A Letter to Cotton Mather (February 12, 1663 – February 13, 1728)
Dear Cotton,
In 1776, Christmas in America was not one holiday.
It was several completely different holidays awkwardly wearing the same date.
Depending on where you stood, December 25th could feel:
sacred,
rowdy,
forbidden,
homesick,
political,
drunken,
quiet,
extravagant,
or barely acknowledged at all.
Modern Americans tend to imagine colonial Christmases as cozy little candlelit scenes with snow drifting gently outside while everyone sips cider and hums hymns beside fireplaces.
But reality?
Reality was weirder.
New England Puritans like your people viewed Christmas with deep suspicion. To many of them, the holiday smelled dangerously “popish,” pagan, excessive, and morally slippery.
Businesses often stayed open.
Work continued normally.
Public celebration could even bring social criticism or legal penalties in earlier generations.
Puritans basically looked at Christmas and said:
“Absolutely not. Too much joy.”
Meanwhile farther south, Anglicans embraced the full festive spirit enthusiastically.
In Virginia and the Carolinas, Christmas stretched through the traditional Twelve Days with:
feasts,
balls,
fox hunts,
drinking,
gambling,
music,
visiting,
and enough social revelry to make stern New England ministers spontaneously tighten their collars from several colonies away.
And then there were the Middle Colonies:
Pennsylvania,
New York,
New Jersey.
A cultural mash-up already forming.
Dutch settlers brought St. Nicholas traditions.
German immigrants contributed greenery, baked goods, and early Christmas tree customs.
Quakers celebrated more quietly.
Catholics maintained older liturgical practices discreetly.
America’s future multicultural holiday machine was already quietly booting up.
And regardless of denomination, food sat at the center of everything.
Roasted goose.
Turkey.
Venison.
Mincemeat pies.
Plum puddings.
Syllabub.
Mulled wine.
Hard cider.
Tables groaned beneath calories dense enough to survive several centuries of winter and emotional repression simultaneously.
Decorations remained simple:
holly,
ivy,
laurel,
evergreen boughs.
No inflatable lawn Santas.
No synchronized LED light shows visible from orbit.
Just foraged greenery and candlelight flickering against colonial walls.
And perhaps most importantly:
Christmas was noisy.
People visited taverns.
Fired guns into the air.
Sang loudly.
Played pranks.
Roamed neighborhoods.
The holiday often resembled controlled social chaos more than peaceful Hallmark programming.
Which honestly makes sense.
For agricultural societies facing brutal winters, communal release mattered psychologically.
Then came the Revolution.
And suddenly Christmas became politically awkward too.
British-associated extravagance fell under suspicion in Patriot circles. Lavish aristocratic celebrations linked too closely with loyalist culture sometimes gave way to simpler gatherings emphasizing republican virtue.
Meanwhile war overshadowed everything.
Families separated.
Supplies dwindled.
Soldiers froze.
And then came one of the most famous Christmas nights in American history:
December 25, 1776.
George Washington crossed the ice-choked Delaware River with exhausted Continental troops to surprise Hessian forces in Trenton.
Cold.
Darkness.
Blizzard conditions.
Starving soldiers marching through snow with wrapped feet stained in blood.
Not exactly chestnuts roasting on an open fire.
And yet that desperate gamble changed the momentum of the Revolution itself.
Which means one of America’s foundational Christmas stories involves military exhaustion, freezing river crossings, and strategic violence against mercenaries after midnight.
History occasionally writes very strange holiday specials.
Then came the 19th century.
And Christmas transformed completely.
Early in the century, many Americans still treated Christmas modestly or ignored it altogether.
But urbanization, immigration, industrialization, and cultural nostalgia reshaped everything.
America needed softer rituals as cities grew harsher.
And Christmas stepped into that emotional opening.
Washington Irving romanticized old Dutch holiday traditions.
Then in 1823 came:
“A Visit from St. Nicholas.”
Better known today as:
“’Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
Suddenly St. Nicholas transformed from solemn saint into cheerful magical gift-bringer riding through snowy skies.
And later, cartoonist Thomas Nast helped shape the modern visual image of Santa Claus:
round belly,
white beard,
fur-trimmed suit,
North Pole mythology.
America essentially hired illustrators to redesign theology into seasonal branding.
Then came the Christmas tree.
German immigrant traditions spread gradually until decorated evergreen trees became national obsession.
Candles first illuminated branches dangerously.
Which meant Victorian Christmases carried a thrilling side game called:
“Will the living room ignite before dessert?”
Eventually electric lights solved that problem.
Meanwhile Christmas shifted steadily toward children and domestic family life.
Earlier centuries emphasized communal revelry.
The 1800s increasingly emphasized:
home,
innocence,
gift-giving,
family warmth,
and sentimental nostalgia.
Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol accelerated this dramatically.
Christmas became moral redemption story:
generosity,
charity,
family reconciliation,
human kindness.
The holiday softened.
And in 1870, Congress officially declared Christmas a federal holiday.
America had gone from:
“Work harder and stop singing”
to
“National paid celebration with baked goods.”
A remarkable emotional pivot.
Then the 20th century arrived.
And Christmas became enormous.
Mass production transformed gift culture entirely.
Department stores created elaborate Christmas displays.
Mail-order catalogs exploded wish-list fantasies nationwide.
The Sears Wish Book became sacred artifact for generations of children plotting toy acquisition strategies with military precision.
Barbie.
LEGO.
Toy trains.
Bicycles.
Cabbage Patch Kids.
Video game consoles.
Christmas morning evolved into ceremonial unboxing ritual for consumer capitalism.
And Santa?
Santa became corporate icon.
Coca-Cola advertisements helped cement the modern red-suited Santa image globally through Haddon Sundblom’s illustrations beginning in the 1930s.
The North Pole got sponsored effectively.
Meanwhile technology transformed atmosphere itself.
Electric lights migrated outdoors.
Neighborhood decorating escalated competitively.
Radio brought Bing Crosby into living rooms.
Television added:
It’s a Wonderful Life,
Miracle on 34th Street,
A Charlie Brown Christmas,
and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
America began replaying the same emotional holiday narratives annually until they embedded into collective memory itself.
And the music…
Good Lord, the music.
White Christmas,
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,
Jingle Bell Rock.
Entire generations learned Christmas emotionally through soundtrack before theology.
At the same time, the holiday grew increasingly inclusive and secularized.
Jewish Americans adapted culturally through Hanukkah visibility and shared seasonal participation.
Kwanzaa emerged in the 1960s.
Public language broadened toward “the holiday season.”
Christmas became simultaneously:
Christian holy day,
family tradition,
commercial engine,
cultural festival,
nostalgia machine,
and civic atmosphere.
Then came the 21st century.
And Christmas became hyperconnected.
Online shopping exploded.
Packages traveled continents overnight.
Algorithms predicted gift preferences before relatives even asked.
Holiday commerce surpassed one trillion dollars nationally.
One trillion.
The birth of Christ became economic weather system.
And yet modern Christmas also fragmented beautifully.
Some families attend midnight Mass reverently.
Others host ugly sweater parties featuring questionable eggnog decisions and karaoke versions of Mariah Carey songs loud enough to concern nearby wildlife.
Some focus on Advent and spiritual reflection.
Others prioritize gifts and spectacle.
Many blend both instinctively.
“Friendsmas” gatherings expanded.
Digital greeting cards replaced paper.
Elf on the Shelf transformed surveillance into festive child psychology experiment.
A tiny smiling informant judging household behavior nightly.
Very normal tradition we created there.
And technology reshaped connection itself.
Families separated geographically gather through FaceTime.
Livestream church services reach homes instantly.
Drone light shows replace fireworks.
AI now helps generate Christmas playlists, recipes, shopping lists, and personalized greetings.
Even Santa tracks through apps now.
Imagine explaining to 1776 colonists:
“We gave Father Christmas satellite support.”
Meanwhile economic anxiety shadows modern celebration too.
Inflation pressures families.
Many rely heavily on credit cards.
Some embrace secondhand gifting or “Buy Nothing” Christmas movements pushing back against hyper-consumerism.
And fascinatingly, younger generations increasingly prioritize:
experiences over objects,
intentional gatherings over excess,
meaning over accumulation.
Perhaps after decades of maximum consumption, people began craving emotional substance again.
Still, the heart of Christmas persists stubbornly beneath all the noise.
People gather.
Cook.
Remember absent loved ones.
Exchange gifts.
Sing badly.
Decorate.
Forgive temporarily.
Attempt kindness.
Search for wonder.
That thread survived every century.
Cotton, if you could witness Christmas in 2026, you would likely recoil first at:
inflatable lawn dragons wearing Santa hats,
Black Friday stampedes,
social-media gift hauls,
and enough blinking LEDs to trigger theological crisis.
You might interpret Costco alone as evidence of apocalyptic prophecy.
But I imagine you would also recognize quieter echoes:
candlelit services,
charity drives,
family tables overflowing with food,
neighbors helping one another,
children staring wide-eyed at lights,
and weary people pausing briefly to hope the world might still contain goodness.
Because despite all the commercialization, spectacle, and absurdity…
Christmas remains one of humanity’s great annual acts of collective imagination.
For a few weeks, millions of people attempt generosity more intentionally.
That matters.
With warmth, nostalgia, peppermint fumes, and one dangerously overcommitted strand of Christmas lights tangled around the emotional history of America itself,
—The Radical Left 🎁🖤
And dear reader, perhaps the deeper question after 250 years is this:
What exactly are we celebrating now?
The birth of Christ?
Family?
Tradition?
Consumerism?
Nostalgia?
Survival through winter?
Community?
Childhood wonder?
Perhaps Christmas endures because it became large enough to hold all those meanings simultaneously.
And maybe that is the strange beauty of it:
a holiday capable of carrying both sacred silence…
and joyful chaos at the same time.
The candles changed.
The music changed.
The shopping carts multiplied alarmingly.
But somewhere beneath the wrapping paper, algorithms, and blinking lights…
human beings are still gathering in the dark, trying to create warmth together.