The Book That Invented Christmas (Christmas Untold Stories)

What if everything you know about Christmas traditions is a fiction invented by one man? In 1809, a 26-year-old satirist named Washington Irving published a "history" of New York featuring St. Nicholas flying over Manhattan in a magic wagon. Readers believed it was fact. A decade later, desperate and bankrupt in England, Irving wrote five Christmas essays describing an idealized holiday celebration Americans had never experienced. They embraced it as their lost heritage. From stockings hung by fireplaces to Santa's midnight flight, from festive family dinners to the very idea of Christmas charity—nearly every American Christmas tradition traces to Irving's imagination, not ancient custom. Congress met on Christmas Day until 1856. Puritans banned the holiday for 22 years. Then Irving's stories gave America permission to celebrate. This is the astonishing true story of how one writer's fiction became a nation's most sacred tradition. Discover the truth in The Book That Invented Christmas. View Less