re: #80 Targetpractice

As I like to note to my friends, most of what we associate with a “traditional” Christmas in the West really came about as a result of a single novel: A Christmas Carol. Before it was published, Christmas was largely becoming a rural holiday as the increasing industrialization and urbanization of major nations left people feeling that the holiday could not be properly celebrated in what was largely a dreary and bleak existence for many in the growing cities.

Plus in the early United States it was viewed as largely both a British holiday and a pagan one. Christians throughout the new country suppressed celebrations of Christmas as both pagan and unpatriotic.

Christmas was not made a federal holiday in the USA until June 26, 1870.