Christmas, ’Tis the Season for Scary Stories

The Spectral Tales We Tell Respond to Our Deepest Desires—Especially on a Long, Dark Winter’s Night

Popularized by Charles Dickens in his 1843 A Christmas Carol, as well as in the yuletide editions of his literary magazine, All the Year Round, ghost stories were regular Christmas fare for the Victorians. “Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about specters,” writes Jerome K. Jerome in the introduction to Told After Supper, his 1891 anthology of Christmas ghost stories.

In our contemporary moment, Halloween has supplanted Christmas in the popular imagination as the time of year best suited for tales of terror. …

by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock | December 22, 2022

The Blackface of White Christmas

The Irving Berlin Song 'Mandy' Cloaked Racism in Nostalgia on American Stages and Screens for Nearly 40 Years

by Brynn Shiovitz | December 20, 2022

White Christmas is a staple of the holiday season. Every winter, the 1954 movie-musical brings Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen into our homes to sing and dance their way through …

Why Ewe Eat Lamb on Holidays (but Not the Rest of the Year)

A Brief History of Sheep On—but Mostly off—the American Table

by IKER SAITUA | December 20, 2021

The United States doesn’t eat much sheep. In 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, Americans consumed less than one pound of lamb or mutton (the …

Dreaming of a Better Nutcracker

It’s Time to Break With Outdated Tradition and Dare to Reimagine the Iconic Ballet

by Janine Kovac | December 24, 2020

When July came and went and there was no audition notice from my daughter’s ballet school, no Doodle poll to survey my rehearsal availability, and no newsletter from ballet companies …

It’s a Cold War Christmas, Charlie Brown

The Peanuts Christmas Special Tapped Into a National American Zeitgeist by 'Placing Capitalism and Christianity in the Mouths of Babes'

by Peter W.Y. Lee | December 18, 2020

Charlie Brown spends much of his first animated special in contemplation, depression, and frustration over the Christmas holiday. “Find the true meaning of Christmas. Win money, money, money,” he reads …

From Bethlehem to Palm Springs, Christmas Belongs in the Desert

During the Holiday Season, Southern California’s Coachella Valley Becomes a Place of Rebirth

by Joe Mathews | December 17, 2018

If you’re looking for the quintessential Christmas experience, there’s only one place you should go: the Southern California desert.

The Coachella Valley is the Golden State’s very own Yuletide capital—which …

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