Christmas In The Post-War United States
Christmas in the United States during the post-War years (1946–1964) reflected a period of peace, productivity, and prosperity. Americans staged sumptuous Christmases and enjoyed a variety of holiday foods unknown to previous generations. Several films, foods, toys, and television programs of the era have become American Christmas traditions.
Once reliant upon Germany for its ornaments, toys, and even its Christmas customs, America became self-sufficient in the post-War years with Christmas ornaments and toys being manufactured in the United States that were considerably less expensive than their German counterparts. American Christmas customs and traditions such as visits to department store Santas and letter writing to Santa at the North Pole remained intact during America's post-War years, but the era generated contributions that have endured to become traditions. NORAD's tracking of Santa's sleigh on Christmas Eve, for example, was initiated in 1955 and has become an annual tradition. The stop motion animated film, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer remains an annual telecast on American television—almost fifty years after its debut, and Dr. Seuss's The Grinch Who Stole Christmas of 1957 has become a literary Christmas classic.
Several Christmas firsts mark the post-War era that include the first White House Christmas card, the first Christmas postage stamp, the first opera composed for television (Amahl and the Night Visitors), the first Christmas Day basketball game, and the first Elvis Presley Christmas album. The era saw the production and manufacture of toys that have become classics such as Candy Land, Mr. Potato Head, and Barbie.
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“The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“Whenever I hear about a child needing something, I ask myself, ‘Is it what he needs or what he wants?’ It isn’t always easy to distinguish between the two. A child has many real needs which can and should be satisfied. His wants are a bottomless pit. He wants, for example, to sleep with his parents. He needs to be in his own bed. At Christmas he wants every toy advertised on television. He needs only one or two.”
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—Clare Boothe Luce (1903–1987)
“The white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American man at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn’t need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder—in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever.”
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—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)