Christmas in America

The Christmas Americans celebrate today is largely a late nineteenth century creation, and is a blend of Old World history and traditions melded and altered by an emerging American culture. Although many of the traditions of today’s American Christmas originated in Germany and England, the holiday has been influenced by cultures around the world. Only a century ago, New Year’s Day was a more important day than Christmas for many Americans.

Christmas in America was first observed in the colonies by a ragged band of Englishmen huddled together in Jamestown in 1607. Their leader, Captain John Smith, was away, bartering for food with the local native Americans. There was less than 40 of them and little food with which to rejoice, but they still observed Christmas Day with an Anglican worship service. The majority of the early settlers in Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas were Anglicans of English descent. Their Christmas celebrations emphasized feasting, drinking, dancing, card playing, horse racing, cock fighting and other games, rather than worship. The old English Christmas customs they brought along with them included Christmas carols, Yule logs, kissing under the mistletoe, and decking homes with greenery.

The Puritans of New England considered the day an abomination. They had a deep-seated abhorrence of the Church of England's relics of popery, including Christ-mass. As late as 1886, the American Methodist newspaper The Christian Advocate described Christmas as a day Aon which more sin and sacrilege and pagan foolishness is committed than on any other day of the year. The Reformers said Christmas was a human invention since the date of December 25th had been assigned by the Roman Church in the 4th century, and that any celebration of the Savior's birth was without Biblical sanction.

However, celebrating Christmas grew to become popular tradition over the years, and seemed to develop more firmly as a revered holiday as America developed into a strong nation.

In 1836, Alabama became the first state in the U.S. to declare Christmas a legal holiday, and in 1907, Oklahoma became the last of the continental states to do so. During the years between these two state holiday declarations, Christmas in America had transformed from a minor religious day celebrated only by some into the universally observed and most joyous holiday celebration in America today.