Christmas conjures visions of trees bedecked with ornaments, blazing fires, feasts with family and friends, and the comforts of home. It’s a season that revolves around warmth. So much of what comes to mind when we think of Christmas, so many of the ways we celebrate throughout the season, belong to traditions long rooted in the past.
The spreading of traditions happens in countless immeasurable ways. They morph over time, carried across seas and nations to new lands, shared by the communities that hold them close to their hearts. Their origins vary as widely as the traditions themselves; some we only know the legends of—like Martin Luther inventing the Christmas tree in 16th century Germany after he saw stars glistening over the evergreens—and for some we can trace the path of their journeys to popularity clearly, pinpointing the exact moment a shift was felt and the wider world took notice, like when Queen Victoria introduced the Christmas tree to England and America and popularized it.
Throughout recent history, books have played an important role in the spreading of certain Christmas traditions. There’s no separating Christmas from the influence and impact of Dickens’s classic A Christmas Carol, which provided reminders of the true importance of the season laying not in wealth and consumerism, but in family and warmth, kindness, and love for your fellow man.
But there was, in fact, another author whose literary works encouraged the celebration of Christmas with traditions of old and the importance of family, someone whose works and impact predate even the immeasurable impact of Dickens himself—Washington Irving.
Decades before the publication of A Christmas Carol, American author Washington Irving published two works that introduced Christmas traditions to America that we’ve never parted from. Though most well known for his stories Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (which firmly placed him in the Halloween category in the minds of many a modern reader), Irving’s career in fiction began not with tales of German folk stories but the whimsical, satirical A History of New York (Knickerbocker’s History of New York) in 1809. Though an unlikely source of Christmas traditions, Knickerbocker’s History began as a humorous response to Samuel L Mitchell’s The Picture of New-York, meant to parody the original work. Instead, Knickerbocker’s History ended up being a comic history of New York City itself, focused on a period of Dutch dominance. His tall tales brought the history of New York to life and explored the origins of the city through the often whimsical inclusions of folklore, culture, and traditions of its Dutch founders. One such tale described the origins of New York’s founding as the result of a Dutch ship wrecked on the shores of Manhattan when one member of the scouting party sees a vision of “good St. Nicholas came riding over the tops of the trees, in that self-same wagon wherein he brings his yearly presents to children.” Santa then advises the Dutch to settle on this land—essentially becoming the founder of the city himself.
“And the sage Oloffe dreamed a dream—and, lo! the good St. Nicholas came riding over the tops of the trees, in that self-same wagon wherein he brings his yearly presents to children. And he descended hard by where the heroes of Communipaw had made their late repast. And he lit his pipe by the fire, and sat himself down and smoked; and as he smoked the smoke from his pipe ascended into the air, and spread like a cloud overhead. And Oloffe bethought him, and he hastened and climbed up to the top of one of the tallest trees, and saw that the smoke spread over a great extent of country—and as he considered it more attentively he fancied that the great volume of smoke assumed a variety of marvelous forms, where in dim obscurity he saw shadowed out palaces and domes and lofty spires, all of which lasted but a moment, and then faded away, until the whole rolled off, and nothing but the green woods were left. And when St. Nicholas had smoked his pipe he twisted it in his hatband, and laying his finger beside his nose, gave the astonished Van Kortlandt a very significant look, then mounting his wagon, he returned over the treetops and disappeared. And Van Kortlandt awoke from his sleep greatly instructed, and he aroused his companions, and related to them his dream, and interpreted it that it was the will of St. Nicholas that they should settle down and build the city here; and that the smoke of the pipe was a type how vast would be the extent of the city, inasmuch as the volumes of its smoke would spread over a wide extent of country. And they all with one voice assented to this interpretation excepting Mynheer Ten Broeck, who declared the meaning to be that it would be a city wherein a little fire would occasion a great smoke, or, in other words, a very vaporing little city—both which interpretations have strangely come to pass!”
This mention of Saint Nicholas, who was already a long-held tradition in the Netherlands and who had been celebrated by the Dutch community within New York for decades, was one of the earliest widespread introductions to Santa Claus in the United States. The over two dozen mentions of Santa throughout the book introduced and endeared him to the American people. The book’s popularity across the country did much to bolster the legend of Saint Nicholas and the Dutch tradition of celebrating him in relation to Christmas—but it was only the beginning of Irving’s lasting impact on Christmas in America.
Christmas in the United States only began to resemble the holiday we celebrate today in traditions and customs in the mid to late 19th century. Over the centuries—from pilgrims first settling in colonies to the early days of the newly established country—Christmas has seen differing attitudes across the country. In the early days, Puritan-majority New England banned Christmas for being an insult to God by honoring a day based in paganism. Quakers in Pennsylvania also banned it, likely for similar reasons. The southern colonies, however, held the most Christmas spirit of the day, often celebrating in a festive community way. After the Revolution, however, the US turned away from many of the Christmas traditions that had come over from England in favor of establishing our own national holiday customs. Dutch communities in New York and German communities in Pennsylvania kept their cultural holiday traditions alive, but Christmas was far from a national holiday.
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During the Georgian era in England, the holiday season lasted from December 6th (St. Nicholas Day) January 6th (Twelfth Night) and focused on large parties and balls hosted by nobility, feasts, and family get togethers. Evergreen was brought into the house on Christmas Eve, though trees weren’t yet the fashion. These traditions, however, were on the decline and were largely only kept alive in the rural country. It was while staying in England that Irving got to experience them for himself.
In 1815, Irving went to England and stayed abroad until 1832 as a member of the American Legation to England. Having witnessed Dutch customs and traditions himself firsthand living in New York City, he spent free time traveling the continent and reading and researching German and Dutch folktales. Those tales inspired his some of his work, including Rip Van Winkle which appeared in his book The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., but it was his time spent in England that inspired his tales of Christmas festivity that appear in that same book.
The Sketch Book featured five Christmas stories—Christmas, The Stage-coach, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Christmas Dinner—that brought those traditions to life on the page. Published in 1819, The Sketch Book’s Christmas stories, known collectively as Old Christmas, illustrated the hospitality, generosity, warmth, feasts, parties, decorations, dancing, and excitement of English Christmas traditions through a story that was no doubt inspired by Irving’s own experience of being welcomed into a cheerful home at Christmastime in Birmingham, England. The main character, Geoffrey Crayon (also Irving’s pseudonym), is invited to stay at Bracebridge Hall in the country for Christmas and enjoys the hospitality and joviality of the Squire Bracebridge.
The Sketch Book also featured Irving’s other most well-known works The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, but it was these Christmas stories that resonated most with Americans back home. As Irving biographer Brian Jay Jones said, “While a number of other stories in The Sketch Book were better known, none would have a greater impact on American culture than these four Christmas essays.”
Americans embraced the vision of Christmas Irving painted, and so began a revival of Christmas celebrations in the States. Christmas cheer spread in the form of these old English traditions—decorations, feasts, and the importance of family and friends taking center stage.
The very foundation of our modern traditions is owed to Washington Irving. He bolstered Dutch and English traditions, writing about them with such heart and fondness that they resonated across a land where Christmas was still far from a national holiday and where some of the Christmas celebrations that did exist were loud festivals far from the cozy celebrations marked by a sense of family and home that he introduced us to. His literary works certainly impacted the nation, but there was another who likely felt his influence as well—young Charles Dickens.
“Charles Dickens later fine-tuned the Christmas story, but Irving had laid the foundation. Americans embraced Irving’s vision of Christmas as their own, marking the revival of a holiday…”
-Brian Jay Jones, biographer
Dickens was only eight years old when these Old Christmas stories were published. Living in England, these Christmas traditions were hardly new to him; he was, however, quite a fan of Irving’s depiction of an old English Christmas and storytelling. Twenty years after their publication in an 1841 letter, Dickens wrote to Irving, “I wish to travel with you… down to Bracebridge Hall.” Just two years later, in 1843, Dickens wrote and published A Christmas Carol, forever impacting Christmas. A Christmas Carol sought to turn the public’s eye to issues of kindness, charity, love for fellow man, family, and what truly makes a person rich coming not in the form of material wealth at a time when enthusiasm for Christmas was waning and financial hardship was abundant. To believe Dickens might’ve been inspired by one of his favorite authors (he said of Irving: “Diedrich Knickerbocker I have worn to death in my pocket, and yet I should show you his mutilated carcass with a joy past all expression” and “I don’t go to bed two nights out of seven without taking Washington Irving under my arm upstairs to bed with me!”) is not a stretch. Though absolutely writing a story of Christmas with his own message, meaning, and moral, Dickens had long been familiar with the vision of Christmas Irving had captured in his own stories and could very well have kept the feelings he’d gotten from reading Irving’s work in mind while writing his own Christmas tale.
“If, however, I can by any lucky chance, in these days of evil, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sorrow, if I can now and then penetrate through the gathering film of misanthropy, prompt a benevolent view of human nature, and make my reader more in good humor with his fellow beings and himself, surely, surely, I shall not then have written entirely in vain.”
-Washington Irving
To think that one set of stories both impacted how an entire nation celebrated a holiday, reviving old traditions that brought heart and warmth and family to the forefront, and might’ve played a small part in inspiring another author’s Christmas classic that would go on to be one of the most iconic stories within literature and impact the celebration of Christmas forever is simply amazing. While Washington Irving is remembered widely, his impact on Christmas is all but forgotten. Literature is an incredible thing; its ability to change minds and culture does not often blaze such a clear path within history that we can easily point to its impact, but Irving’s Christmas stories certainly do. His stories shaped our Christmas celebrations into something very merry, indeed.
“Of all the old festivals, that of Christmas awakens the strongest and most heartfelt associations. There is a tone of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality, and lifts the spirit to a state of hallowed and elevated enjoyment.”
“Christmas is a season for kindling the fire for hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.”
Thanks!