The Creation of Christmas: Two Thousand Years of Collective Creativity

The perfect podcast for the Christmas season! This is a special Christmas episode of The Science of Creativity. Many of the traditions that we love—gift-giving, Santa Claus, kissing under the mistletoe—were invented across the generations, and are always evolving. This special holiday episode gives you the creation story of the secular, non-religious traditions that we celebrate at Christmas. The collective creation of these Christmas traditions is what I call social innovation, a kind of collective creativity where everyone plays a role. Five hundred years ago, Christmas was a wild party, where young men got drunk and roamed in packs around town. Children didn’t start getting gifts until about 200 years ago. In the late 1800s, the Santa Claus myth was invented, along with the elves and the sleigh and the workshop at the North Pole. It started two thousand years ago, in Ancient Rome, it picked up steam in the 1800s, and we’re still creating new Christmas traditions today.

Chapters

0:00 Teaser

1:11 Introduction to the Special Episode

2:12 Tradition and Invention

5:28 Wassailing

12:23 Toys

16:06 Santa Claus

21:25 The War on Christmas

25:24 The Holiday for Everyone

27:54 Closer

28:44 Outro

Music by License from Soundstripe:

• “Blues for Oliver” by Cast of Characters
• “Silent Night” by Cast of Characters
• “O Christmas Tree” by O Christmas Tree Jazz Trio
• “Just Walkin’” by Ryan Saranich
• “Uptown Lovers” by AFTERNOONZ 

Notes

The Pagan Origins of Christmas: Saturnalia, Yule, and Other Pre-Christian Traditions | History Cooperative

Wikipedia entries: “The war on Christmas” and “Wassailing” and “Syncretism” 

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer