The traditions of Christmas

’Tis the season for Christmas lights, gingerbread houses, eggnog and newspaper stories that begin with “ ’Tis the season.” Let’s take a moment to learn from where these holiday traditions — well, all except for that last one, perhaps — originated.

Gingerbread Houses

While gingerbread had been around since ancient Greece, Queen Elizabeth I was the first to decorate ginger cookies, having them sometimes turned into caricatures of people visiting the royal court in the 16th century. Over the years, decorating gingerbread cookies became more and more elaborate until Germans began using the cookies to build walled houses — especially during the Christmas season. This became even more popular after the Brothers Grimm published the story of “Hansel and Gretel” in their “Grimm’s Fairy Tales” in 1812.

Poinsettias

Native to the Pacific coast of Central America, these plants were brought to the United States by the first U.S. ambassador to Mexico, botanist Joel Roberts Poinsett, in the 1920s. A hundred or so years later, California horticulturist Paul Ecke donated poinsettia plants to TV shows, increasing their popularity. Poinsettias became the nation’s best-selling potted plant in 1986. These plants are often considered to be highly toxic, but that’s not the case — that came from an urban legend that spread in 1919 about a child dying after eating a poinsettia leaf.

'The 12 Days of Christmas'

What we think of now as a Christmas song was originally an old poem recited by French children in the 1700s. In 1780, an English version was published in a children’s book. English composer Frederic Austin then set the poem to music in 1909, creating the version we’re most familiar with today. The Christian “12 Days of Christmas” — officially known as the Twelvetide — refers to the time between the birth of Jesus and the visit by the Magi — so really, this would be Dec. 25 to Jan. 5.

Christmas Cards

Christmas cards originated in England in 1843 but didn’t really catch on until the three Hall Brothers — postcard makers in Norfolk, Nebraska — moved to Kansas City in 1910 and began selling printed, folded cards with a matching envelope. The Hall Brothers went on to popularize specially designed gift-wrapping paper in 1917. The company they founded began selling Christmas ornaments in 1973. Hallmark sold $4.5 billion in greeting cards in 2019. There are about 2,000 Hallmark retail stores across the U.S.

The Yule Log

Germanic pagans of Eastern Europe would set bonfires to celebrate the winter solstice. After Christianity moved into the region, this tradition morphed into one in which a log is placed in the family fireplace and burned a little each night — until it’s all gone by the 12th night of Christmas. In 1966, WPIX — a TV station that was owned at the time by the New York Daily News — brought the yule log into the modern day by broadcasting a 17-second loop continuously for three hours. Today, yule log loops abound on the internet.

Christmas Lights

Thomas Edison perfected the modern carbon-filament incandescent light and formed the Edison Electric Light Co. in 1878. It took a whole four years before his partner and friend Edward Hibberd Johnson came up with the idea of stringing little Edison bulbs around a Christmas tree to replace the candles that had been used on trees since the 18th century. By 1914, retailers were selling mass-produced sets of lights. About 150 million sets of Christmas lights are sold each year.

Spiked Eggnogs

Folks in medieval England drank what they called poset, which was made of hot curdled milk and ale or wine and flavored with spices. It was also used as a remedy for colds and the flu. Eventually, eggs were added to the mix. Early American colonists brought poset with them, turned it into a Christmas beverage and replaced the key ingredient with rum. The first published use of the word “egg nog” was a poetic homage to the drink written by a Maryland clergyman in 1775. In 1789, George Washington himself wrote down his favorite eggnog recipe.

The Elf on The Shelf

In 2005, Chanda Bell maxxed out her credit card to self-publish a Christmas children’s book she and her ailing mother, Carol Aebersold, had written together — a book that would come with an elf doll. The gimmick: The elf is there to spy on kids to keep them on good behavior throughout the holiday season. To make it all seem more real, parents move the elf around every night. After two years of sales at craft shows and online, Jennifer Garner was photographed carrying an “Elf on the Shelf” box. Sales grew so quickly that PayPal shut down their website.

Christmas Trees

Christmas trees come to us from Germany. As far back as the Middle Ages, Germans decorated trees at Christmastime. As they migrated to America, German people brought the tradition with them. The first recorded Christmas tree in America was in Pennsylvania in 1830. But many Americans at the time regarded Christmas trees as pagan symbols.

The Puritans of New England, in fact, resisted trees, Christmas carols and other things they considered desecrations of their sacred Christmas. In 1659, the General Court of Massachusetts outlawed any observance of Dec. 25 — other than holding a church service, that is. People were fined five shillings just for hanging ornaments.

By the 1800s, though, the number of German and Irish immigrants had overwhelmed any lingering resistance to celebrating the holidays in style. A New York woodsman named Mark Carr began selling Christmas trees from a lot in 1851. Folks began illuminating their trees with candles, carefully place in candle holders perched in the branches of their trees. When the U.S. moved to electric lights, so did Christmas tree illumination.

The first tree was put up in New York’s Rockefeller Center in 1931. They didn’t begin using huge ones there until 1933.

Santa Claus

monk born in 280 A.D. in what is now Turkey known for his kindness and generosity became St. Nicholas. His reputation grew, and the anniversary of his death — Dec. 6 — was observed with a feast and gift-giving. The Dutch brought stories about “Sinter Klaas” with them when they migrated to America in the 1770s. In England, the legend of St. Nicholas evolved into who children there called “Father Christmas.”

In 1809, Washington Irving wrote about St. Nicholas as the patron saint of New York in his book, “The History of New York.” In the 1920s, stores began setting up “Santa Claus” dioramas at Christmastime.

The big game changer for the jolly ol’ elf came in 1822 when Episcopal minister and poet Clement Moore wrote a poem for his children about a visit from St. Nicholas. Moore published the poem anonymously the next year but didn’t claim authorship of it until 1838.

Santa’s modern-day look comes to us thanks to Harper’s Weekly cartoonist Thomas Nast, who began drawing him in the 1860s. The drawing you see here is from 1881. Nast is the same guy who also gave us the elephant mascot of the Republican Party.

Sources: History.com, “Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things” by Charles Panati, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, PBS, Good Housekeeping, the Farmer’s Almanac, Snopes, U.S. House of Representatives History, Art & Archives, Hallmark.com, TheYuleLog.com