Old Fashioned Christmas: Part 1 (November 29, 2025)
by Scott Sosebee
*For the next few weeks, this column will focus on “Christmas in the Past,” a series of columns that will feature ways Americans celebrated Christmas in the past and how the way we currently celebrate the holiday has evolved.
Almost everybody loves Christmas. As the old song tells us, “it’s the most wonderful time of the year.” When the calendar moves into “that time of the year” (which seems to get earlier every year), the decorations comes out, we start hearing carols, and children’s thoughts turn to a visit from old St. Nick. Christmas, of course, is a Christian holiday, a religious observance of Christ’s birth, but in the United States it has evolved into an entire season of revelry and pageantry, the holiday that continually ranks in polls as the favorite holiday in the nation.
Christmas was not always that popular. In fact, before 1850 it was barely celebrated at all, and if so it was as a strictly religious observance. Also, because America was a land of immigrants, there were as many different types of Christmas rites as there were diverse numbers of Christian ethnicities. What they all shared was that the sacred services at Christmas were usually solemn affairs, characterized by mostly silent reverence and, perhaps, a reading from the Gospel accounts of Christ’s birth. Decorations and presents were non-existent, and music associated with the holiday was almost dirge like, with Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht (Silent Night, Holy Night), first performed in Austria in 1818, a prime example.
The trappings and celebration of Christmas began to change in the United States around the mid-nineteenth century. The 1850s and 1860s were a traumatic time for most Americans. Sectional strife roiled throughout the nation as North and South struggled with the debate over the expansion of slavery into the western territories specifically, and the continuation of the institution more broadly. At the same time, particularly in the North, Americans were grappling with the effects of tremendous growth in population, urbanization, and industrialization. Massive immigration from so many diverse lands had left mass amounts of people in those newly large cities isolated from the customs of their homeland. People needed a little joy in their lives, perhaps some sense of unity in a nation torn apart, and something that would take their minds off the travails of the times. Christmas seemed perfect for the part. Christmas celebrations, which were once diverse affairs, could also provide a unifying culture for all Americans.
The result was a holiday that became something uniquely American, which means that Americans borrowed heavily from Old World traditions, and melded them together into a holiday shared by many. The new holiday kept the religious underpinnings, naturally, but also interwove distinctly American concepts of artisanship, capitalism, and often what I often call “invented nostalgia.” Americans are very good at creating a narrative that surrounds mythology, making it seem authentic, and then incorporating it into their national narrative. Christmas was no exception. The end of the Civil War only intensified the growing importance of Christmas as a celebration.
For example, Americans adopted from Germany what has become one of the most iconic symbols of Christmas: the Christmas Tree. A number of Christian cultures had adopted trees as symbols of Jesus’ birth, but it was the German tradition that took hold in America. It began as a custom in the upper Rhineland, a Protestant region, and involved the placement of candles and decorations on the tree to signify the season. It made its way to North America through German mercenaries employed by the British in the Atlantic colonies and in Canada, but remained a niche custom until the 1830s. By the 1870s the tree, along with the custom of “decorating” it on Christmas Eve, had spread throughout the United States.
The humble German Christmas Tree gained another facet of its history when it came to America: commercial appeal. As more and more Americans put up trees in their homes, and began to elaborately decorate them, tree vendors began to commercially produce “Christmas Trees” for sale in cities and towns during the season. Town markets and squares throughout the nation became “Christmas Tree Bazaars,” and residents flocked to the lots to make their purchases. Along with the commercial sale of trees came a market for decorations. Originally, following in the German tradition of the tree, Americans adorned their trees with popcorn strings, fruit, candy, and other homemade trinkets. However, again beginning in the 1850s and continuing throughout the remainder of the century, decorations became more commercial as well. Merchants began to sell special “Christmas decorations,” such as shiny glass balls, artistically styled angels, and stars. It became big business, and by the 1870s merchants imported ornaments from Germany, Sweden, and Great Britain, and special vendors set up street kiosks specifically to sell Christmas decorations. The humble German-inspired Christmas tree had become an entrenched American accoutrement of the holiday. The old German tradition receded and in its place came the American Christmas Tree. One in three Americans put up a Christmas Tree by 1900.
Next Week: Christmas Cards and the rise of gift-giving
The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Scott Sosebee is a Professor of History at Stephen F. Austin State University and the Executive Director of the Association. He can be contacted at sosebeem@sfasu.edu or via www.easttexashistorical.org.