A Colonial Christmas

Imagine a world without the bustle and pressure of modern society, when the family sits together around a huge hearth that adds a trace of warmth and cinnamon to the air. The nightclothes are simple cottons, warm and soft, and a baby quietly murmurs from a rocking cradle at Mom's feet. A Christmas tree, decked with candles brightly glowing, its branches heavy with a drape of popcorn and cranberries and dolls weighing down the limbs. Beneath is a trove of bright, beribboned packages, holding promise for the next morning. A perfect Christmas Eve in the colonies. And entirely imaginary. 

The dirty little secret of Colonial Williamsburg and other historic American sites that put on their Sunday best to celebrate an Early American Christmas is that they are promoting a fiction. The real Christmas in the colonies was, for the most part, just another day. William Byrd, living in Virginia near Williamsburg, left a series of wonderful diaries documenting his every and ordinary day, down to intimate details. In the years 1709 to 1712 the word "Christmas" does not appear. The closest he comes is in 1709. Although he went once to church that Christmas, it was only because it fell on Sunday. 

"At 11 o'clock the rest of the company ate some broiled turkey for their breakfast. Then we went to church, notwithstanding it rained a little, where Mr. Anderson preached a good sermon for the occasion. I received the Sacrament with great devoutness." 

In New England, a great devoutness meant Christmas was just another day to do the Lord's work, which means an ordinary working day. Puritans abhorred the excesses of church celebrations. 

For their part, Colonial Williamsburg is honest about the deception, readily admitting they invented the Williamsburg Christmas in 1936. What they have done is combine the best parts of the holiday and history, bringing together the warm, uncomplicated feeling of the colonial era and the modern sense of celebration. 

Much of the modern tradition of Christmas can be traced to post-colonial times through German roots. In the 19th Century, the tradition of the Christmas tree arose among the German-speaking people of Pennsylvania and a few other scattered outposts. For example, the Moravians of Salem (now Winston-Salem), North Carolina, and the Separatists of Zoar, Ohio, trace their heritage to the same Teutonic roots. With them they brought the tradition of the Christmas tree and Santa Claus (as well as Santa's evil twin). 

Early in the 19th Century these ethnic Christmas ideas began to slip into the mainstream, earlier here than in England. Most historians trace English Christmas tree traditions to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who married on February 11, 1840 while children in Troy, New York children were first visited by Dutch-influenced Saint Nicholas on December 23, 1823 in the Troy Senteniel.