Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis - A "Shock and Awe" Special: Changing Christmas

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

Bill takes a look at how Christmas has changed over the years.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're talking about Christmas, all right, so it's coming up fast, as you know, and how it has changed in America, changed drastically since I was an urchin, and I was a while back, I'll admit, I mean, I have a lot of Botox, so I don't look as old as I am, but it's changed. So let me give you some stats. We're always stat-driven here. 64% of Americans identify today as Christmas. All right. In 1937, membership in houses of worship in the USA was 73%. Last year, 47%. So it's gone from 73 in 1937 to 40%. 47%. That's membership. That doesn't mean they show. It means they're aligned with a church.

Okay? Atheism has grown from 8%. in 2000 to 21 percent, 20 years later, it's a big leap. Okay. According to Gallup, 93% of Americans do celebrate Christmas in one way or another, okay? But only 35% consider it to be a religious occasion. So let me give you that again. 93% celebrate Christmas, only 35 celebrated in a religious way. So these are pretty stark. Now, when I was a kid growing up in Levitown, Long Island, New York, big ethnic enclave. Most of the people there were GIs coming back from World War II who moved into very inexpensive homes because they got the mortgage and all that. They came from Brooklyn. They came from Queens, a little from the Bronx, but mostly

Brooklyn and Queens. Heavy ethnic Irish and Italian. Okay? And we lived side by side peacefully with Jews. There was a big component of Jews in Levitown. But it was a heavy Christian presence. Okay. So Christmas was the highlight of the year because we didn't have very much in Levitown and the kids got toys. And I remember getting Fort Apache. I mean, that shut me up for about two days, delighting my parents. It's playing with Fort Apache. and I got the Davy Crockett-Cone-skin cap, and I loved it. I believed in Santa until I was 23, because I wanted to believe in Santa, because it was that much fun.

And then we went caroling, people didn't ask for us to go caroling, we just went and knocked on the doors, and they gave us a dollar, and we gave it to charity. It was just an exceptional time, right? Everybody was happy, everybody was friendly, everybody went to men. Mass. Now, our Jewish friends, they celebrated Hanukkah. We couldn't quite figure out what that was, but we were jealous because they got seven presents and, you know, that was more than we were again. But it was a season of good cheer. Now, it's changed. All right, now I try to keep a very traditional home myself. I got the tree. I got the presents. I got the Christmas music. Don't overdo that, but we have it. And we go to Mass, and we do all the things that I did when I was an urchin, when I was a young boy. And I think it's worthy. But so many people do not.

So many people have changed. So the question tonight is, why? What has changed in America that has altered Christmas? Let's face it, the U.S. economy is under stress. national debt rising, trade war, shaking the markets, and meanwhile, China is dumping the dollar and stockpiling gold. That's why I protected my savings with physical gold and silver through the only dealer I trust, American Hartford Gold. And you can do this. Get precious metals delivered to your door or place in a tax advantage, gold IRA. They'll even help you roll over your existing

IRA or 401k, tax and penalty-free. With billions and precious medals delivered thousands of five-star reviews and an A-plus from the Better Business Bureau, you can trust American Hartford Gold as I do. Please call 866-326-55-7576 or text bill to 99-8899. Again, that's 866-3-2-6-5-7576 or Bill to 998899. Hey, I'm Caitlin Becker, the host of the New York Postcast, and I've got exactly what you need to start your weekdays. Every morning, I'll bring you the stories that matter, plus the news people actually talk about, the juicy details in the worlds of politics, business, pop culture, and everything

in between. It's what you want from the New York Post wrapped up in one snappy show. Ask your smart speaker to play the NY Postcast podcast. Listen and subscribe on Amazon Music, Apple Podcast, Spotify. or wherever you get your podcasts. So our first guest is Father Edward Peck. I've known him for a very long time. He is a passionist priest.

Comes to us from Westchester, New York. He serves as a CNN religious commentator, and those heathens over there really need that. But he's got a good perspective on the country and religion. So when I laid out my vision of Christmas, the key question is, what has changed? Well, you know, I was able to identify, though, with a lot of what you said. I grew up in Brooklyn. It was a very Christian community that we lived side by side next to Jewish families, including

Haseedim Jews and who celebrated Hanukkah. And certainly more people went to Mass. you saw more creches and mangers and all of that. So the sentimentality of that I certainly identify with. Interestingly, you spoke more about a cultural Christmas in many ways than a religious one. I mean, you were talking about the presence and the tree and the caroling and all of that. But there wasn't a lot of Jesus in what you just said or Christ. And I think what a lot of people are complaining about today is that it seems as though

because we become more secular, that people are resenting the religious celebration of it, that they want to keep it secular. I think that's an interesting trend because less people are going to church. You have more identifying as nuns, N-O-N-E-S, no religious affiliation. And so they're fine to celebrate cultural, but don't put a religious spin on it. And I think that's been more of the shift that I have seen. More people celebrate Christmas, actually, as far as I'm concerned, but less the religious dimension. But why is that? You know, you may remember, I think you do,

that in the middle 2000s, there was a war on Christmas. The ACLU filed a number of lawsuits to get the crash out of the public square. Big time department stores were ordering their employees not to say Merry Christmas, only say happy holidays. And it was a huge culture-based. battle with me leading the charge to save Christmas and I won on Fox News because I had that

platform and we basically told the stores, if you ban Merry Christmas, we're going to say that you're doing it and your receipts are going to drop through the floor. And then all of a sudden magically, I guess it was Jesus who did it, they all started saying Merry Christmas again, but I had to threaten them. So my question back then, and it remains the same today, is that I don't think Americans believe in Jesus as a savior, nearly as much as they did even three decades ago. I would say you're right about that. And I'm not so sure I believe the whole war on Christmas dimension so much as that we've become much more attuned and sensitive to cultural and religious diversity,

that sometimes we bend over the other way for it. But some of that doesn't really bother me. In other words, if someone knows I'm a priest. Well, well, let me stop. And they say to me happen. Let me stop you. If you're a young Catholic teenager, working in a department store,

and a guy manager came over and said, you can't say Merry Christmas, you're telling me that's not going to bother you? Well, I understand it in the sense that not everybody is Christian who's shopping in the store. So maybe you know somebody's, Jewish. You say happy holidays or happy

Hanukkah. If someone knows I'm a Catholic priest, I want them to say Merry Christmas to me. Because I'm... No, but if you're a kid, why can't you just say Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays? The words Merry Christmas were actually banned in some of these stores. That was

outrageous. Yeah, I think that's too much. I think it makes it more inclusive, not exclusive. Don't say you can't say Merry Christmas, but be culturally sensitive that not everybody celebrates Christmas. So if they want Happy Hanuker or happy holidays, include that too. I think it's more inclusion than exclusion would be my age.

I don't care about inclusion, you know me. All of this woke stuff can, you know, you can take it and put it in an envelope. But there has been a decline in belief. Most definitely. Unfortunately, it's very sad to me. And the statistics that you quoted are higher than I've experienced. In the Catholic Church right now, attendance is hovering around 20%. yeah nowhere near 50 something percent so i think there's much less religious affiliation

institutional religious affiliation but you must have thought about why when i see you show up to mass when i see you show up to mass with your son i'm inspired by that because a lot of times you don't see young men your son's age coming to church anymore especially with their father he has to it's either come to church or cut the lawn so he's coming to church i'm not above bribing but But you, come on, Father. Why? Why? What has caused the American people to abandon traditional religious beliefs? Well, I think that there's been disenchantment with institutions.

I mean, look what's happened in the Catholic Church alone with the sex abuse scandal. I think overall people are less confident of institutions, political institution, governmental ones. religious ones, it all falls under the same spectrum. So I think that part of it is we've just lost faith in that. And people are much more rewheeling and free-spirited and they want to be spiritual but not religious. And I don't know if that's a phase or a trend, but it's certainly I agree with you, it's happening. And I think that people are disenchanted with institutions and religious ones as well. All right. I'm going to give you two reasons why I think the decline is underway. in the belief systems.

And by the way, evangelical Christians, they still are very, very fervent. So they lift up the Catholics and the others, the Episcopals and the Presbyterians. But anyway, I'm going to give you two. Number one, I go to church because my people have gone to church for thousands of years. And I am not going to...

For people meaning Christians? No, Irish Catholic. Oh, okay. Okay, so I'm not abandoning that. Right. And I'm going to take it cradle to grave. I've already made that commitment. It's good for me to do it.

I need an hour to just think about other stuff. But when I go to that church, no matter where it is, the odds are the sermon, which is the key component to attracting people in now, is boring. Yep. And a lot of times said by priests who can't speak English because we don't have enough American priests. So I'm sitting there and I get Advent. I know what Advent is. And there's a guy 20 minutes droven on about Advent. And I'm going, you know, everybody in this church knows and you can't assign it to our lives.

And they don't even try. It's just boring. The second thing is to be a churchgoer or a person involved with religion takes discipline. I mean, you can't have the phone for an hour. And some people just can't live without it. This is the God right here, right here. That's the deity. Okay?

So the decline of discipline in society in all levels. Education is tremendous example. But people, they're not interested. They don't believe in heaven and hell. They don't believe in right and wrong. They don't believe in the saints or the sinners. I don't believe in any of that. They want to do what they want to do.

Immediate gratification. Am I wrong? Well, you know, the first thing you said, I'm not sure. I mean, yeah, homilies need to be better. But they were always boring for many people. We used to have a mass in Latin. People didn't even understand what was being said. But they still showed up.

Not the homily. The mass is in Latin. But I was an altar boy. Yeah, but they weren't that much better. They were that much better when you were an old boy homilies? No, they were boring then too. They were boring. People still showed up.

So you can't blame it on the homilies. That hasn't changed. I mean, I think I'm a pretty good preacher. Some people still don't come, even if I'm preaching a homily that they like. So I don't know about the boring homilies. The second part is an interesting observation. And I think I may agree with that. somewhat. What exactly was the second one that you said? It's the lack of discipline. They can't

get away from the secular pursuits. They have to be on the phone or the iPad every second. But you know, they have discipline elsewhere. So why, I mean, people do have structure in their lives. They show up for work. They show up for appointments. They show up for parties. You have to have to show up sometimes. But that's fun, or that's, yeah, I got to have money to eat. The spiritual thing is you can't see it. Yeah, but they're searching for it elsewhere. But they're searching for it elsewhere. They're doing yoga.

They're showing up for yoga class and meditating. That's a discipline. They're doing that. They're showing up. Some do. But most people, they don't want to be bothered, Father. I know, because I ask people, hey, how come you don't go to church? You know, Sunday, I want to watch the game.

I want to sleep late. I don't want to go over there. That's what it is. Yeah, but hasn't that always been the case, though? Well, you had a lot, a lot more people going to church 30 years ago than you do now. I know, but I don't think they were more disciplined necessarily, 30 years ago. Well, they were there. For whatever reason, they were there, they're not there anymore. They'd be less distracted. We did have less things to distract us. That's true. I'll agree with that. Right. All right, Father, we really appreciate you coming on. Best of the season to you. You're a good man. Even though you work at CNN.

I don't hold that against you. No, I got fired this week, Bill. I didn't know that. You got fired. What did you do? Well, I couldn't say fired. My contract expires in April and they are not renewing it. Yeah, because they're pagans.

You know that. Merry Christmas, Father. Thank you. Merry Christmas, Bill. So now let's take a look at the history of Christmas in America. Now it sounds maybe a little dull, right? It's not. It's not.

So right now, I am in the process of writing my last killing book. It's called Killing the Witches, the Horror of Salem, Massachusetts. It'll be out next fall. The Puritans who came over on the Mayflower, they banished Christmas. No Christmas. Nope, none of that. And they dominated New England and other parts of North America, the new world. And you could not.

celebrate Christmas at all. Now, the Dutch in New Amsterdam, which became in New York, of course, they had their traditions from Europe of Christmas, and then a few other colonies kind of snuck it out as the new world started to unfold. But in the beginning, this was not a Christmas place. So I asked my staff to find a historian who really knows a lot about the evolution of Christmas in America. And now we have, joining us from Fort Myers, Florida, Bill Federer.

He is the author of the book. There is really a Santa Claus, the history of St. Nicholas and Christmas holiday traditions. So I wanted to pick it up, Mr. Federer there with the Puritans basically saying, hey, you start to celebrate Christmas with you in Iraq. I mean, they were really militant anti-Christmas people. How did then the American tradition of Christmas? begin. Power, politics and the people behind the headlines. I'm Miranda Devine, New York Post columnist and the host of the brand new podcast, Pod Force One.

Every week I'll sit down for candid conversations with Washington's most powerful disruptors, lawmakers, newsmakers, and even the president of the United States. These are the leaders shaping the future of America and the world. Listen to Podforce One with me, Miranda Devine, every week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. You don't want to miss an episode. Hey, it's Sean Spicer from the Sean Spicer Show podcast, reminding you to tune into my show every day to get your daily dose inside the world of politics. President Trump and his team are shaking up Washington like never before, and we're here to cover it from all sides,

especially on the topics the mainstream media won't. So if you're a political junkie on a late lunch or getting ready for the drive home, new episodes of the Sean Spicer Show podcast drop at 2 p.m. East Coast every day. Make sure you tune in. You can find us at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. Well, the background is St. Nicholas was the most popular Greek Orthodox saint. He was to the Greek Orthodox, sort of what St. Patrick is, to the Irish.

sort of a founding father of their faith and he was a movement swept through early Christianity called pietism or monasticism where if you really became a Christian you were expected to give away your money and join a monastery. And so he was going to give away his money but he wanted to do it anonymously

so God would get the credit not him and so he would throw money in the window of poor people supposedly land in the shoe or stocking was driving by the fireplace. It was just a Greek thing until the Islamic invasion. People forget an 846 AD, 11,000 Muslim warriors invaded Rome and trashed the bone to St. Peter and St. Paul. And so now this is the year 1087 AD, and they moved the bone to St. Nichols over to Italy,

a little town called Bari, and the tradition of gift giving spread so much so that St. Francis of Assisi sort of in protest, came up with the nativity scene in 1223 A.D. The Jesus married Joseph donkeys in the manger and need to get back to the real reason for the season. Martin Luther brings the Reformation to Germany, but not because of his spirit. spiritual thing necessarily. He ends all the saint's days, including the popular St. Nicholas Day, and he moves all the gift giving to December 25th and said all gifts come from the Christ Child. And the German pronunciation of Christ child is Chris Kindle, like Kindercare, Kindergarten, kind means child, Chris means Christ. And over the years, Chris Kindle got pronounced Chris Kringle.

Anyway, Martin Luther is also the one that is credited with putting candles in the branches of the tree. the tree is symbolic of the Germans converting to Christianity around the same way St. Patrick left Britain and evangelized the druids in Ireland. In the 800s, 8th century, you have St. Boniface leave Britain and evangelize the Germanic tribes. He chops down Thor's tree at Gaismar and points with Thursday comes from Thor's Day. It was a dramatic name. And he points toward an evergreen tree and says this is a tree that's evergreen, points toward heaven, in the shape of a triangle, like the Trinity.

Anyway, so Martin Luther puts the candles in the branches. But then we fast forward to Britain. And Henry VIII brings back an old Roman holiday, Saturn Alia. You have to remember, Britain used to be a Roman colony, and Saturn was their god of feasting and plenty in merriment. If you've ever seen the Christmas Carol with Charles Dickens, the spirit of Christmas present, look at this guy and ask yourself, who is he?

He sort of looks like Santa, but he also looks like a Roman god. Well, it was. It was Saturn, but they Christianized them, called them Father Christmas. During this time in Britain, Christmas became a party time, crowzing, drinking, wosseling, where you take a drink of booze and throw the rest of it on a plant for a nice harvest. And sort of like Mardi Gras used to be a spiritual day. It was the day before Lent, when you had fast, 40 days before Easter and celebrate the resurrection. But now it's a lewd party in New Orleans. That's sort of what happened with Christmas under Henry V. 8. And so when the Puritans come along, They outlaw Christmas, as you mentioned. They actually forbade Shakespeare from mentioning God in his plays. They said, it's like casting pearls before swine to mention the name of God in front of a bunch of drunk people at a theater. And they actually, it was during this time that Shakespeare writes Midsummer's Night's Dream because he wants something supernatural

and now he's got to put in fairies. And then he writes the 12th night, but it's a solder knollie. It's a carnivalest sort of a part drunken thing. And so the Puritans eventually tear the Globe Theater down. And it's not rebuilt till the 1980s as a tourist attraction. And so you had Cotton Mather, a Puritan leader. He said, can God be honored by mad mirth and hard drinking fit for a Bacchus or a Saturn or a Mohammed and Ramadan? Certainly you don't think that the king of heaven is honored by this that has more in relation to hell than heaven.

And so in 1659, the Puritans pass a law outlawing Christmas, a five-shilling fine for anybody called celebrating Christmas. So let me stop me there. So the new world dominated by the Puritans, which became known as the Pilgrims later on, okay, they don't want any part of it. So when did it break out? When, let's fast forward up. what was the breakout point? So the Dutch, they took a verse in the Bible where it says in the book of Revelation,

Jesus will return at the end of the world to judge the living and the dead riding a white horse and the saints will come back with him riding white horses and St. Nicholas is one of the saints so he'll be one of those riding a white horse but he gets to come back once a year for a little mini checkup, a little mini judgment. See if the kids are on the right tracks,

he was naughty, so he was nice. And so the Dutch, to this day have St. Nicholas, they pronounce St. Nicholas Sinter Claus or Santa Claus. Santa Claus is the Dutch. And they have them coming back once a year riding a white horse. And that was going on in New York and New Amsterdam. I mean, that whole area down there, right? Right. And so Washington Irving, he describes St. Nicholas, visiting once a year throwing presence down the treetops, publishes Dietrich Knicker's History of New York, coins the term Gotham City. But he says he describes Nicholas not dressed as a bishop as over in Holland, but in a typical Dutch outfit, long trunk hose, belt, boots, stocking hat.

And then in 1823, in New York, Clement Moore, his family donates land for a episcopal seminary. There's a park in New York named Clement Moore Park. He writes a poem for his children, 1823, towards a night for Christmas, all through the house, not a creature of stirring, not even a mouse. Stockings were hung by that chimney with care in hopes that. St. Nicholas would seem to be there. So it's still a saint, but he shrunk. Now, at that time, at that time in the 1820s,

now we're getting up into semi-modern times, was Christmas then spreading across the United States, the young United States? Did it permeate New England? Was there resistance up there? Or did that resistance collapse?

And where in the United States was it most embrace? raised outside of New York. Right. So New England was the last place. Matter of fact, in 1621, a second boatload of pilgrims come over, and they wanted to celebrate Christmas. William Bradford allowed them, but he comes back at lunchtime and sees him playing in the street, so he confiscates all their games and says, observe it in your homes. It wasn't until the German, French, and Dutch came to America in waves that they brought their

Christmas traditions with them. The Dutch primarily, but then in the early 17, 1800s, you had the Germans. And the Christmas tree got popularized at this time. It was Franklin Pierce was the first president to put a Christmas tree in the White House. And you had Charles Dickens write the Christmas Carol, which popularized it over there in Britain. New Christmas songs were being sung. Thomas Nass was a Civil War illustrator for Harper's Weekly Magazine. He gave us the Republican elephant and Democrat mule.

He was the first one to put a North Pole sign behind the picture of St. Nicholas. And it was actually a political jab at the south to say St. Nicholas is associated with the north. I have in my house here where I'm talking to you, the original Harper's Weekly Christmas cover drawn by Thomas Nash. My, oh my. It has Santa, but it has a whole bunch of other legends, you know, children's stories in it. It's got two children. It's got some gifts. It's just an amazing piece.

So then the Germans are most responsible, the German immigrant wave that came here to get the land and farm the land and all that before the Civil War. they're most responsible for the Christmas that we know now, the tree and the other traditions, correct? Right. And then you had Lincoln Observe Christmas, but then Ulysses S. Grant, and then they would put up a Christmas tree in the White House. And it really wasn't until the late 1800s

that it became a national thing. You had in Sunblum was the artist, hired for Coca-Cola, and he's the one that gave us the Quaker Oat's Man and Aunt Jemai Musura. He's the one that for 30 years in a row did a picture of Santa Claus drinking Coke. Now, when was it made a national holiday? Do you remember? The different states did in the late 1800.

I think Alabama was the first one that did. And then it was recognized. I think Ulysses says Grant to a certain degree like a holiday off. He did. But it was- Grant made it a federal hospital. holiday, where no federal workers were required to come, including the postal workers. So then we fast forward into our Christmas traditions, which stayed pretty much the stame

in the 20th century. There wasn't a big change in the motifs, the way people bought presents, Miracle on 34th Street with the Macy's thing, the movies. When some movies came in, they depicted traditional Christmas, right? Is there any outliers there? There were. It is interesting during World War II, Franklin Roosevelt, gives Christmas Day off. And some people also wanted New Year's off.

And he said, no. He says, Christmas is the only holiday in all the year. And all the rest of the year, we stay working in our factories for the war effort. But you began to see, especially with the calendar, you know, for those not familiar, year, Christianity is the largest religion in the world, right? Two billion people. And the dating for the entire planet goes back to Christ's birth. Right.

Dionysus exegis, a monk in the term of Justinian, and he's dating stuff back to this Roman Empire, Diocletian, and he's like, why are we doing it? Diocletian persecuted Christians. And he, in the margin, wrote the years back to Christ's birth, and he was a monk, and it began to spread amongst the monasteries, and then eventually became. especially with the colonizing era spread around the world, but the dating system used in the world today goes back to the birth of Christ. Right.

And there's a great quote from peace. Now, it really exploded economically in, what, 1960, in that range, when people started to have a little bit more money after World War II and everybody was working. Is that when Christmas, the commercial stuff, really exploded? Actually, a little bit earlier than that. Franklin Roosevelt wanted to move the date of Thanksgiving an extra week earlier, so there'd be another week before Christmas trying to jumpstart us out of the Depression, and it became a campaign issue. The Republicans were like, no, we want to move it back. But it was trying to get another week of shopping in. It didn't work. He moves it back, takes away that campaign issue. And that shortly thereafter is when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Now, last question for you. The religious aspect of Christmas has declined as we become a more secular country. But the commercial aspect of Christmas, I don't think that's ever going to decline. Do you agree? Definitely. And it's a mixed thing because some people say, oh, it's materialistic. Well, if there wasn't some financial benefit for it, it would be a forgotten holiday like Pentecost or something. I mean, so it's it is something.

that we, for those of us that are Christian, you can redeem it by saying, hey, let me tell you the real reason for it. And it's important to understand, you know, the gospel concept, that God's a just God. He has to judge every sin, but he's a loving God that he provided his own son to be the lamb to take the judgment for us. And that's what's celebrated in, you know, Charles Wesley in one of his hymns. He says, Amazing love. How could it be that thou, my God shouldst die for me? Right. But you got plenty of non-believers, you know, just getting into the spirit of the camaraderie of Christmas. Mr. Federer, we thank you very much. Very knowledgeable guy. Boy, I'll tell you why. If I have any questions, I'm calling you. And Merry Christmas to you.

Merry Christmas. Okay. So there you have a pretty good overview of where we are as Christmas approaches, 2022, the United States of America. To me, it's my favorite holiday, holy day. I'm Catholic, so I believe in the birth of Jesus and the worthiness of him. I wrote a book called Killing Jesus, which is a good Christmas gift if you really want to know the big picture there. But anyway, I hope you and your family and your friends all prosper this Christmas season. Relax, you know, have a good time. And thank you for watching, Shock and Aw. We'll see you soon.

Thank you.