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Creating Christmas: How a Centuries Old European Celebration

Became Something Uniquely American

Historian and archivist Mickey DiCamillo explains how the holiday was tamed, domesticated, and transformed into something uniquely American.

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By the mid-1600’s, the centuries old European celebration of Christmas was such a drunken, bawdy, public affair that the early Puritans arriving in America put an immediate ban on any Christmas celebrations in their Godly communities. New York newspapers in the early 1800’s illustrate that Christmas was far from a silent night and instead was a night of crime and terror. How then did the Christmas holiday become such a treasured tradition of gift giving, Santa Claus, family feasts, and domestic bliss? 

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