If there is one thing that separates British and American Christmas celebrations it has to be the commercials. Simply put, American commercials are short and sell hard while British commercials are mini-movies with huge production values and frequently tug at the heart strings. No wonder the commercials in the UK are so widely anticipated. Sainsburys […]
While Christmas in America predates the American Revolution Santa Claus did not make a splash in America until 1810. He arrived, as many Americans do, in New York City. Local merchant and leader of a local historical society by the name of John Pintard objected to the roughness of Christmas as it was celebrated in […]
There seems to be a love/hate relationship many have with gift cards. Some call such items impersonal while others embrace gift cards as quite the thoughtful gift. Like them or not, gift cards have become one of the most popularly exchanged items of Christmas. According to giftcards.com more than $100 billion is spent on gift […]
Dan Stevens — the actor once-upon-a-time who played Matthew Crawley on Downton Abbey — has been cast to play Charles Dickens in a new movie to be titled The Man Who Invented Christmas. This is a project both to greatly anticipate and to loathe. The story of Dickens and his creation of A Christmas Carol […]
In New England, home of hundreds of lighthouses and the families who worked them, there lived a man who in the early 1920s depended upon them in a different way. The emerging technology at the time was the industry of flight. As one of America’s first pilots, Bill Wincapaw was known around Penobscot Bay for […]
The news was just announced that ultra-hot vocal group Pentatonix will now be featured on an upcoming NBC Christmas television special. The a cappella group, which rose to fame on NBC’s The Sing-Off, will return to the network on Dec. 14 for A Pentatonix Christmas Special, an hour-long holiday special featuring performances by Kelly Clarkson […]
The phrase “war on Christmas” has become so tiresome in the ongoing dialogue about Christmas that it tends to trigger instant eye-rolling disdain. The media attention to it all just makes one weary at the mere mention of it. Gerry Bowler’s new book, Christmas in the Crosshairs, settles rather emphatically the question of whether or […]
Many limit the Christmas connection with the dead as merely something from the imagination of Charles Dickens. As Scrooge is haunted by Marley he encounters many of the dead from his family and youth – and that has a huge connection to all that was sacred to those who celebrated the ancient Christmas. Halloween in […]
Lazy historians typically date the advent of Christmas cards to the 1840s, a time when postal services in modern western societies were well established and became more affordable. The truth is that the sending of holiday greetings is centuries old. Commercial Christmas cards got their start in the UK in the 1840s, suspiciously around the […]
As we shared earlier this month Peter Hollens is releasing his first full Christmas album and this is his first video release from that album, an original called December Song: This is a very anticipated release. Hollens usually works with artists, groups and choirs large and small in creative covers and according to his own […]
Christmas is a traditional season of peace but even Santa straps on the uniform of a soldier when called to duty. Over time Santa has been “enlisted” in the cause of one side or another in periods of war. Not surprisingly, most of the images of Santa associated with war are American and date from […]
