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Friday, 14 December 2007 |
There was no Santa Claus back in Eighteenth Century America, but some of the Dutch Colonists in New Amsterdam did celebrate "St. Nicholas Day." A man dressed in red bishop's robes would visit the children and put candy or a birch rod in their wooden shoes, depending on whether they had been "good" or "bad" that year. It is that little tradition among a few of the Colonists which has been blown up into the incredible Santa Claus "thing" we have with us now. Today Santa Claus is at the center of the American National Christmas. And it was Clement Moore, clergyman and professor of theology, who wrote the poem that did this to us. "The Night Before Christmas" was written by this Christian theologian and not one line, not one word about Christ. It is purely secular, from beginning to end.
The Christmas tree came to us largely from the German tradition. We know that during the Revolution, Hessian soldiers decorated their trees. Washington chose to cross the Delaware on Christmas night partly because he knew that the Hessian and British guard would be down. They would be busy celebrating around the Christmas trees they had decorated. It wasn't until the middle of the Nineteenth Century, however, that the Christmas tree custom began to take hold around America.
The custom of feasting came from the English and to some extent from the Dutch. But again, in Colonial times, whether or not one partook of the "bountiful table" depended upon where one lived. Many of the Colonists feasted on Christmas Day, but the Puritans worked, as if to make the point that everything else being done that day was sinful.
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