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Christmas: A Candid History
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$ 33.24
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| Item Number |
100516 |
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Item Description...
Product Description
Written for everyone who loves and is simultaneously driven crazy by the holiday season, Christmas: A Candid History provides an enlightening, entertaining perspective on how the annual Yuletide celebration got to be what it is today. In a fascinating, concise tour through history, the book tells the story of Christmas--from its pre-Christian roots, through the birth of Jesus, to the holiday's spread across Europe into the Americas and beyond, and to its mind-boggling transformation through modern consumerism. Packed with intriguing stories, based on research into myriad sources, full of insights, the book explores the historical origins of traditions including Santa, the reindeer, gift giving, the Christmas tree, Christmas songs and movies, and more. The book also offers some provocative ideas for reclaiming the joy and meaning of this beloved, yet often frustrating, season amid the pressures of our fast-paced consumer culture.
DID YOU KNOW
For three centuries Christians did not celebrate Christmas?
Puritans in England and New England made Christmas observances illegal?
St. Nicholas is an elf in the famous poem "The Night Before Christmas"?
President Franklin Roosevelt changed the dateof Thanksgiving in order to lengthen the Christmas shopping season?
Coca-Cola helped fashion Santa Claus's look in an advertising campaign?
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Item Specifications...
Pages 187
Dimensions: Length: 8.26" Width: 6.36" Height: 0.76"
Weight: 0.85 lbs.
Binding Hardcover
Publisher University of California Press
ISBN 0520251040
EAN 9780520251045
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Availability 3 units.
Availability accurate as of Feb 11, 2012 08:03.
Usually ships within one to two business days from Commerce GA.
Orders shipping to an address other than a confirmed Credit Card / Paypal Billing address may incur and additional processing delay.
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 | Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Christmas Nov 23, 2007 |
Bruce David Forbes' CHRISTMAS: A CANDID HISTORY is a must read for anyone who loves the holiday season, or at least anyone who loves the religious aspect of the holiday season and enjoys the secular aspects as well. In this slim volume, Forbes looks at Christmas from its earliest incarnations to our present day celebrations. This is not a hackneyed presentation of common beliefs about Christmas. Forbes offers fresh perspectives about many commonly held theories about Christmas, especially what may be the three most common assumptions about Christmas, namely that it's a Christmas answer to winter solstice celebrations, that most of the symbols are pagan symbols with a Christian flair, and that Charles Dickens is responsible for Christmas as we know it today. For Forbes, Christmas is both all of the things and none of these things.
Forbes begins by looking at the variety of winter solstice celebrations since Christmas is a winter holiday then ventures into the religious aspects, reminding readers that Easter, not Christmas was the central Christian holiday and, for that matter is still supposed to be the central Christian celebration. He then ventures into looking at Christmas symbols such as the Christmas tree, the poinsettia, St. Nicholas becoming Santa Claus, Christmas in Victorian England and the United States, and Christmas as we know it today. Throughout the book Forbes uses the analogy of a snowball as a way of explaining Christmas. If someone wishes to make a snowman, it starts as a small ball of snow, gets rolled around and picks up all sorts of things along the way: dirt, twigs, rocks, dead leaves, etc. as well as snow. The result is the large snowball that becomes the base, torso, or head of the snowman. Much of how we now celebrate Christmas started the same way. A tradition started, different cultures, peoples and time periods added something to it, and today much of what we celebrate is a combination of a variety of additions and adaptations.
It turns out to be a fascinating read. As we read we learn that Christmas was never the purely spiritual holiday we sometimes imagine it to be and that there's always been a struggle to mingle the two, keeping the fun in the holiday while not forgetting it's central message--the birth of Jesus Christ.. We also see how Christmas went from a religious holiday with an excuse for reveling to the family centered holiday many now celebrate. We even get a critique of modern culture and consumerism as well as glimpses into the more recent "Happy Holiday/Merry Christmas" debates. While it's not specifically a "put Christ back into Christmas" book, Forbes as a practicing Methodist and religious studies professor appreciates the primacy spiritual aspect of the holiday while also loving the more secular aspects of Christmas, gives us a greater appreciation of Christmas. He offers his readers insights as to what the holiday ought to be about, and in a very real way rescues Christmas.
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