Founders, Presidents And Christmas

With Christmas coming, let’s look at some of our Founding Fathers and a few presidents and their attitudes toward Christmas. 

Starting with our first president, George Washington, here is one of his Christmas shopping lists. In 1759, he purchased the following for his new wife’s young children: “a bird on Bellows; a Cuckoo; a Turnabout Parrot; a Grocers Shop; an Aviary; a Prussian Dragoon; a Man Smoking; a Tunbridge Tea Set; 3 Neat Books, a Tea Chest. A straw parchment box with a glass & a neat dress’d wax baby.” Our first president and Martha celebrated Christmas with their family and friends at Mount Vernon, where they spent 12 days celebrating the holiday. The Washingtons celebrated from Christmas Eve on December 24 up to the Epiphany or Twelfth Night on January 6.

Our second president, John Adams, was the first president to celebrate Christmas in the White House. It was in 1800 that John and Abigail celebrated Christmas together with their four-year old granddaughter who lived with them, Susanna Boylston Adams. They were joined by many government officials and their children.

Our third president, Thomas Jefferson, was very fond of Christmas and described it as a “day of greatest mirth and jollity.” He often told of celebrating Christmas with his grandchildren. He spent Christmas Day of 1809 with Francis Wayles Eppes, his eight-year-old grandson. Jefferson said Francis was “running about with his cousins bawling out ‘a Merry Christmas.’”

Our fourth president, James Madison, and his wife, Dolley, continued the Christmas tradition by celebrating in the White House. They hosted parties there for family and friends. It was James and Molley who initiated the tradition of sending out White House Christmas cards.

John Quincy Adams, the sixth president, speaking of the birthday of the Savior asked the rhetorical question, “Is it not that in the chain of human events, the birthday of a nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior?” Our president’s emphatic belief was that the founding of the United States is a key event in a larger historical and religious narrative that started with the birth of Jesus.

As a child, I was focused only on my own Christmas experience. But as I grew older, I became aware that Christmas was an event that had been celebrated for twenty centuries in Western civilization, and for two centuries in the United States, by its people and by Congress, the Executive branch and the courts. Christmas certainly has deep roots in this Christian nation. In 1870 Christmas was made a federal holiday with a bill that passed easily through Congress and then signed by President Ulysses S. Grant. The holiday is celebrated by 94% of Americans.

How will you celebrate Christmas this year? Hopefully you will make many wonderful memories with family and friends. Enjoy your holiday traditions and perhaps make some new ones. Oh, and remember to watch out for Grinches (and don’t be one)!!!