Saturday I went to a special Christmas exhibition at Winterthur (the old country estate of Henry Francis DuPont, now a museum of decorative arts). As a part of the exhibition, they traced the development of Christmas as we know it today.
Christmas was primarily a religious occasion in the eighteenth century. We find at the German Lutheran Church in the Robinson River Valley (Hebron) that they held a communion service on Christmas. (At least Rev. Franck did.) This service was not necessarily on a Sunday. Imagery such as a manager scene was considered idol worship, and was strongly opposed by many. The service was probably the usual communion, but perhaps marked by more singing than usual. And, after the service, the dinners were more fanciful.
The Moravians (German communities in Pennsylvania and North Carolina) introduced the idea of greenery into the Christmas celebration. Using evergreens, they built little huts or pyramids which they decorated with candles and small presents for the children. The presents were very modest, on the order of some handwritten Biblical verses. And the Moravians would have celebrated with music, a favorite activity with them. The adult Moravians had a ceremonial dinner with sweet cakes.
Before the Christmas tree came into use, the Germans used holly with red berries as a decorative element. This would have been approaching 1800 in time. (For two years now my wife, Eleanor, and I have used holly in lieu of a tree, and we did not realize that we were harking back to an old German tradition.) The use of trees would have been rare in Germany, because the typical German did not own any wood lots, nor could he spare ground to grow evergreen trees. With holly, one bush could serve as a continuous supply of greenery.
As the greenery grew more elaborate, the decorations on the tree grew more elaborate. Germany led in developing an industry of ornaments to hang on trees. In the 1800's the use of evergreen trees became more common. At first, the idea was that the parents would decorate the tree in secret and the children would, or could not, see it until Christmas. This idea has changed, and now decorating the tree is an event for all of the family.
Santa Claus is a late invention, drawing on a myriad of lores. As we know St. Nick, he is a young fellow conceptually. Though we think of our childhood Christmases as having always existed, in reality they are new, even younger than our nation. We inherited a large part of our traditions, especially from Germany.
(26 Nov 01)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.