Have you seen the “Grinch prank” video trend? Bad parenting, yes. But also a nod to the conflicts, ancient and modern, embedded in Christmas. 

Contrary to what Bill O’Reilly would tell you, there has never been a “war on Christmas.” Rather, Christmas itself has always been a battleground over love, dignity, and resources. What we’re really fighting over is who gets care in systems built on scarcity and extraction.

Show Notes

Andersen, Hans Christian. The Little Match Girl. Copenhagen, 1845.https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10623

Boyle, James. “The Second Enclosure Movement and the Construction of the Public Domain.” Law and Contemporary Problems 66, no. 1–2 (2003).https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/lcp/vol66/iss1/2/

Chekhov, Anton. “Vanka.” 1892.https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13418

Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. London: Chapman & Hall, 1843.https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46

Imperial War Museums. “Christmas Truce, 1914.”https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/christmas-truce-1914

Imperial War Museums. “Letter Describing the Christmas Truce.”https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1030000503

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich. The Principles of Socialism and the War of 1914–1915. Marxists Internet Archive.https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/princip/

McCoy, Michael. “What Is Tinsel Made Of? (and How It Changed Over the Years).” Chemical & Engineering News, December 15, 2014.https://cen.acs.org/articles/92/i50/Tinsel-Made.html

Mitterauer, Michael. “Peasant and Non-Peasant Forms of Family Organization in Relation to the Physical Environment and the Local Economy.” Journal of Family History 2, no. 2 (1977).https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/036319907700200203

Nel, Philip. Dr. Seuss: American Icon. New York: Continuum, 2004.https://books.google.com/books?id=Yt4QAQAAIAAJ

Nissenbaum, Stephen. The Battle for Christmas. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/171502/the-battle-for-christmas-by-stephen-nissenbaum/

Restad, Penne L. Christmas in America: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.https://global.oup.com/academic/product/christmas-in-america-9780195043659

Schmidt, Leigh Eric. Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691018448/consumer-rites

Science History Institute. “History and Future of Plastics.”https://www.sciencehistory.org/topics/plastics

Smithsonian Magazine. “The Origin of Krampus, Europe’s Evil Twist on Santa.” December 4, 2015.https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-origin-of-krampus-europes-evil-twist-on-santa-180957438/

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