I've always considered that the anthropologist's primary function is to give insights into what we are becoming, rather than to tell us what we have been. In this book, I'll look at concerns that come from Christmas's past, since they help to construct the structures and rituals that underpin the holiday, but we'll also argue that Christmas is possibly more significant now than it has ever been. It offers several insights into the contemporary world's basic ambivalence about who we believe we have become. I'll argue that Christmas has become a focal point for three of the most significant disputes that characterize modernity. The first is our connection with our families and kinship, which has traditionally been a central theme in anthropology. The second issue is how to balance our desire to be global citizens without losing our feeling of local roots or connection to the areas we originate from. Our dysfunctional connection with mass consumerism and materialism is the third. Finally, I'll try to put together a comprehensive theory of Christmas that incorporates these ethnographic findings of current Christmas with older historical sources.

It's hardly strange that an anthropological would be interested in Christmas research. We have long been interested in the study of ritual, particularly periodic celebrations, as a discipline. When it comes to modern Europe, however, one of the reasons why anthropologists tend to give area to sociology is because our fundamental concerns, such as ritual and family, seem to be on the decrease. Most of the holidays and ceremonies that were formerly observed have all but vanished, at least in the more urban regions. Christmas, on the other hand, has been the only festival to gain official support and increased commercial attention, to the point where it now appears that all other festivals have been phased out and replaced by this one final celebration, which has become a symbol of the very idea of an annual festival. Furthermore, Christmas has spread throughout the globe to be celebrated in many non-Christian nations with no prior Christmas custom. Christmas has become suspicious as a result of its prosperity, particularly its acceptance by contemporary business. We tend to believe that by compromising with these commercial parts of modernity, Christmas has lost its authenticity and spirit. However, as we will see in this book, the link with trade is both more difficult and fascinating.

 

My primary fieldwork experience as a Christmas ethnographer has been on the Caribbean island of Trinidad. As a result, after discussing the history of Christmas, I'll go on to these three major concerns: family, local, and global, and finally consumerism. In each example, I'll go through the concerns in further detail, focusing on evidence from England, where I reside, and then explore how these three difficulties are handled in Trinidad as a contrast. Much of the information offered here was first published in the book Unwrapping Christmas (Miller 1993a, 1993b, Ed. 1993), and I will cite pieces by other anthropologists who contributed to that collection, as well as some more recent publications.

 

Aspects of Christmas's history

Christmas's beginnings

Given that this is a brief discussion and because the subject of history is mostly meant as backdrop, I will focus on just two periods: the festival's roots in Roman times and the evolution of modern Christmas. Some of the time in between will be detailed in the following section when I examine my connection with my family (see Rycenga 2008 for a summary of the ambivalence in Christianity towards Christmas). When I came across the following passage from Miles's (1912) publication, Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, I was convinced that the evidence of previous eras should be examined as more than merely a backdrop to the current Christmas. Miles is citing (through an intermediate source) from Libanius, a non-Christian rhetorician who lived in Constantinople, Nicomedia, and Antioch in the second part of the fourth century, when Christmas was originally formed. The description is of the Kalends Festival, which is one of the three holidays that, in some ways, replace Christmas:

 

The Kalends festival is celebrated all over the Roman Empire's borders... Carousels and well-laden tables can be seen everywhere; opulent affluence may be found in the homes of the wealthy, but even in the homes of the poor, tastier food than normal is served. Everyone is seized by the desire to spend. He who has spent the whole year saving and accumulating his pennies suddenly becomes lavish. He who was used to and liked to live in poverty before now enjoys himself as much as his means would allow at this feast... . People are giving not just to themselves, but also to their neighbors. A cascade of gifts cascades down from all sides... Whole procession of burdened persons and beasts fill the highroads and footpaths... The thousand flowers that bloom everywhere are Spring's ornamentation, and the thousand gifts thrown out on all sides are the Kalends feast's decorations. It is, without a doubt, the most beautiful time of the year.... The Kalends holiday exorcises all associations with toil, allowing men to indulge in unadulterated pleasure. It eliminates two types of terror from the minds of young people: the dread of the schoolmaster and the dread of the severe pedagogue. It also permits the slave, to the extent feasible, to breathe the air of liberty... Another fantastic feature of the festival is that it encourages men not to hang on to their money too tightly, but rather to part with it and let it pass into the hands of others.

 

(Miles, 1912, pp. 168-9.)

The information offered in the following three pages of Miles' essay adds to the significance of this quote. "The church's denunciations of pagan festal rituals in the winter season are primarily focused at the Kalends festivities, and show how far the feast had spread," Miles writes (ibid.: 169). He cites a source that gathered forty similar denunciations dating from the fourth to eleventh century, implying that there has been a direct link between Christmas and the Kalends for over a millennium. He cites other customs, such as masquerade, which we now connect more with Carnival, but also eating, drinking, and the giving of gifts, all of which are still linked with Christmas.

However, the roots of Christmas are more complicated than this conflict with the Kalends. The Kalends was significantly less important than the Saturnalia, which was celebrated for five days starting on December 17 in ancient Rome. Scullard (1981: 205-7) describes this as the most popular Roman celebration throughout republican times. Many features of this festival are reproduced in medieval and subsequent Christmas and Carnival festivities, including not just general merriment but also particular components like the selection of a pretend king to preside over the revels and the distributing of gifts. Soft (felt rather than paper!) hats are also mentioned by Scullard. Rituals devoted to the reversal of societal norms may also be found. Here we have the master feeding on the slave, which, as Libanius points out, is only the most extreme example of a feeling of reversal from normal standards.

 

The link between these two Roman holidays is such that we seem to be dealing with a unique phenomenon, a kind of twin peaked event, which is represented in the simultaneous appearance of Christmas and Carnival, or even New Year. We observe eating and gaming, gift-giving, opulence, and general waste of money among them. What is notable, though, is the attitude of persons like Libanius, whom Miles mentions. Libanius is primarily a conservative moralist who upholds what he considers to be classic Roman principles, such as thrift. Despite the fact that this is precisely the behavior that he would criticize on any other occasion as the polar antithesis of the ideals he so desperately seeks to maintain, he appears to find nothing wrong with it on this one occasion. Many past moralists had decried what they viewed as Saturnalia's excessive clamor and excesses. The gift-giving and lavishness described by Libanius may easily be seen as part of a wider development of crass materialism among the Roman elite, and hence a challenge to ancient values.

 

When we study the third pre-Christian holiday associated with Christmas, we may see further connections between the conditions of the first Christmas and our modern Christmas. On December 25, the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti is commemorated. Miles observes that this event seems to have been purposefully changed in order to offer a calendrical fixity to Christmas, but subsequently implies that it is of little significance. However, in this instance, the renowned Christmas researcher may have overlooked something, as shown by a recent monograph on the cult linked with the holiday. As part of a worship known as Deus Sol Invictus, the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti was commemorated with chariot racing and decorations of branches and tiny trees. From its roots in Syria, Halsberghe (1972) examines the evolution of this sect (and possibly before that in pre-Jewish Canaanite practices). In 219, it was brought to Rome in a more Syrian form known as Sol Invictus Elagabal. It dominated Roman devotion for a short while until the assassination of the supporting emperor in 222. However, the cult flourishes and is re-established in a more "Roman" form by Emperor Aurelian, who declares it the state's primary religion in 274. Following that, the cult's significance grows. "The worship of Deus Sol Invictus reached remarkable heights during the reign of Constantine the Great (306-37), such that his reign was even talked of as a Sun Emperorship," Halsberghe writes (ibid.: 167).

 

Of course, Constantine was also responsible for the future propagation of Christianity, which would eventually supplant such cults. With this background knowledge, we can better understand the reasons for a choice made between the years 354 and 360 to create the Christmas holiday on December 25, which eventually effectively supplanted an older Eastern custom centered on the Epiphany of January 6 in the West. It wasn't only that this was the Julian calendar's date for the winter solstice; it also meant replacing an important celebration of a religion that was arguably Christianity's primary adversary in its early stages. This may be even more true in the case of Mithras worship, which is strongly linked to the Roman Empire. Mithras was also claimed to have been born on December 25 (Nabarz 2005: 48), and Mithraism was mercilessly suppressed across the Empire by Christianity. All of these cults arose from the Middle East, and they were most likely seen as more than simply competitors (Barnes 1981, Class 2000). Despite its polytheistic foundations, the worship of the sun deity had by then evolved into a sort of monotheism with Syrian roots, and may have shared Mithraic and Christian concerns about a redeemer and the afterlife. Unlike its two opponents, however, the religion of Deus Sol Invictus had a far stronger association with the state and the presence and image of the emperor from the beginning, which gave it great political appeal.

 

All of this seems like a lot of deep and esoteric archaeological research into the early roots of Christmas, and it's probably only of interest to antiquarians. But I think I've already highlighted a slew of strange parallels with our own modern Christmas, as well as Carnival. I'm not going to tell you why I believe this provides us vital clues as to the character of our current Christmas, and that we already have the building blocks for a more comprehensive theory of Christmas at this point in the tale. I've just set down a few early clues, much like in a good detective fiction, but how we should bring them in as proof for my case will have to wait until the conclusion of this book.

 

Where did the present Anglo-American Christmas come from?

In stark contrast to the evidence from Roman times, a consensus appears to be forming around the interpretation of at least the contemporary Anglo-American Christmas, which would place this festival firmly within the broader category of phenomenon known as "the invention of tradition," which refers to something that claims to have roots in the past but is essentially a new festival. The most notable descriptions of the contemporary Christmas, those by Barnett (1954) on the American Christmas and Golby and Purdue (1986) and Pimlott (1978) on the British Christmas, both have this topic prominent. Furthermore, these authors give excellent explanations of the lengthier historical traditions that gave rise to the current Christmas. Barnett's portrayal of the Puritan founders of modern America's aversion to Christmas, who went so far as to make Christmas celebrations illegal throughout sections of the seventeenth century, is particularly fascinating (as did the British Puritan parliament between 1647 and 1660).

 

With regard to Germany, Perry (2010: 2) makes a similar point. Despite the impression of an old and venerable set of beginnings, he contends that the German Christmas was essentially a nineteenth-century re-invention. Many authors who support the reinvention of tradition thesis highlight the mid-nineteenth-century discontinuity between any earlier form of the celebration and the Christmas we know today. Golby (1981: 14-15) based on a survey of The Times newspaper from 1790 to 1836 presents some of the most compelling evidence for a radical distinction in Britain corresponding: "Christmas is not mentioned at all in twenty of the forty-seven years, and for the remaining twenty-seven years reports are extremely brief and not very informative." The immense impact of the novelist Charles Dickens, and notably the enormous popularity of his book A Christmas Carol, contrasts with this relative lack of interest for the event. Barnett attributes the formation of the "carol philosophy," with its focus on sentimentality, to Dickens and other writers such as Washington Irving.

 

The strong tone of Dickensian nostalgia regarding the celebration, which plainly pretends to be performing a ceremony of vast antiquity, appears to support the concept of tradition's fabrication. However, it is not until the mid-nineteenth century that we begin to see the crystallization of a variety of contemporary Christmas traits from several regional origins into a single homogenized form with no geographical foundation. The Christmas tree is derived from German custom, the filling of stockings from Dutch tradition, the emergence of Santa Claus primarily from the United States, the British Christmas card, and many other components are derived from this syncretic contemporary form. According to folkloristic tales of Christmas, the event is so pervaded by distinct local components up to this point that it provides a picture of astonishing variability. However, by the mid-nineteenth century, several practices had been abandoned and those that had been chosen for preservation had been strengthened. Mistletoe, for example, is revered with its kissing ritual, although ivy, which was once as essential as mistletoe in certain previous cultures, has lost its luster.

 

The data from the ensuing time adds even more weight to the implications of these discoveries. It has been suggested that once the diverse pieces are weaved together in the contemporary form, the result is a mostly stable mixture with little change over the previous century. Despite the enormous dynamism of popular culture over the twentieth century, it is said that Christmas has remained essentially unchanged. Rather, as we see with Christmas films and Christmas pop music, each new media has sought to appropriate it (see papers in Whiteley ed. 2008). The key contemporary debate has been whether the most powerful of these new forces, business, has been so effective in appropriating it that it has overturned and eventually destroyed Dickens' Christmas spirit. This issue dominated Barnett's study and is now the major topic of conversation during the holidays.

 

Weightman and Humphries are perhaps the most extreme proponents of this viewpoint, as the majority of their book is devoted to proving their thesis that "the Christmas ritual as we know it today was the 'invention' of the relatively well-off Victorian middle class, and reflects their preoccupations" (1987: 15). The weight of modern research has increasingly defined the moment and location we must investigate if we are to appreciate the reasons underlying the present magnitude and particular form of Christmas.

 

We witness the ultimate victory of the contemporary Christmas in their worldwide expansion after these already established qualities are in place and more developed in the new images of industrial popular culture. This is due in part to the presence of American forces during WWII, as well as the earlier effect of British colonialism. It takes place despite explicit opposition from a variety of European national cultures that reject the Anglo-American version of the festival's hegemony. By the 1990s, we were confronted with the astonishing occurrence of a worldwide festival that seemed to grow in its accumulated rituals and the extravagance of the attention given to it, despite the demise of all other festivals and analogous events.

 

As a result, we have two historical foundations that are completely distinct. One hints to a long history dating back to the Roman era. The other implies that contemporary Christmas is nothing more than a product of the mid-nineteenth century. The contrast between the two components of this historical research, however, poses a risk. The discovery of the Roman roots of Christmas has led to the discovery of a number of intriguing structural features of inversion and cosmology. By contrast, this short exploration of the roots of the modern Anglo-American Christmas suggests a jumble of disparate things thrown together with no discernible structure or cosmic meaning. But, before we presume any such distinction, let us conclude this historical debate with a more extensive examination of just one part of modern Anglo-American Christmas, its single most important symbol today, Santa Claus.

 

Russell Belk (1993) presents an excellent historical and structural examination of the Santa Claus figure. His roots may be traced back to Saint Nicola, the fourth-century Bishop of Myra (now Turkey), who is the patron saint of seafarers and pawnbrokers. Although, as Belk points out, many other European traditions, such as the French Père Noel and the Dutch Sinterklaas, have influenced Santa Claus, there are numerous distinctions (ibid.: 77-78) and the fundamental aspects of Santa Claus were formed in the nineteenth century in the United States. "Among these are Clement Moore's poem 'A Visit from St Nicolas,' published in 1822....Thomas Nast's paintings of Santa Claus, published in Harper's Weekly between 1863 and 1886." Beginning in 1931, Sundblom's pictures for Coca-Cola advertising were refinements on these themes" (ibid.: 79). The contemporary imagery linked with the reindeer, the red and white outfit, and the North Pole emerges gradually. But probably most intriguing is Belk's examination of Christ's parallels, as well as structural inversions (ibid.: 82-3). Santa Claus, like Jesus, is linked to miracles, omniscience, gifts, and prayers (or at least prayers for gifts). Jesus, on the other hand, is from the Middle East, while Santa Claus is from the North Pole; Jesus is young and thin, while Santa Claus is old and fat; Jesus is serious, while Santa is jolly; Jesus wears simple white, while Santa wears rich reds and furs; Jesus condemns materialism, while Santa gives toys and luxuries, as well as indulgences like alcohol and smoking.

 

It's possible that, like in the Levi-Straussian tradition of anthropology, a new myth emerges from a jumble of disparate sources. However, it was the understanding of the Roman beginnings that helped us comprehend the crucial role of syncretism in explaining how Christmas may reinvent itself through time while still maintaining ties to its roots. It also demonstrates how, despite a variety of secular beginnings in popular culture, Santa Claus may preserve mythic traits, such as the essential role of systematic inversion and structure, as defined by anthropologists. So it's possible that understanding both of these points in history, the Roman origins and the new Victorian origins, will aid us in our quest to understand how our modern Christmas may reveal important structural and cosmological features. But they may be further elucidated by doing an anthropological study that places Christmas in the context of the three primary concerns I've indicated it resonates with: family, globe, and consumerism.

 

The holiday season and the family
The essential image of the family in Christmas festivities is acknowledged in all interpretations. Indeed, its very emergence as a holiday has been claimed to be another "creation of custom," since it has been noted that the original Gospels pay relatively little attention to the events that are so prominent in Christmas festivities (none at all in the earliest Gospel). Despite this, we see the formation of a festival that centers on the bond between parents and children, as seen by the domestic concentration of Christmas celebrations and the centrality of the family as a social metaphor.

This seems to be the single most significant contribution of Christianity to the continuing development of the pre-Christian joyful culture. Although much of the literature, including the Libanius citation, emphasizes the centrality of the home sphere and its integration with larger social groupings, nothing in the Roman antecedents reflects the unique commitment to the nuclear family at the time of a child's birth. There is no indication that any of the three Roman holidays before Christmas had anything to do with nuclear family bonds. Only in the new Christian holiday is the mother-father trio dedicated to the birth of their child the unmistakable focal point.

 

It would be much simpler to comprehend the birth of Christmas if we referred to it as an Italian feast rather than a Roman one. This is because, in the tradition of classicists, the writing on the Roman family has tended to be dry and legalistic. If we conceive of Christmas as Italian, though, it instantly resonates with many long-held assumptions of Italian culture, particularly those focused on the family and children. A similar idea arises from a study of Marina Warner's (1976) work on the genesis of Virgin Mary devotion, a cult that seems to have started about the same time as Christmas. The worship of Mary has a long history with pre-Christian faiths, from which it evolved to include a strong focus on the image of the mother and virgin in Italian culture, but Italy here might refer to a broader Mediterranean and subsequently Catholic heritage. It's no wonder that Italy (particularly, St. Francis of Assisi) is credited with inventing the crib from the numerous Christmas accoutrements that have survived until this day. According to Warner (ibid.: 179-91), this is part of the Franciscans' greater role in establishing the concept of the domestic family with the feminine image of humility and purity.

 

However, this creates an uneasy contrast between the representation of the Roman and Italian families. One answer is to suggest that the two are undergoing a quick and profound transition. Goody's (1983) book on the evolution of the family and marriage in Europe provides the greatest justification for such a transition, one that would fit well with the birth of Christmas. "Key characteristics of the kinship system have undergone a dramatic transformation from the former'Mediterranean pattern' to a new'European pattern,' or, in Guichard's phrase, from the oriental to the occidental," according to Goody (1983: 39). Goody claims that Christianity was the catalyst for these changes; not the original Christianity, but the one that emerged as a consequence of the state's takeover and establishment (ibid.: 85). We discover the narrowing down to the contemporary idea of the nuclear family at this era of the mid to late fourth century, exactly when Christmas was founded, via the suppression of a far broader variety of techniques for guaranteeing direct succession. At this period, wider networks are formed via adoption, wet nursing, and concubinage, as well as the expansion of banned degrees of marriage. Goody attributes these shifts to the Church's determination to safeguard those inheritances, which resulted in a large transfer of land and wealth to itself. In those families where the now limited possibilities of direct inheritance to a son were not realized, the Church was emphasized as the natural inheritor.

 

Goody's argument has been contested, and the Church's impact is unquestionably divisive. Goody also fails to mention the need for a similar change in mood and emotional connection, which may actually construct the Italian family from the Roman. Some of these shifts, particularly in respect to the kid, may have been overstated (Garnsey 1991), but there is still a long-term image of a long-term shift in the Italian family's ideology, if not in the balance of affectivity (Kertzer and Saller 1991: 15-17). Although one notable piece of evidence arises from a thorough analysis of funeral inscriptions, which demonstrates a considerable increase in the focus on children as compared to pre- and non-Christian households, the sources are stronger on alterations in legality than on feeling (Shaw 1991). It's possible that, in contrast to state cults like Deus Sol Invictus, Christianity's rise as a dominant religion from popular practice led to an emphasis on the family of ordinary people's experience. In contrast, arguments regarding imperial laws during the earlier era reveal a far limited concern about the state's influence on the behaviors of just wealthy households.

 

As a result, there is evidence for a long-term change in emphasis on the family, particularly children, as reflected in a festival that has evolved from governmental sponsorship to become a popular event attended mostly by families in home settings. This idealization of the family has persisted since then, and Christmas continues to play a key part in the objectification of the family as the source of intense passion and loyalty. Something that is quite visible in today's British Christmas, when Christmas has essentially become the only time of the year when the extended family is acknowledged and honored.

 

The big Christmas fight and other Swedish customs is the title of Lofgren's contribution to the 1993 anthology, which echoes this connection with the family. On the one hand, this is a true family gathering, and on the other, it serves as a reminder to everyone involved of the reasons why, in contemporary times, we prefer to keep our relationships with our extended family at a distance for the rest of the year. Löfgren describes the worry, stress, and bickering that occur from the difficulties of harmonizing the normative values that have, in some ways, become the weight of expectation that surrounds Christmas and the actual celebration itself. Indeed, as Gillis points out, this conflict between ideal and reality lies at the core of the contemporary family (1997). As a result, the charming elderly grandmother of the children's imaginations may turn out to be the unpleasant and crusty old bear, or even the untrustworthy alcoholic. Not to mention the chance that the host family's husband has inherited one set of customs while his wife has her own, which may be in conflict with one another. I'll use my own ethnographic investigations in Trinidad to investigate the link between Christmas, the family, and the broader ideals they objectify.

 

In Trinidad, Christmas is spent with family.

Trinidad is a Caribbean island that lies just off the coast of Venezuela. It is one of the two islands that make up the state of Trinidad and Tobago, but for the sake of this study, I will refer to it simply as Trinis. Trinidad is slightly under 5,000 square kilometers in size, which means you can drive around it in one day. Spanish colonialists almost wiped off the indigenous people. It gained independence in 1962 after being ruled by the French and the British. The 1.3 million-strong population is made up of around 40% descendants of former African slaves, 40% descendants of former South Asian indentured workers, and the rest hailing from places as diverse as China, Madeira, and Lebanon.

 

Trinidadian Christmas, like the Roman holidays before it, is best understood as part of a larger yearly celebration that includes Carnival and New Year. In the Caribbean, there is currently a well-established tradition in value analysis that dates back to Abrahams' importation of Geertz. Abrahams sees Christmas as "a stylised depiction of some of the group's fundamental expressive and moral concerns" (1983: 98-99). More particularly, Abrahams connects Christmas ideals to "respectability," as Wilson (1973: 215-36) defined it. These values emphasize family unity, the importance of the home, and the importance of order and tradition. The contrast is then drawn with Carnival, which is associated with "rudeness," or licentious and disorderly behavior.

 

This necessitates a structural understanding of Caribbean culture that includes two sets of normative standards whose aspirations are defined by their antagonism to one another, and whose nature is shown by festivals. The observance of Old Year's Night, also known as New Year's Eve in the United Kingdom, aids this understanding of Christmas and Carnival as systematic inversions of each other. This holiday is unusual in that it begins with the year's most significant religious service, arguably more important than Christmas itself. Nonetheless, this religious service is immediately followed by the most significant party of the year, with individuals debating whose party they will attend for weeks in advance. As a result, New Year's Eve becomes the exact moment of inversion (for a more detailed discussion see Miller 1994).

 

While most visitors connect Trinidad with its world-famous Carnival, Christmas is celebrated with equal enthusiasm on the island. The sheer amount of effort that goes into it demonstrates its significance. Furthermore, although many Trinidadians refer to Carnival as a time when "all a we is one," many others see it as immoral and divisive in actuality. Christmas, on the other hand, serves to unite virtually the entire spectrum of this diverse society, as most Hindus and Muslims celebrate Christmas with the same intensity as Christians, though Hindus are increasingly justifying their participation by claiming that it is a continuation of the Hindu festival of Divali.

 

In the Trinidadian calendar, Divali marks the start of the festival season, while Old Year's Night signifies the start of Carnival preparations, and Lent, followed by Easter, brings the festive season to a conclusion. These festivals aren't just one-time events that encroach on everyday life. Christmas and Carnival, together with the preparations that go with them, take up many months in Trinidad, and the storing up of resources for Christmas, in particular, may begin practically as soon as the previous holiday season is through. Christmas and Carnival are so important in many Trinidadians' life that the remainder of the year may almost be considered a required respite, or breathing room, while the nation prepares for the next festive season.

 

As a material culture student, it was evident early on in my research that concepts like family were most obviously objectified via the home itself, and we need to start by studying this link; after all, the word domestic conflates the house with family values. Three closely connected activities characterize the weeks leading up to Christmas: shopping, cooking, and housecleaning. Throughout the year, house interiors in Trinidad are virtually always spotless. Despite this, while strolling down the street in the weeks leading up to Christmas, one will inevitably see piles of furniture outside the home, such as on the front porch, as the inside is cleaned, dusted, and "cobwebbed." Not every household repaints every year, but if the homeowners plan to repaint at all that year, this is the timeframe in which they will do it. Ideally, the whole interior and exterior are repainted, with the kitchen and porch area receiving the greatest wear and tear. If guests come during the season, householders stand proud and conspicuous with paintbrush in hand. Paint dealers report slight increases in sales during Eid, Divali, and the season for building new homes, but December sales are two to three times those of previous months, owing to Christmas.

 

In the case of furniture, a similar problem applies. For the most of the year, car upholsterers (which was, incidentally, the primary business in the town of Chaguanas where I did research) work only on automobiles, but beginning in November, some of them stop working entirely to deal with household reupholstering. Households would decide to spend this money at the last minute, according to one upholsterer, and then bombard them with requests that they insisted be done by Christmas Eve.

 

The Christmas preparations become a hot topic of conversation and action. A typical holiday radio phone-in had the interviewer calling housewives to discuss the preparations they were making for Christmas that year, as well as any particular painting or culinary advice they might pass on to the listeners. Each housewife would report on the rooms that were being repainted and the Christmas meals that were being prepared for that year. Paul Keens-Douglas (1975: 53-64), a dialect poet, presents the viewpoint of an old-time domestic in one of his many Christmas poems:

 

Miss Julie, this Christmas is going to kill me,

I'm not sure why folks are so upset.

They need to replace the curtain and the cushion cover.

Every live Christmas, Lord.

Since November, the maid has been cleaning the home.

She married Fadder Chrismus, for example.

Items from a worldwide variety of Christmas symbols, such as holly, Santa Claus, artificial Christmas trees, and paper festoons in white, red, and green, are used in the interior décor of the home. Christmas cards are strung throughout the room and exhibited. Newspaper appeals for image localization, such as the headline "Pawpaw, Cashew, and Melon Rinds for Christmas Fruit Cake," are dismissed as nonsense. Such specialized Christmas decorations, on the other hand, are often less significant than work done on the house's usual furnishings, which will not be put away after Christmas, such as replacing old things or unpacking new ones, which will not be put away after Christmas. The emphasis is on the overall appearance of the property, including if towels have worn thin, whether the flooring is appropriate, whether any paint has been knocked away, and so on.

The work is dominated by the female members of the household, but this is a time of year when men are also expected to take their domestic responsibilities seriously, and many men who are free to avoid domestic chores and slip away to drink with their friends are strongly reminded of their domestic duties, particularly with regard to house painting and chair revarnishing, at this time of year. Men used to have a more formal role in Christmas as peer groups that went carousing, making music, and drinking their way from house to house on Christmas Eve, but this practice has declined in the new quiet, respectable Christmas, while women are more inclined to go visiting rather than just be hosts as in the past. Indeed, as seen in Keens-(1979: Douglas's 45-54) play "Ah Pan for Christmas," this presents challenges for the elder male ethos. The piece argues that the alternative morality portrayed by the strong macho steelbandsman is unsustainable. "Fargo was in a nasty mood," it says at the start. It was Christmas Eve, and he despised the holiday. Because it was the one time of the year when he felt like no one understood him. Fargo didn't have any relatives that liked him." In what becomes a Trinidadian version of A Christmas carol, the play continues with a mystery figure-cum-spirit encouraging Fargo to locate some relatives to visit, and finishes with him being welcomed into the house of a distant aunt.

 

I had the opportunity to experience firsthand the power of this concept. One year, I went around to people's houses to see what they were doing for Christmas. A male acquaintance took this as a chance to get away from his household duties right away, informing his wife that he wanted to show the anthropologist around. Instead, he planned to take us to the house of his deputy (mistress). When we arrived, she was taken aback since she expected him to be with his wife at such a time. She, on the other hand, made the most of the circumstance. He was set to work cleaning the home and inspecting the decorations in less than 10 minutes, this time for his mistress rather than his wife.

 

For many weeks, all members of the family are furiously involved in re-enacting the physicality of their home in a way that alters their connection with it, bringing back into focus the minutiae of furnishing that would otherwise fade into the background of domestic life. Christmas Eve is the pinnacle of these household preparations. The display of the home inside becomes most overtly ritualized at this point. It's as if they've forgotten how much time they've spent cleaning and decorating the home and feel compelled to do it all over again. The ideal situation is for the family to work on these duties, as well as Christmas baking, late into the night. Many legends circulated about Christmases when couples remained up all night, frequently bringing neighbors in to "lime" with boisterous music. The cleaning and beautifying is accompanied by the pounding of bottles with spoons to the tune of freshly released calypsos in certain districts. Any new objects, such as towels or a new audio system, should be unpacked and brought out to use at this time.

 

The hanging out of the curtains is a well-established closing custom for these events. According to merchants, curtains are the most closely connected with Christmas of all the aspects of house décor. The oil boom may have changed a custom of changing curtains into one of purchasing new ones whenever feasible; the less well-off may replace them with a pair from storage or at the very least wash and rehang them. Given the number of houses who were in the process of hanging curtains when I arrived at their homes on Christmas Eve, the activity has definitely stretched in time. When the new curtains are installed, many people consider this to be both the climax and the finish of the process of house preparation. After that, folks may finally go to their beds.

 

The 'enshrined' ideals may be shown through the aesthetics of the living room. In general, they include a concentration on covering up and enclosing shapes, thick upholstery and pile carpets, crowding in of trinkets and artificial flowers, as well as many religious and secular homilies emphasizing domestic values and depictions of family events such as weddings. By Christmas Eve, the perfect environment for what is ideally the major yearly ritual of family reaffirmation as a moral and expressive order has been created thanks to the Christmas concentration on restoring such decorations and furnishings as well as adding to their stock. The semantics follow the aesthetics, making extensive use of the outside/inside dichotomy. A mistress/deputy, for example, is a synonym for a "outside" woman, as opposed to a legal or common-law wife.

 

Following the house, a significant amount of time is spent on food and drink, including punch-a-crem (a potent mixture of overproof rum, raw egg, and condensed milk), sorrel, ginger beer, black cake, and ham, as well as specially imported goods closely associated with Christmas, such as whiskey, apples, and grapes. The preparation of food or drink, as well as the cleaning of the home, are meant to fulfill two requirements. In the first case, they serve as the backdrop for the Christmas Day supper, which is increasingly being considered as a very personal occasion for the close family. This supper takes the finest of the prepared foods, generally three types of meat and costly imports, and puts them to the greatest possible use in the house. The family is clearly at the center of Christmas Day festivities, as seen by customary media interviews with celebrities about their Christmas Day activities. This long luncheon is meant to be a relaxing break between the frantic preparations and the start of intensive house visits. Christmas morning is probably the only quiet time of the year in a country where loudspeakers in cars, houses, and shops provide a constant background to daily life. In the first instance, this ritual is one of consolidation, culminating in the Christmas supper, which is considered as exclusive to the immediate family, who get the gift of a perfectly spotless and clean home, as well as the finest dishes, all contained by new, or freshly washed curtains. The family aims for a feeling of peaceful stability, and after a substantial Christmas feast, they often fall asleep.

 

By Boxing Day (or late afternoon on Christmas Day), however, there is a noticeable shift in attitude, as if the home and family, once secured, become the focal point of a process of gradual incorporation, in which the domestic becomes more than just an enclosed space, but a centrifugal force striving to bring as much of the outside world into itself. Boxing Day marks the start of a time when guests are welcome to drop in without an invitation or formal arrangement. Such visits are most intense up to New Year's Eve, although in actuality, "Christmas" visits may last up to three weeks. Such visits range from the rote, performed by neighbors who believe they are just fulfilling a responsibility, to the use of Christmas to reconnect with relatives and friends who had been on the verge of losing touch. In all situations, the guest is expected to indulge in the prepared special meals and, at the absolute least, have a piece of cake and an accompanying beverage. The food, and especially the alcohol, that accumulates over the course of these visits contributes to the season's overall spacious, joyous, and friendly conviviality. This is in contrast to the rest of the year, when house-to-house visitation by neighbors, at least in new residential areas, is fairly unusual for many homes. This is also the one time of year when you can anticipate work colleagues to pay you a visit. Pre-Christmas parties, which grew in popularity during the oil boom, are another way to acknowledge Christmas at work. Although Christmas competed with "crop-over" time for traditional celebrations in the local sugar estates, this most likely mirrored global normative patterns created by multinational enterprises. Schools, government entities, residential neighborhoods, and churches may all have such gatherings.

 

The religious aspect of Christmas is subdued, as it is in many other nations, with Old Year's Night being a more significant church service than Christmas. However, there is a widespread belief that the ideals exhibited through Christmas celebrations are compatible with Church teachings, and the Church is heavily engaged in the season's preparations. Some activities are related with the holiday, such as blessing the crèche or singing songs. According to my research, Hindus and Muslims may actually outspend Christians throughout the Christmas season.

 

To sum up, a discussion of family cannot be reduced to a study of familial relationships. In Trinidadian cosmology, the term "family" really refers to a basic set of ideals. They represent respectability, consistency, and a broader aesthetic of interiorization that maintains things stable, secure, and internal as opposed to street life and the outside in general. This gives Christmas its structure as the centripetal celebration, drawing so much of life back into ceremonies of devotion aimed to the family's inner space. All of this is encapsulated in the notion of the home, as well as the ideal of Christmas as THE domestic holiday

Step-by-step explanation

As an anthropologist, I have always felt that the primary function of the anthropologist is not to inform us about our past, but rather to give insights into our future selves. In this book, I will examine concerns that come from the history of Christmas since these issues help to construct the structures and customs that underpin the celebration. However, we will also argue that Christmas is arguably more significant now than it has ever been in the past. This book gives several insights on the fundamental ambiguity of the modern world in terms of who we believe we have become as a species. To be more specific, I would argue that Christmas has become crucial to three of the most significant challenges that define what it is to be a contemporary person. The first is our connection to family and kinship, which has long been at the center of anthropology's study of human relationships. A second issue is how we balance our desire to be citizens of the whole world without losing our awareness of the nuances of our local beginnings or our relationship to the areas from which we originate with our desire to be citizens of the world in its entirety. The third point to consider is our troubled connection with mass consumerism and materialism. At the conclusion of this paper, I will make an effort to develop an overarching theory of Christmas that incorporates these ethnographic observations of modern Christmas with older historical sources.

It should come as no surprise that an anthropological would be interested in the subject of Christmas. We have long been interested in the study of ritual, which includes periodic celebrations, as a discipline. The fact that our primary concerns such as ritual and kinship seem to be waning in modern Europe is one of the reasons why anthropologists have tended to give land to sociology in this area, according to others. The majority of the festivals and ceremonies that were formerly observed, at least in the more urban regions, have all but vanished completely. Christmas, on the other hand, has been the one festival that has gained official support as well as increasing commercial attention, to the point where it appears as though all other festivals have been phased out and replaced by this one final celebration that has come to represent the very concept of an annual festival. Furthermore, Christmas has spread around the world, and is now celebrated in many nations that are not Christian and do not have a prior holiday custom. However, because of its widespread popularity, and particularly because of its acceptance by contemporary business, Christmas has come to be seen as suspicious. We have a tendency to believe that Christmas has lost its authenticity and spirit precisely because it has made concessions to the economic features of contemporary life. However, as we will see throughout this book, the link between religion and business is both more intricate and far more intriguing.

 

My primary fieldwork experience as an ethnographer of Christmas has been in the Caribbean island of Trinidad, where I conducted research for my dissertation. After the first overview of the history of Christmas, I will go on to three major concerns: the family, the local and global communities and, finally, consumerism after a little interlude. In each instance, I will address them in further detail, paying particular attention to evidence from England, where I now reside, and then, as a contrast, I will analyze how these three difficulties are played out in Trinidad and Tobago. I shall turn to pieces by other anthropologists who contributed to Unwrapping Christmas (Miller 1993a, 1993b, Ed. 1993), as well as some more recent publications, for much of the information provided here.

 

Aspects of the history of Christmas are discussed here.

The roots of the holiday season

Given the limited time available for this debate and the fact that the topic of history is primarily meant to serve as backdrop, I shall confine myself to just two historical periods: the roots of the celebration in Roman times and the growth of modern Christmas. Some of the time that has elapsed will be explored in more detail in the next section, which will be devoted to the connection with the family (see Rycenga 2008 for a summary of the ambivalence in Christianity towards Christmas). When I came across the following passage from Miles's (1912) work, Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, I was convinced that the evidence of previous eras should be examined as more than merely a backdrop to the present Christmas season. When Miles quotes from Libanius, he is citing from a non-Christian philosopher of rhetoric who lived in Constantinople, Nicomedia, and Antioch and who wrote in the second half of the fourth century, around the time of the establishment of Christmas, he is quoting from an intermediate source. The description is of the festival of the Kalends, which is one of the three festivals that, in some ways, replace Christmas in the calendar year:

 

The festival of the Kalends is celebrated all over the world, as far as the boundaries of the Roman Empire allow it to go... Carousels and well-laden tables may be found everywhere; lavish plenty can be seen in the homes of the wealthy, but also in the homes of the poor, where nicer food than is customary is placed on the table for them. Everyone is gripped by the need to spend their money. A person who has taken delight in saving and accumulating his pennies for the whole year suddenly indulges in lavish spending. He who was before used to and desired to live in poverty now enjoys himself to the fullest extent that his financial capabilities will allow... . People are not only kind to themselves, but they are also generous to their fellow human beings. There is a torrent of gifts gushing forth from every direction... Large procession of burdened persons and creatures crisscross the highroads and pathways.... As the thousand flowers that bloom everywhere are the ornament of Spring, so too are the thousand gifts that are strewn on the table as the decorations for the Kalends feast, which are thrown out on all sides. It is fair to say that this time of year is the most pleasant period of the year.... The Kalends celebration purges men's lives of all that is associated with hard work and lets them to indulge in unhindered pleasure. It takes away two forms of terror from the minds of young people: the dread of the schoolmaster and the dread of the severe pedagogue. It also permits the slave, to the extent that it is feasible, to breathe the air of freedom... Another outstanding feature of the festival is that it educates men not to hang on to their money too tightly, but rather to part with it and let it to flow into other people's hands.

 

Miles (1912: 168-9) describes the process as follows:

It is the evidence offered in the next three pages of Miles' book that significantly increases the significance of this quote. Miles begins by noting that "the church's denunciations of pagan festal rituals in the winter season are primarily focused at the Kalends festivities and demonstrate how far the celebration had extended" in terms of geography (ibid.: 169). He cites a source that compiled forty similar denunciations dating from between the fourth and eleventh centuries, which implies that a direct connection between Christmas and the Kalends has been recognized for over a century. "Christmas and the Kalends are linked," says the author. He quotes in full from one such condemnation and adds other customs such as masquerade, which we now connect more with Carnival, but also the eating, drinking, and giving of gifts, which are still associated with Christmas.

The roots of Christmas, on the other hand, are much more complicated than this conflict with the Kalends alone. The Kalends, at least in early Roman times, was much less prominent than the Saturnalia, which was celebrated from December 17 for five days starting on the next day. According to Scullard (1981: 205-7), this was the most popular Roman festival throughout the republican period of the city. Several features of this festival are found in medieval and subsequent Christmas and Carnival celebrations, including not just the general merriment, but also more particular aspects such as the selection of an impersonating monarch to preside over festivities and the distribution of gifts. Scullard even mentions the wearing of hats that are soft (but they are made of felt rather than paper!) There are also ceremonies devoted to the reversal of societal norms that we might see. When we see the master feeding the slave, it is evident that he is just the most extreme example of a feeling of inversion from conventional rules, as Libanius points out in his commentary.

 

We seem to be dealing with a unique phenomenon here, a type of twin peaked event based on the interaction between these two Roman festivals, which is represented in the simultaneous appearance of Christmas on the one hand and Carnival on the other, as well as New Year's Day on occasion. Between them, we can observe feasting and gambling, gift-giving, extravagantness, and the overall squandering of money on many things. What is interesting, however, is the attitude of persons like as Libanius, who has been mentioned by Miles. Libanius is primarily a conservative moralist who upholds what he considers to be classic Roman ideals, such as thrift, in his writings. He seems to find nothing wrong with this specific behavior, despite the fact that it is precisely the kind of behavior that he would criticize on any other occasion as being diametrically opposed to the qualities he so desperately seeks to retain on this particular occasion. Indeed, many past moralists had decried what they saw to be the excessive clamor and excesses of Saturnalia's celebrations. The extravagant gift-giving and lavishness described by Libanius may easily be seen as part of a wider increase in crass materialism among the Roman elite in particular, and as such as a challenge to traditional values in the ancient Mediterranean world.

 

By taking into account the third pre-Christian celebration associated with Christmas, we may draw even more similarities between the conditions of the first Christmas and those of our current holiday season. December 25th marks the commemoration of the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, which means "Victory of the Sun." It is this festival, Miles observes, that seems to have been purposefully altered in order to bring a calendar fixity to Christmas, but he goes on to say that it is of no significance to be tied to the holiday in question. In this particular instance, however, the renowned Christmas researcher may have overlooked something, as shown by a recent book on the cult linked with the holiday. As part of a religion known as Deus Sol Invictus, the celebration of the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti included chariot racing and the decorating of branches and small trees with flowers. Halsberghe (1972) recounts the growth of this religion from its roots in Syria to its present day manifestations (and possibly before that in pre-Jewish Canaanite practices). In 219, it is brought to Rome in a more Syrian version known as Sol Invictus Elagabal, and it is the first time it has been brought to Rome. It dominated Roman devotion for a short period of time until the assassination of the supportive emperor in 222. The cult, on the other hand, grows in popularity and is re-established in a more "Roman" form by the emperor Aurelian, who proclaims it to be the official religion of the Roman state in 274 AD. After then, the cult's significance remains undiminished. The worship of Deus Sol Invictus reached remarkable heights throughout Constantine the Great's tenure (306-37), according to Halsberghe, "to the point that his reign was even referred to as the Sun Emperorship" (ibid.: 167).

 

In addition to this, Constantine was also responsible for the following promotion of Christianity, which was to eventually displace such cults. As a result of this background information, we can better understand the reasons for a decision that took place between the years 354 and 360 to establish Christmas on the date of December 25, which later on successfully replaced an earlier tradition in the East that focused on the Epiphany on January 6, which was later on successful replaced in the West. It wasn't only that this was the date indicated in the Julian calendar for the winter solstice; it also meant that an important celebration of a religion that was probably the principal competitor to Christianity during its initial stages would be replaced by a Christian feast. In the case of Mithras worship, which is strongly tied with the Roman Empire, this may be even more true than usual. According to Nabarz (2005), Mithras was likewise born on December 25, and Mithraism was afterwards mercilessly suppressed by Christianity across the Roman Empire. All of these cults arose from the Middle East and were most likely seen not just as competitors, but also as closely connected (Barnes 1981, Class 2000). Despite its polytheistic foundations, the worship of the sun god had by then evolved into a sort of monotheism drawn from Syrian origins, and it is possible that it shared concerns with a redeemer and the afterlife with both Mithraic and Christian religions at the time. Unlike its two adversaries, the cult of Deus Sol Invictus, from its inception in the Roman Empire, had a far closer connection with the state, as well as the presence and image of the emperor, which provided it with a significant political advantage.

 

To my ears, this all seems like pretty arcane and esoteric archaeological investigation into the early roots of Christmas, which would be of interest only to antiquarians alone. However, I believe I have already uncovered a whole number of intriguing parallels between our own modern Christmas and Carnival, as well as other cultures. I'm not going to give anything away about my tale at this point, but I will say that I believe this provides us with important clues about the nature of our modern Christmas, and that we already have the building blocks for a more comprehensive theory of Christmas. In the manner of a good detective novel, I have merely set down a few early clues; but, how precisely we should bring them in as proof for my case will have to wait until the conclusion of this chapter.

 

Where did the contemporary Anglo-American Christmas have its start?

To the complete contrary of this evidence from Roman times, a consensus appears to be forming regarding at least the interpretation of today's Anglo-American Christmas, which would place this festival firmly within the more general category of phenomenon known as "the invention of tradition," which refers to something that claims connections to a long-ago past but is in fact an almost entirely new festival. According to the most major descriptions of the contemporary Christmas, including those by Barnett (1954) on the American Christmas and those by Golby and Purdue (1986) on the British Christmas, as well as those by Pimlott (1978) on the British Christmas, this subject is clearly strong. Aside from that, these authors give excellent explanations of the lengthier historical customs that gave rise to the present Christmas. Barnett's description of the hostility to Christmas among the Puritan founders of modern America, who went so far as to declare the celebration of Christmas illegal for a period of time during the seventeenth century, is particularly noteworthy. Barnett's book is available on Amazon (as did the British Puritan parliament between 1647 and 1660).

 

Using Germany as an example, Perry (2010: 2) makes a very similar point. However, he asserts that, contrary to appearances, the German Christmas was in fact a nineteenth-century fabrication, with antecedents dating back to the Middle Ages or even earlier. Numerous authors who support the thesis for the creation of tradition place emphasis on the split that occurred in the mid-nineteenth century between any earlier form of this holiday and the Christmas that we are familiar with today. According to Golby (1981: 14-15), who conducted a survey of The Times newspaper from 1790 to 1836, "Christmas is not mentioned at all in twenty of the forty-seven years, and the remaining twenty-seven years' reports are extremely brief and not very informative" (Christmas is not mentioned at all in twenty-seven years, and the remaining twenty-seven years' reports are extremely brief and not very informative). This seeming lack of interest in the event is in stark contrast to the immense impact of the novelist Charles Dickens, and particularly the enormous success of his novel A Christmas Carol, which was published in 1843. With the emergence of what Barnett refers to as the "carol philosophy," which places an emphasis on sentimentality, Barnett attributes the growth of Dickens and other writers, such as Washington Irving.

 

The concept of tradition being invented seems to be supported by the strong tone of Dickensian nostalgia surrounding the event, which obviously professes to be reenacting a ritual that has been around for a very long time. However, it is only from this point in time, in the mid-nineteenth century, that we begin to see the crystallization of a range of characteristics of the contemporary Christmas from a variety of regional origins into a single homogenized form with no geographical basis. The Christmas tree is derived from the German tradition, the filling of stockings is derived from the Dutch tradition, the development of Santa Claus is primarily derived from the United States, the British Christmas card is derived from the British tradition, and many other elements are derived from other traditions. Folkloristic descriptions of Christmas show that, up to this point, the event has been so penetrated by distinct local features that it has created a picture of pretty amazing variability in its appearance. We notice, however, the gradual annihilation of some habits and the strengthening of others that have been picked for preservation by the mid-nineteenth century. For example, mistletoe is revered, along with the kissing ritual that it accompanies, but ivy, which was also significant in certain previous traditions, has lost part of its value.

 

Due to the information gathered throughout the course of