It’s Christmas Day!
December 25
An event every year that begins at 12:00 am on day 25 of December, repeating indefinitely
Although the holiday is believed to date back to 336 A.D., Christmas did not catch on across the United States until the latter half of the 1700s. During colonial times, celebrations (or lack thereof) greatly depended on the predominant sect of each region. In Puritan New England, Christmas celebrations were often banned as non-Biblical and sacrilegious. Farther south however, Christmas was celebrated with wassailing, yule logs, pranks, singing, and feasting.
At least some of our founding fathers held Christmas feasts – John and Abigail Adams hosted the first White House Christmas party for their granddaughter and other children in 1800. That said, the founders were willing to work on the day – the first session of Congress after the Revolution was held on Christmas Day, 1789.
As Christmas gatherings became more and more popular throughout the 1800s, Americans borrowed traditions from the Old World, such as the German Christmas tree and Dutch Sinter Klaas (popularized by Washington Irving and Clement C. Moore).
Decorating the Christmas Tree, Marcel Rieder, 1898
-Written by Anna Zemaitaitis, Communications and Design Officer
