The United States

Abstract

What is Christmas about? This chapter answers this question by examining a wide range of ritual practices and cultural productions associated with Christmas in the United States. Although one response to the question seems inherent in the name of the holiday and its reference to ‘Christ’, more than a third of the American population that celebrates Christmas does not claim religious reasons for celebrating. This fact suggests that Christmas is about more than Christianity, and this chapter identifies some of the primary preoccupations that have stood at the heart of Christmas and related celebrations. For centuries, the time surrounding Christmas perennially has been a season in which Americans have sought to imagine and enact ideal visions of self, family, community, and nation. This chapter illustrates how these ideal visions took shape through varied forms of indulgence, social inversion, giving, and conflict. While some Christians continually have used Christmas as an occasion to enshrine their own social power and privilege, other Americans have responded to Christmas’s prominence by cultivating contrasting celebrations and traditions. Examples include the celebration of Hanukkah by American Jews and the creation of Kwanzaa as an occasion for African Americans to affirm their racial identity and cultural heritage.