[Ahead of Columbus/Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I wanted to dedicate a series to exploring such contested American holidays and what they can help us think about. Leading up to a special post on that most conflicted of all our federal holidays!]
Three
voices who can together help us see through the “War
on Christmas” canard (which as of this writing Donald
Trump has recently resuscitated).
1)
Steven
Nissenbaum: That excellent hyperlinked book of Nissenbaum’s, The Battle
for Christmas: A Social and Cultural History of Our Most Cherished Holiday (1996),
does a great deal of the work I was originally planning to do in this post,
specifically in framing the fact that Christmas in America has always been
contested and even attacked, and indeed in places like Puritan New England was far
more so both of those things than it is in any aspect of our 21st
century society. Moreover, Nissenbaum helps us understand that many of the elements
of the holiday we now too often take for granted (like the “fact” that it celebrates
Christ and/or his birth) were likewise entirely contested throughout much of
American history, indeed for far longer than they have been seen as settled
parts of the holiday. Bottom line, if there’s any truth to the idea of a “War
on Christmas,” it’s a historical truth, not a contemporary one; feel free to
share that with your Fox News-watching relatives, and you’re welcome (from
Nissenbaum and me).
2)
Vaughn
Joy: Among the many aspects of Joy’s excellent Film- and AmericanStudying
work that I highlighted in that post, one of them in particular, her Comparative
American Studies article on Miracle on
34th Street, illustrates the ways in which she uses both
Christmas and cultural representations of it to make a number of thoughtful and
significant analytical points. She does so precisely because, as she argues in that
article and a great
deal of her other work as well, Christmas has always been one of the most contested
and evolving symbols of (among other things) American identity and ideals, rather
than some fixed or consistent celebration that could reasonably come under
attack. And as Joy’s work particularly exemplifies, those shifting and
competing meanings have been frequently (if not indeed always) constructed and
reconstructed through cultural works, adding one more layer to the fundamental silliness
of some overarching “Christmas” that could be warred upon.
3)
My Mom: That’s how a couple of the best
scholars of Christmas histories and culture can help us challenge the “War on
Christmas” canard. But I’m not sure any challenge is more telling than a
reminder of what the holiday season meant in America just a few decades ago. My
Mom has shared quite a bit with me about the experience of growing up Jewish in
1950s and 60s America, and specifically about how openly and single-mindedly
public schools celebrated Christmas, with nary the slightest reference to
hanukkah or any other holiday or tradition (despite, again, the presence of
Jewish kids like my Mom in those schools and classes). In those schools and
eras, as I would argue for virtually all of our history (or at the very least all
of our 20th century history), it was Christmas that waged war on far
too many Americans—and if we’ve gotten slightly better at defending those
individuals and communities during the holiday season, that’s simply an
inclusive way to live up to our ideals.
Special
post this weekend,
Ben
PS. What
do you think?
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