Moravian Christmas in the South

by Nancy Smith Thomas

Many of the Christmas traditions that we know today did not appear in the United States until well into the nineteenth century. This inviting book explores the Christmas celebrations of the Moravian Church in the South, whose members were marking the holiday as early as the 1780s in ways recognizable to modern Americans. The Moravians' emphasis on a family-centered Christmas grew greatly through the nineteenth century and served as a model for social...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807831816
• ISBN13: 9780807831816
• Release Date: November 2007
• Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
• Length: 184 Pages
• Weight: 2.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 8.5" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

My book review

This was a nice book that my grandmom had at her house. There was nothing to do because everyone was yelling about the turkey being bad and mom had too much of her medicine so I went upstairs and was reading this book. Its sad what they did to the moravians but it was interesting to learn why they got kicked out of Pennslavania and about George Washinton. The pictures were pretty too.

A Popular and Scholarly work on Christmas

This is a beautifully produced 'Christmas book', with many vintage and modern photographs related to the Moravian observance of Christmas in American South: the churches where they worshipped ,their Christmas trees, and decorations as well as photographs of secular Christmas features contemporary with the period covered; roughly 1750's - 1950. The author provides a brief history of the "Moravians in the South", proceeds to provide an interesting and entertaining description of the Moravian Christmas. One might consider this a nice Social History of the Southern Moravian Christmas experience: It is not just that these folks put up decorations and baked buns but that, those things were 'of a piece' with their Christian Faith and how it related to their church family and community. But this is NOT a religious production. The author has taken pains - awkwardly, I believe - to glide over the seriously Christocentric mindset of the Moravians, that would have informed their celebration of Christmas. She states she is not a "theological person" or of Moravian background. This is fair enough. But Moravians did not celebrate Christmas because they were of a "whatever" "religious bent". Perhaps Ms.Smith - Thomas did not want to offend those of other faiths or of no faith. In which case, CHRISTmas is not the subject one ought to write about. This is a popular but scholarly work. The narrative will be interesting to adults but the photographs will be appreciated by children as well. There is a substantive Bibliography, footnotes, index and photography credits. The book is bound in a deep red cloth (real cloth not paper) with gilt printing on the spine.