What if I told you that Christmas—the holiday we know and love so well—was a capitalist Conspiracy to indoctrinate the working class into bourgeois culture and values? At one end of the Conspiracy was the very real circle of New York City antiquarians and aristocrats trying to snuff out earlier forms of the holiday, replacing these folk practices with the distinctly quiet, calm, peaceful, productive, contemplative, bourgeois form of the holiday we know today. At the other end stands their greatest creation—the defrocked bishop Santa Claus and his apparently vast, never-ceasing workshops fed by partially enslaved elf labor.

Clement Clarke Moore, “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (1823)

Pintard, Letters, Vol. II: 1821-1827; Vol. II: 1828-1831

Clark, Christopher. Social Change in America: From the Revolution Through the Civil War. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher. 2006.

Penne Restad, Christmas in America: A History, Oxford University Press. 1996.

Stephen Nissenbaum, The Battle for Christmas: A Social and Cultural History of Our Most Cherished Holiday, Vintage. 1997.

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