Posted: May 1st, 2022

The Battle for Christmas Review

The Battle for Christmas Review
“Introduction: John Pintard’s Holiday Scare” is the first chapter of The Battle for Christmas (p. 49)
This part describes Pintard’s observations about how the Christmas holiday was changing throughout his childhood. Pintard had celebrated Christmas the same way he had done so for years: with a humble day filled with tradition, family, food, and so on. In spite of his considerable fortune, he wanted to keep the celebration simple and polite, as he had done in the past. The following night, while he slept in his luxurious apartment, he was awoken by what he believed to be an intruder in the building. Despite the fact that he was mistaken, his night would remain uneasy due to the fact that the city was alive with a party. As a result of their drinking and partying into the night, Pintard and others like him were kept awake. This section illustrates that a new manner of celebrating Christmas was evolving, and that it was incompatible with the traditional way of celebrating (Nissenbaum, 1996).

“Misrule and Capitalism in Early Nineteenth-Century New York” is the title of this article. (50-55)
That the modern celebration of Christmas has its roots in class strife is explained in detail in this chapter, which begins in the early nineteenth century and continues to the present. So, at the end of the eighteenth century, Christmas was rarely mentioned and was celebrated in relative quietness. As a result of the advent of industries and capitalism, however, the income disparity increased, as did the challenges associated with seasonal labor. As factory owners controlled the majority of the money, the income difference increased dramatically, resulting in a huge and poor lower class. In addition, because many factories were powered by water, they were forced to close throughout the winter. So the Christmas season became overrun with angry members of the lower classes, many of whom had only recently been laid off for the holiday season. As a result, Christmas celebrations became a method for the lower classes to let off steam and even vent their rage towards the upper classes. In response, Christmas celebrations became alcoholic bashes, to the point where the wealthy felt concerned about society’s ability to function properly (Nissenbaum, 1996).

Knickerbocker Holiday (also known as “Knickerbocker Day”) (55-65)
This section describes how the upper classes retaliated against the lower classes during the Christmas season, when the poor’s form of celebration dominated the holiday celebrations. With the advent of unruly celebrations, Pintard and others who backed him began looking for ways to restore a sense of tradition and respect for the event in the community. So Pintard contributed to the revival of the Dutch character Saint Nicholas, as well as increasing efforts to raise awareness of his feast day, December 6, which was established by Pintard. Because Amsterdam was depicted as a quaint, old-world town, it was intended to instill concepts of allegiance, devotion, sobriety, and other virtues in the audience. This became famous because to the efforts of authors such as Washington Irving and has remained so to day. Modern researchers, on the other hand, believe that the image of Santa Claus and the old-world was mostly created by the Knickerbockers, a significant political faction in New York City throughout the nineteenth century (Nissenbaum, 1996).

“Clement Clark Moore, Country Gentleman” is a novel written by Clement Clark Moore (65-71)
It is discussed in this section how Clement Clark Moore became an influential writer and part of the upper-middle-class. His most well-known work is “The Night Before Christmas,” a Christmas story that is still widely read and appreciated today. He is also the author of the children’s book “A Visit from Saint Nicholas.” Moore has also been identified as a member of the Knickerbockers, or at the very least as having shared their ideology, which is thought to have inspired the subliminal themes in his novels. His life portrays a man who was adamantly opposed to the ascent of the lowest sections in society. He was a wealthy landowner in what is now Chelsea, New York City, and he was forced to relinquish a large portion of his property to the city in order for it to expand. To the contrary, in statements he made, he voiced his concern for the survival of the upper classes in the face of the rising numbers of lower-class people (Nissenbaum, 1996).

“From Saint Nicholas to Santa Clause” is a phrase that means “from Saint Nicholas to Santa Clause” (71-76)
This section describes the process by which the present picture of Santa Claus began to take shape. Many of the themes in the narrative of Santa Claus are derived from earlier writings, specifically those by Pintard and Washington Irving. Because of the labor that they did, the old-world persona of St. Nicholas was transformed into the modern-day figure of Santa Claus, as it known today. It includes concepts such as bringing gifts on Christmas Eve, riding in a sleigh, and using reindeer, among others. It did, however, contain elements of the old world, such as allusions to Judgement Day (Nissenbaum, 1996).

The Night Before Christmas to the Day of Doom: From ‘The Day of Doom’ to ‘The Night Before Christmas’ (76-78)
Moore’s “A Visit from Saint Nicholas,” based on the work of Pintard and Irving, is credited with creating the contemporary image of Santa Claus that is still in use today. Moore, on the other hand, did away with concepts like as Judgement Day and punishment, leaving only the joyous features of the celebration in their place. In truth, this work is a mirror to the poem “The Day of Doom,” which was written about the Day of Judgment. While it’s possible that the parallel is a coincidence, it’s more likely that it isn’t, because it appears to be intended to make a point. That is, Moore has stripped Christmas of its connotations of fear and judgment, and he has remade Santa Claus as a beggar rather than a bishop-like figure (Nissenbaum, 1996).

“The Stump of a Pipe” is the title of this piece (78-87)
This representation of Santa Claus was intended to appeal to members of the higher classes. First and foremost, it addressed their anxieties of the impoverished stealing into their homes at night as well as their guilt at wanting to help the needy. As a result of his new appearance, Santa demanded nothing from the wealthy and represented no threat to them at all. As a result, there was a sense of shared harmony amongst the courses (Nissenbaum, 1996).

“We’re going back in time,” says the narrator (87-89)
All things considered, Christmas was invented by the wealthy of New York as a tool of class warfare, in the sense that they desired social order and the preservation of peace. Knickerbockers such as Pintard and Irving tried a variety of strategies to accomplish this, but Moore discovered the most effective one. He, in other words, helped to maintain society’s unity by creating a Santa Claus image that did not threaten the rich and made them feel better about their guilt for having more than the poor (Nissenbaum, 1996).

References
S. Nissenbaum et al (1996). It’s a race against time to get to Christmas. Alfred A. Knopf & Company, New York.

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