978-0-89587-319-4
0-8987-319-2
$24.95 hardcover
7 x 7
240 pages
Press Release (PDF)
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American Christmases...offers readers a glimpse of how America
celebrated before commercialization overwhelmed the holiday.
--The Pilot, Southern Pines, NC
From Captain John Smith's description of his visit to a native village in
1608 to Major Carrie Acree's letter from Iraq in 2004, American
Christmases offers firsthand impressions of the Christmas season a told in
letters, journals, memoirs, newspaper articles, poems, songs, and
advertisements.
Passages from well-known people include Daniel Boone describing his
Christmas as an Indian captive in 1769; George Washington begging for
congressional assistance for his starving Continental Army troops at
Christmas in 1777; Edith Wharton writing about an 1895 Christmas party at
George Vanderbilt's North Carolina estate; and secret service agent Edmund
Starling telling about President Woodrow Wilson's secret Christmas
honeymoon.
However, some of the most moving entries come from ordinary people.
Father Paul O'Connor, a Jesuit missionary in Alaska, remembers a special
Christmas gift he gave to an "Eskimo lass of ten" in 1954.
Army Specialist Don Odam describes a surreal experience in the Saudi
Arabian desert during Operation Desert Storm at Christmas in 1990.
By reading these 250 entries, you'll see how the role of Santa Claus has
changed through the centuries, how the Christmas tree became a symbol of
the season, and how America's celebration of Christmas has evolved over
400 years.
about the author
Joanne Martell is a graduate of Stanford University. She is the
author of Millie
Christine: Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. Joanne and her
husband live in the North Carolina Sandhills.
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