultural and Media Literacies: Learning that
lesson requires folks to engage thoughtfully and meaningfully with not only histories,
but also and perhaps especially with the cultural and media texts that have
created our Christmas and holiday imagery, narratives, and myths across the
centuries—a list that includes but is in no way limited to Vaughn’s focus on
Hollywood Christmas films. As Vaughn developed her book talks she realized that
one of the most central throughlines of her scholarly work has been a focus on
enhancing our literacy when it comes to such cultural imagery—whether of
classical mythologies (her first MA), comic books (her second), films (her PhD
that became this book), or other genres and media. I wholeheartedly agree with
her assertion that no skills are more important for all Americans and people to
practice and strengthen in late 2025, and I wish all Americans would have the
chance to do so by reading Vaughn’s book.
3)
Sharing My Joy: Ultimately, though, my wish
for the Holiday Elves is simpler than that—I wish every single person could
have the chance to see just how excellent this book is—how engagingly written
while offering nuanced ideas, how attentive to close readings of tons of
classic films while making overarching historical arguments, how exemplary of
interdisciplinary public scholarship at its best. If you want to share my Joy
and aren’t sure how to get your hands on a copy of the book, feel free to leave
a comment or to check out our website
or to shoot me an email, and
thanks in advance!
Year in
Review series starts Monday,
Ben
PS. You
know what to do!
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