The Battle for Christmas

«IN NEW ENGLAND, for the first two centuries of white settlement most people did not celebrate Christmas. In fact, the holiday was systematically suppressed by Puritans during the colonial period and largely ignored by their descendants. It was actually illegal to celebrate Christmas in Massachusetts between 1659 and 1681 (the fine was five shillings).» — la tesis con que abre el capítulo primero: en Nueva Inglaterra la fiesta no se celebró, y entre 1659 y 1681 celebrarla fue delito con multa tasada

«As we shall see, much of this is misleading or exaggerated. It is true that the New England states did not grant legal recognition to Christmas until the middle of the nineteenth century, but neither did most of the other states. There were Christmas Day religious services in Worcester before 1850. And nineteenth-century factory owners had their own reasons for treating Christmas as a regular working day, reasons that had more to do with industrial capitalism than with Puritan theology.» — Nissenbaum enmienda el recuerdo decimonónico que acaba de citar: el retraso del reconocimiento legal no fue exclusivo de Nueva Inglaterra, hubo cultos el 25 antes de 1850, y la jornada laboral del 25 en las fábricas responde al capitalismo industrial y no a la teología puritana

«As early as 1621, just one year after the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, their governor, William Bradford, found some of the colony’s new residents trying to take the day off. Bradford ordered them right back to work.» — el episodio de 1621 que el capítulo toma del gobernador William Bradford, primer testimonio de la oposición: unos vecinos nuevos quisieron tomarse el día y el gobernador los devolvió al trabajo

«The Puritans themselves had a plain reason for what they tried to do, and it happens to be a perfectly good one: There is no biblical or historical reason to place the birth of Jesus on December 25.» — el argumento puritano que Nissenbaum concede: no hay base bíblica ni histórica para poner el nacimiento de Jesús el 25 de diciembre

«It was only in the fourth century that the Church officially decided to observe Christmas on December 25. And this date was chosen not for religious reasons but simply because it happened to mark the approximate arrival of the winter solstice, an event that was celebrated long before the advent of Christianity.» — la datación de la fecha: la Iglesia la fija en el siglo IV, y no por razón religiosa sino por coincidir con la llegada aproximada del solsticio de invierno, ya celebrado antes del cristianismo

«The Reverend Increase Mather of Boston, for example, accurately observed in 1687 that the early Christians who first observed the Nativity on December 25 did not do so “thinking that Christ was born in that Month, but because the Heathens Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian [ones].» — según Nissenbaum, el reverendo Increase Mather de Boston en 1687: los primeros cristianos que observaron la Natividad el 25 no lo hacían por creer que Cristo naciera ese mes, sino porque las Saturnales de los gentiles caían entonces en Roma

«Thus Chanukah, the “feast of lights.” And thus the Yule log, the candles, the holly, the mistletoe, even the Christmas tree—pagan traditions all, with no direct connection to the birth of Jesus.» — el tronco de Yule, las velas, el acebo, el muérdago y el propio árbol se enuncian como tradiciones paganas sin conexión directa con el nacimiento de Jesús, junto a Janucá como fiesta de las luces

«In northern agricultural societies, December was the major “punctuation mark” in the rhythmic cycle of work, a time when there was a minimum of work to be performed.» — la explicación material del exceso: en las sociedades agrícolas del norte diciembre era el signo de puntuación del ciclo de trabajo, el momento de trabajo mínimo

«What is more useful, in any setting, is to look for the dynamics of an ongoing contest, a push and a pull—sometimes a real battle—between those who wished to expand the season and those who wished to contract and restrict it.» — el método que Nissenbaum propone en lugar de fijar los límites de una Navidad verdadera: mirar la pugna entre quienes querían alargar la temporada y quienes querían acortarla

«Christmas was a season of “misrule,” a time when ordinary behavioral restraints could be violated with impunity. It was part of what one historian has called “the world of carnival.” (The term carnival is rooted in the Latin words carne and vale—“farewell to flesh.” And “flesh” refers here not only to meat but also to sex—carnal as well as carnivorous.» — la definición de *misrule* y la etimología de *carnival* que el capítulo da: del latín *carne* y *vale*, adiós a la carne, con la carne entendida a la vez como alimento y como sexo

«The generality of Christmas-keepers observe that festival after such a manner as is highly dishonourable to the name of Christ. How few are there comparatively that spend those holidays (as they are called) after an holy manner. But they are consumed in Compotations, in Interludes, in playing at Cards, in Revellings, in excess of Wine, in mad Mirth» — según Nissenbaum, Increase Mather en 1687: los que guardan la Navidad la observan de un modo deshonroso para el nombre de Cristo, gastada en compotaciones, interludios, naipes, jolgorios y exceso de vino

«called the way most people commonly behaved during the Christmas season “a Scandal to Religion, and an encouraging of Wickedness.» — según Nissenbaum, el reverendo Henry Bourne de Newcastle en 1725, clérigo anglicano partidario de guardar la fiesta, que aun así concede la acusación puritana

«Mumming usually involved “a changing of Clothes between Men and Women; who when dressed in each other’s habits, go from one Neighbor’s house to another … and make merry with them in disguise.» — las dos prácticas que Bourne señalaba como peligrosas; la primera es el *mumming*, el intercambio de ropa entre hombres y mujeres para ir de casa en casa disfrazados

«Men dishonour Christ more in the twelve days of Christmas, than in all the» — según Nissenbaum, el obispo del siglo XVI Hugh Latimer; el troceo corta aquí en el límite de chunk y la frase sigue en la misma plana: *twelve months besides*

«In return for ensuring massive observance of the anniversary of the Saviors birth by assigning it to this resonant date, the Church for its part tacitly agreed to allow the holiday to be celebrated more or less the way it had always been.» — el compromiso que Nissenbaum atribuye a la Iglesia: a cambio de la observancia masiva del aniversario en esa fecha resonante, consintió tácitamente que la fiesta se celebrara como siempre se había celebrado

«It may not be going too far to say that Christmas has always been an extremely difficult holiday to Christianize. Little wonder that the Puritans were willing to save themselves the trouble.» — la consecuencia que el capítulo saca de ese compromiso: la Navidad ha sido siempre una fiesta dificilísima de cristianizar

«Most fundamentally, Christmas was an occasion when the social hierarchy itself was symbolically turned upside down, in a gesture that inverted» — la forma ritual del exceso: la jerarquía social se volteaba simbólicamente; el troceo corta en el cambio de plana y la frase sigue: *designated roles of gender, age, and class*

«In the Saturnalian Days, Masters did wait upon their Servants…. The Gentiles called Saturns time the Golden Age, because in it there was no servitude, in Commemoration whereof on his Festival, Servants must be Masters.» — según Nissenbaum, Increase Mather explicando el origen de la inversión con claridad de antropólogo: en las Saturnales los amos servían a los criados, y los gentiles llamaban Edad de Oro al tiempo de Saturno porque no había servidumbre

«For it was usually the poor themselves who initiated the exchange, and it was enacted face-to-face, in rituals that would strike many of us today as an intolerable invasion of privacy.» — la diferencia que el capítulo marca con la caridad moderna: era el propio pobre quien iniciaba el intercambio, cara a cara, en ritos que hoy se leerían como invasión intolerable de la privacidad

«Christmas was a time when peasants, servants, and apprentices exercised the right to demand that their wealthier neighbors and patrons treat them as if they were wealthy and powerful.» — el derecho estacional que Nissenbaum describe: campesinos, criados y aprendices exigían que sus vecinos y patrones acomodados los trataran como si fueran ricos y poderosos

«they are not so much presents from friend to friend, or from equal to equal …, as from superior to inferior.» — según Nissenbaum, un francés que viajaba por Inglaterra a fines del siglo XVII: los regalos no iban de amigo a amigo ni entre iguales, sino de superior a inferior

«it involved behavior that most of us would find offensive and even shocking today—rowdy public displays of excessive eating and drinking, the mockery of established authority, aggressive begging (often involving the threat of doing harm), and even the invasion of wealthy homes.» — la segunda razón de la supresión: lo que se suprimió no era la Navidad que hoy se llama tradicional, sino comidas y bebidas excesivas en público, burla de la autoridad, mendicidad agresiva con amenaza de daño e invasión de casas ricas

«[T]he Feast of Christ’s Nativity is spent in Reveling, Dicing, Carding, Masking, and in all Licentious Liberty … by Mad Mirth, by long Eating, by hard Drinking, by lewd Gaming, by rude Reveling» — según Nissenbaum, Cotton Mather en 1712, hijo del anterior, con la misma lista de excesos; el troceo imprime la inicial entre corchetes, *[T]he Feast*

«the official period of twelve days, right up to Candlemas Day on February 2. For that entire forty-day period, it was common “for Men to rise early in the Morning, that they may follow strong Drink, and continue untill Night, till Wine inflame them.» — la extensión de la temporada según Bourne, que Nissenbaum cita tras el corte de plana: hasta la Candelaria del 2 de febrero, cuarenta días en que era común levantarse temprano para seguir la bebida fuerte hasta que el vino inflamara

«One name that is still known in our culture is that of wassailing, and I shall take the liberty of using this word to refer to a whole set of similar rituals that may have had other names. Wassailers —roving bands of youthful males—toasted the patron’s well-being while drinking the beer he had been kind enough to supply them.» — el nombre que el libro adopta para todo el conjunto de ritos del intercambio: *wassailing*, con bandas de varones jóvenes que brindaban por el bienestar del patrón mientras bebían la cerveza que él había puesto

«Come bring, with a noise, My merrie, merrie boys, The Christmas log to the firing; While my good dame she Bids ye all be free [i.e., with the alcohol] And drink to your heart’s desiring» — según Nissenbaum, el wassail que Robert Herrick metió en su poema de 1648 *Ceremonies for Christmasse*; el corchete con la aclaración del alcohol es del propio libro

«The wassail usually possessed an aggressive edge—often an explicit threat—concerning the unpleasant consequences to follow if the beggars’ demands were not met.» — el filo del rito: una amenaza explícita sobre lo que seguiría si no se atendían las demandas de los mendicantes

«We’ve come here to claim our right…. And if you don’t open up your door, We will lay you flat upon the floor.» — según Nissenbaum, una canción de wassail conservada, con la demanda y la amenaza desnudas de tumbar al dueño en el suelo si no abre la puerta

«Again we assemble, a merry New Year To wish to each one of the family here…. May they of potatoes and herrings have plenty, With butter and cheese, and each other dainty» — según Nissenbaum, el wassail que en la Isla de Man cantaban las bandas de jóvenes que iban de casa en casa pidiendo comida

«It was not enough for the landlord to let the peasants in and feed them. On this one occasion he had to share with them his choicest food and drink, his private stock.» — lo que el rito exigía del terrateniente: no bastaba con abrir y dar de comer, tenía que compartir su mejor comida y bebida, su reserva privada

«Take, for instance, a December 1991 article in Money magazine, which warns its readers to “Tip Defensively” at Christmas: “‘At holiday time you must show people who work for you that you appreciate good service,’…. Translation: if you don’t, you’ll suffer the consequences all next year (Day-Glo hair tinting or sprinkler-soaked newspapers)…. Keep in mind a kind of reverse Marxism: to each according to your need. That is, tip most generously those who can do you the most damage.» — el vestigio que Nissenbaum señala en el presente: un artículo de la revista *Money* de diciembre de 1991 que aconseja dar propina a la defensiva y repartir según el daño que cada quien pueda hacerte

«It was part of a cultural world that went back thousands of years and involved the yearly agricultural cycle, which defined and integrated work and play, with times of intense labor followed by periods of equally intense celebration.» — lo que el capítulo pone bajo el desorden de la poscosecha: un mundo cultural milenario organizado por el ciclo agrícola anual, que definía e integraba trabajo y juego

«It was this entire cultural world, with its periodic seasons of labor and festivity—and not just Christmas itself—that Puritans felt to be corrupt, “pagan,” evil. It was this world that they systematically attempted to abolish and “purify.”» — el objeto de la supresión puritana según Nissenbaum: no la Navidad sola, sino ese mundo entero de trabajo y fiesta, tenido por corrupto y pagano

«They wished to replace it with a simpler, more orderly culture in which people were more disciplined and self-regulated, in which ornate churches and cathedrals were replaced by plain “meetinghouses,” in which lavish periodic celebrations—the seasonal cycle itself—were replaced by an orderly and regular succession of days, punctuated only by a weekly day of rest and self-examination, the Sabbath.» — el reemplazo que los puritanos querían: una cultura más simple y ordenada, casas de reunión llanas en vez de iglesias ornadas, y una sucesión regular de días puntuada solo por el sábado semanal

«In England, the Puritan Parliament made a point of holding regular sessions each December 25 from 1644 through 1656, and it did what it could to suppress the traditional observance of the date. (In 1644 Parliament actually decreed that December 25 was to be observed as a day of fasting and repentance—for the sinful way the occasion had been made into a time of “giving liberty to carnall and» — las medidas inglesas: el Parlamento puritano sesionó cada 25 de diciembre de 1644 a 1656, y en 1644 decretó la fecha como día de ayuno y arrepentimiento; el troceo corta aquí y la frase sigue: *sensual delights*

«Thus are the merry lords of misrule suppressed by the mad lords of bad rule at Westminster» — según Nissenbaum, un inglés descontento que llamaba deportes inofensivos a lo prohibido: los alegres señores del desgobierno quedaron suprimidos por los locos señores del mal gobierno de Westminster

«The title page of a 1686 British book mocking the Puritans who had suppressed Christmas—and who had been out of power in England for some twenty-five years when» — el pie de la lámina de *The Tryal of Father Christmas*, libro británico de 1686 que se burla de los puritanos que habían suprimido la Navidad y que para entonces llevaban unos veinticinco años fuera del poder en Inglaterra

«The Puritan jurors in this trial bore such names as “Mr. Cold-kitchen,” “Mr. Give-little,” and “Mr. Hate-good.”» — el mismo pie, con los nombres de los jurados puritanos del proceso figurado

«In England the success of the Puritans was limited and temporary. Legislation banning the celebration of Christmas was contested in many places even during the 1640s and 1650s, when Puritans controlled the government (there were riots in several towns), and the policy was quickly reversed in 1660 upon the restoration of the English monarchy.» — el balance inglés: la legislación se disputó ya en los años cuarenta y cincuenta, con motines en varias localidades, y se revirtió en 1660 con la restauración

«But in New England the Puritans did largely succeed in eliminating Christmas, along with many of the other practices of English popular culture.» — el balance contrario para Nueva Inglaterra: allí sí lograron en buena medida eliminar la Navidad junto con otras prácticas de la cultura popular inglesa

«Acclaim for STEPHEN NLSSENBAUM’S The Battle for Christmas “Erudite yet entertaining … an unusual history of consumerism … an original study.» — el primer elogio de prensa que imprime el troceo, firmado por el *Boston Globe*; el encabezado sale del OCR con el apellido corrompido en *NLSSENBAUM* (lectura propuesta: Nissenbaum), y así se conserva

«A vivid, engaging achievement in social and cultural history. Nissenbaum’s interpretation of the centuries-long struggle to control and shape our most popular holiday is a revelation. The Battle for Christmas is a rare treat, brilliant and accessible.» — el elogio de Richard D. Brown, de la Universidad de Connecticut, que lee el libro como historia social y cultural

«Refreshingly original and utterly engaging. It is brilliant in conception and astonishing in terms of research.» — el elogio de Michael Kammen, de Cornell

«This is cultural history at its most riveting—lively, quirky, insightful. Nissenbaum has a sharp eye for the telling detail, and a keen sense of historical development.» — el elogio de Richard Wrightman Fox, de la Universidad de Boston

«Using Christmas as a lens that refracts American social history as a whole, [Nissenbaum] has written a fascinating account that demystifies Christmas and, paradoxically perhaps, humanizes it.» — el elogio de *Time Out New York*, que describe el procedimiento del libro como lente

«Like St. Nick himself, Stephen Nissenbaum has brought us a gift that will delight everyone fascinated with the remarkable twists and turns of American culture.… In vivid, compelling prose, Nissenbaum shows how the Christmas holiday has carried multiple meanings in our past.» — el elogio de Robert A. Gross, del College of William and Mary

«The Battlefor Christmas renews my faith in Santa Claus, for it tells us who he really is and where he came from…. This rewarding book shows that American Christmas was a highly contested holiday long before the Grinch got his hands on it.» — el elogio de Peter H. Wood, de Duke; el troceo imprime el título sin el espacio, *Battlefor*, y así se conserva

«Full of unexpected revelations about the evolution of Christmas, Nissenbaum’s book is a stellar work of American cultural history. In probing the historical contexts of Christmas, Nissenbaum casts fresh light on such diverse issues as consumerism, popular culture, class relations, the American family, and the African-American experience.» — el elogio de David Reynolds, del Baruch College, que enumera los asuntos que el libro cruza con la Navidad

«Nissenbaum’s excursion is both enlightening and entertaining in this well-researched book. He travels the centuries with a focus, weaving between the class struggles that define almost every age.» — el elogio del *New Jersey Star Ledger*

«Stephen Nissenbaum received his A.B. from Harvard College in 1961, his M.A. from Columbia University in 1963, and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1968. He has taught at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, since 1968, and is currently professor of history there.» — la solapa biográfica del autor, que el troceo imprime tras los elogios; no es voz de la obra

«He has been the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Antiquarian Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the Charles Warren Center at Harvard.» — la misma solapa, con las becas del autor

«The Battle for Christmas was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in History in 1997.» — la solapa, que data el finalismo del Pulitzer un año después de la primera edición

«Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft (with Paul Boyer, 1974)» — la lista *ALSO BY STEPHEN NISSENBAUM* que el troceo imprime en la plana siguiente a la solapa: la obra anterior del autor, escrita con Paul Boyer

«The Salem Witchcraft Papers: Verbatim Transcripts of the Legal Documents of the Salem Witchcraft Outbreak of 1692 (with Paul Boyer, 1977)» — la misma lista, con la edición documental de los papeles del proceso de Salem

«Preface 1. New England’s War on Christmas 2. Revisiting “? Visit from St. Nicholas” 3. The Parlor and the Street 4. Affection’s Gift: Toward a History of Christmas Presents 5. Under the Christmas Tree: A Battle of Generations 6. Tiny Tim and Other Charity Cases 7. Wassailing Across the Color Line: Christmas in the Antebellum South Epilogue: The Ghosts of Christmas Past Notes Acknowledgments» — el índice del volumen; el capítulo segundo sale del OCR con la inicial del título perdida, *Revisiting “? Visit from St. Nicholas”* (lectura propuesta: *A Visit from St. Nicholas*)

«P. Thompson has noted that landed gentlemen could always try to use a generous handout at Christmas as a way of making up for a year’s accumulation of small injustices, regaining in the process their tenants’ goodwill.» — lo que Nissenbaum toma del historiador E. P. Thompson: el terrateniente podía usar un reparto generoso en Navidad para compensar un año de pequeñas injusticias y recobrar la buena voluntad de sus arrendatarios

«Some historians argue that role inversions actually functioned as a kind of safety valve that contained class resentments within clearly defined limits, and that by inverting the established hierarchy (rather than simply ignoring it), those role inversions actually served as a reaffirmation of the existing social order.» — la lectura que Nissenbaum atribuye a algunos historiadores: la inversión de papeles como válvula de escape que contenía el resentimiento de clase y, por invertir la jerarquía en vez de ignorarla, la reafirmaba

«David D. Hall has succinctly described the “transformed culture” of what he aptly terms a “new Protestant vernacular”: Psalm-singing replaced ballads. Ritual was reorganized around the celebration of the Sabbath and of fast days. No town in New England had a Maypole; no group celebrated Christmas or St. Valentine’s Day, or staged a pre-Lenten carnival» — lo que Nissenbaum toma del historiador David D. Hall sobre el nuevo vernáculo protestante: el salmo desplazó a la balada, el rito se reorganizó en torno al sábado y a los días de ayuno, y ningún pueblo de Nueva Inglaterra tuvo palo de mayo

«The British historian E. P. Thompson has argued that in England, too, the eighteenth-century elite no longer performed the requisite paternalist rituals of the season, but Thompson adds suggestively that the English elite still continued to “perform” in front of the poor, in a kind of disdainful “theater of the streets.» — lo que Nissenbaum toma de E. P. Thompson para leer la procesión masónica: en Inglaterra la élite del siglo XVIII ya no cumplía los ritos paternalistas de la temporada, pero seguía actuando ante los pobres en una especie de teatro desdeñoso de las calles

«Thompson describes these eighteenth-century protests as a kind of political “theater,” directed at the gentry “audience” before whom it was “performed”—something less than a full-fledged radical movement but more than sheer, unfocused rowdiness.» — la fórmula de Thompson que el capítulo adopta para esas protestas: un teatro político dirigido a un público de la gentry, menos que un movimiento radical y más que mero alboroto

«As Elizabeth Blackmar has written, the city’s poorest residents—“peddlers, ragpickers, prostitutes, scavengers, beggars, and … criminals”—depended for subsistence on the freedom of the streets, and the unregulated opportunity to accost strangers at will, whether for legal or illegal purposes.» — lo que Nissenbaum toma de Elizabeth Blackmar: los residentes más pobres de la ciudad dependían para subsistir de la libertad de las calles y de la oportunidad no regulada de abordar a desconocidos

«What Susan G. Davis has demonstrated in her study of Philadelphia in this period holds equally true of New York.» — el traslado que Nissenbaum hace del estudio de Susan G. Davis sobre la Filadelfia del periodo a la Nueva York de los mismos años

«E. P. Thompson has argued that in eighteenth-century England it was the upper classes themselves who severed the paternalist bonds that allowed the rituals of misrule to operate as a safety valve. Both the gentry and the established church abandoned their control over holiday rituals; these now became purely “plebeian” cultural expressions.» — lo que Nissenbaum toma de E. P. Thompson para el siglo XVIII inglés: fueron las clases altas las que cortaron los lazos paternalistas que hacían del desgobierno una válvula, y tanto la nobleza como la iglesia oficial abandonaron su control de los ritos festivos

«historian Eric Hobsbawm has dubbed this kind of self-conscious re-creation of ostensibly old-time customs» — el término que Nissenbaum toma del historiador Eric Hobsbawm para lo que hace Irving: la invención de la tradición, esa recreación consciente de costumbres presuntamente antiguas; el troceo abre la plana a media frase

«The idea that Christmas was universally rejected by the Puritans, and that it was not practiced in New England until the nineteenth century, has been casually accepted in virtually all the relevant scholarship.» — lo que Nissenbaum objeta en su primera nota a la bibliografía del asunto: la idea de que los puritanos rechazaron la Navidad universalmente y de que no se practicó en Nueva Inglaterra hasta el siglo XIX se ha aceptado sin examen

«This is even true of the best article on the subject: Ivor Debenham Spencer, “Christmas, the Upstart,” in New England Quarterly 8 (1935), 356–383. See also Katherine van Etten Lyford, “The Victory of the Christmas Keepers,” Yankee (Dec. 1964), 76–77, 102–105; and Katherine Lambert Richards, How Christmas Came to the Sunday-Schools: The Observance of Christmas in the Protestant Church Schools of the United States (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1934). A recent and notable exception is Richard P. Gildrie, The Profane, the Civil, and the Godly: The Reformation of Manners in Orthodox New England, 1679–1749» — el artículo que Nissenbaum tiene por el mejor sobre el asunto pese a compartir esa aceptación, y la excepción reciente que señala en un libro de 1994

«An Anglican minister in northern England, writing as early as 1725, acknowledged the pagan origins of these practices. Yule logs and candles, for example, were for pagans “an Emblem of the Sun, and the lengthening of Days,” and they originated in an effort “to Illuminate the House, and turn the Night into Day.» — lo que Nissenbaum resume de un clérigo anglicano del norte de Inglaterra en 1725: admitía el origen pagano de esas prácticas, con el tronco de Yule y las velas como emblema del sol

«But he speculated that it became associated with the Nativity for Christian reasons—“a Symbol of that Light which was that Night born into the World.” He argues that light has been associated with many things, and that one of these is that it has become “an emblem … of our Lord Jesus Christ.» — la explicación cristiana que ese mismo clérigo conjeturaba para la asociación con la Natividad

«The best account of the non-Christian origins of Christmas rituals remains Clement A. Miles, Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan (London, 1912; reissued as Christmas Customs and Traditions: Their History and Significance (New York: Dover Publications, 1976), 159–360 passim.» — la obra que Nissenbaum tiene por el mejor relato de los orígenes no cristianos de los ritos navideños, con la edición inglesa de 1912 y su reimpresión estadounidense

«According to the Reverend Henry Bourne, many in England and Scotland continued the season as late as Candlemas (Feb. 2» — el dato que Nissenbaum toma de Bourne sobre hasta cuándo se alargaba la temporada en Inglaterra y Escocia

«For perspectives on the world of carnival, see Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), 199–203; Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1968); and Peter Stallybrass and Allon White, The Politics and Poetics of Transgression» — las tres obras que Nissenbaum remite en nota para las perspectivas sobre el mundo del carnaval

«Misson added: “In the taverns the landlord gives [i.e., gives away, for free] part of what is eaten and drank in his house that and the next two days: for instance, they reckon [charge] you for the wine, and tell you there is nothing to pay for bread, nor for your slice of Westphalia [ham].» — el testimonio que Nissenbaum cita de un viajero francés sobre la casa abierta de las tabernas inglesas: el posadero regala parte de lo que se come y se bebe esos días, y solo cobra el vino

«To add a touch of sexual banter, the song opens with a demand that the “prettiest maid” [i.e., maiden] in the house “roll back the pin … [and] let us all in.» — lo que Nissenbaum apunta en nota sobre el arranque de esa canción de wassail, con la doncella a la que se pide correr el cerrojo

«A recorded version of this song, performed in the appropriate spirit, can be found on the album The Second Nowell: A Pageant of Mid-Winter Carols, vol. 2 (John Roberts, Tony Barrand et al.), Front Hall Records.» — la grabación que Nissenbaum recomienda en nota de esa misma canción, ejecutada según él con el espíritu apropiado

«For the Scottish version of wassailing, called Hagmena (or Hogomany), see Ashton, Right Merrie Christmasse, 217.» — la variante escocesa del wassail que Nissenbaum nombra en nota, con su remisión bibliográfica

«Natalie Zemon Davis, “The Reasons of Misrule: Youth Groups and Charivaris in Sixteenth-Century France,” in Natalie Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975), 97–123.» — el artículo de Natalie Zemon Davis sobre las razones del desgobierno que Nissenbaum cita en nota, con su volumen y sus páginas

«David D. Hall, Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgement: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England (New York: Knopf, 1989), 10.» — la ficha bibliográfica completa del libro de David D. Hall del que sale la descripción del nuevo vernáculo protestante

«For a fine account of Marblehead maritime culture, including a subsequent conflict over the celebration of Christmas, see Christine Leigh Heyrman, Commerce and Culture: The Maritime Communities of Colonial Massachusetts, 1690–1750 (New York, W. W. Norton: 1984), 216–302.» — el estudio que Nissenbaum llama fino sobre la cultura marítima de Marblehead, que incluye un conflicto posterior por la celebración de la Navidad

«Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County (8 vols., Salem, 1911–1921), II, 433. Hoar’s age is from ibid., IX, 208. William Hoar’s occupation as a fisherman is ibid., VI, 401.» — las fuentes judiciales de las que Nissenbaum saca el caso de William Hoar, con la edad y el oficio en volúmenes distintos de la misma serie

«Braybrooke, a weaver, was taxed in the lowest 15 percent of Salem Village rate payers in 1681, and in 1700 he was renting a small parcel of land from a local landowner, Thomas Putnam, Jr. Fuller was the son of a bricklayer; in 1690 he was taxed in the lowest quartile. Flint was the younger son of a sturdy farmer, and would later inherit the less desirable portion of his parents’ estate; he did not flourish.» — los datos fiscales y patrimoniales con que Nissenbaum sostiene en nota que los cuatro del wassail de Salem estaban en el extremo bajo de la jerarquía económica