America's Favorite Holidays: Candid Histories

by Bruce David Forbes

America’s Favorite Holidays explores how five of America’s culturally important holidays—Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween, and Thanksgiving—came to be what they are today, seasonal and religious celebrations heavily influenced by modern popular culture. Deftly distilling information from a wide range of sources, Bruce David Forbes reveals often-surprising answers to questions about each holiday’s traditions. Was Christmas always as commercialized as it is today? Is Thanksgiving a religious or secular holiday? When did we begin trick-or-treating on Halloween? Appealing and insightful, America’s Favorite Holidays satisfies our curiosity about the origins of our holidays and the fascinating ways in which religion and culture mix.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Holiday, Christmas, Halloween, Mythology, Audiobook

232 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2015

About the author

Bruce David Forbes is an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church. Forbes holds a BA in religious studies from Morningside College, an MTh from Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, and a PhD from Princeton Theological Seminary. His formal academic training is in the history of Christianity, but he has also developed a special interest in the analysis of popular culture.

Reviews

[Eileen O'Finlan · Rating 4 out of 5]

America's Favorite Holidays: Candid Histories by Bruce David Forbes focused on five of the major holidays celebrated in America: Christmas, Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. Forbes has obviously done his homework well. He went back to each holiday's origins and explained how each evolved over time, often mingling pagan and Christian practices as well as practices from various cultures, as each grew into the holiday with which we are familiar today. He dispels some myths and offers many fascinating little-known facts.

Forbes uses a employs a pattern in for each holiday using the analogy of a three-layer cake with the bottom layer being the holiday's background as a seasonal celebration, the middle layer is the religious or national overlay, and the top layer being the influence of modern popular culture. This recipe works well for the five holidays chosen by Forbes as all fit nicely into the three-layer cake analogy.

As a lover of both history and holidays (and cake!), I greatly enjoyed learning the origins and influences that created these five holidays into what they've become today. I hope Forbes will write more on other beloved holidays.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quick, easy to digest, informative read on the history of holidays. After reading Forbes' "Christmas: A Candid History" I knew I had to see what he'd written on other holidays, and this did not disappoint. Highly recommended reading.

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative, but a bit of a slog to get through. I mostly read the chapters during the holiday times - so it broke up the textbook feel.

[Stella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well researched if a bit dry.

[Kara · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I finished this book I looked at the author blurb, saw he was professor of religious studies – and immediately understood my problem with the book. I came at this book with the expectation of reading an American history book, while it is, in fact, a history of religions book. A good book – but not what I was looking for.

The book covers five holidays – Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. His formula is to examine each holiday in three sections: pagan roots, Christian re-development, and capitalistic exploitation. The first two sections means he can spend each holiday covering thousands of years of traditions that went into the evolution of that holiday, leaving little time for what Americans have done to various holidays over the past 200 years. And that was my problem – I wanted American historical gossip, gosh darn it, and instead I got a lot of World Religions 101 stuff.

So, it’s all an interesting introduction to the background of these holidays… but I’d be interested to read more about their more recent developments in a more in-depth work.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars

An incredibly well researched, and a completely comprehensible history of some of America’s most famous holiday.

Written by a professor of religion, this book showcases the origins of each major American holiday, as well as how the traditions we celebrate today came to be. I, admittedly, know next to nothing about Christianity, and the stories in the Bible/the Christian origins of many holidays (with the exception of Christmas, of course) I knew more in terms of pagan rituals and celebrations of these holidays/seasonal breaks.

Forbes did a wonderful job breaking down the evolution of each holiday, why he chose each holiday and he made the religious stuff really easy to understand, which I really appreciated as a novice in the subject. This book is full of fascinating history, seemingly unbiased research, and fun facts.

[Lucia Graziano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Il titolo è piacevolmente fuorviante (a meno che non lo sia spiacevolmente): ci si aspetterebbe un saggio dedicato ai modi in cui le più popolari feste americane sono diventate popolari in America. Invece no: l'autore (uno storico delle religioni) traccia in maniera impeccabile la storia delle principali festività occidentali nel loro evolversi attraverso i secoli, fin dalle loro origini pagane per arrivare fino alla contemporaneità di oggi. Un saggio bello, ben fatto, completo: anche molto più completo di quanto ci si potrebbe aspettare. Certo, se il lettore ci si approccia sperando di trovare un approfondimento corposo sullo sviluppo di quelle festività in territorio statunitense... beh, in quel caso rischierà di essere deluso perché a quell'aspetto specifico sono dedicate solo poche pagine per capitolo, e non il libro intero.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful as he examines the intersection of religion, culture, and commerce. Intriguing facts which contradict the conventional lore about how we got Valentine's Day and Thanksgiving--yet shows how the lore has ties to truth, just not connected in the ways we have been led to believe.

[Drucilla · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very fun and interesting work which I thoroughly enjoyed. Forbes does a great job of writing for a wide audience so don’t worry about it being too academic. I learned a lot and had many misconceptions corrected.

[CB · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting information about 5 main holidays; Christmas, Valentines Day, Easter, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. Very good audiobook narration but I’d probably retain more info if I had a physical book to consult around the actual holidays. Will listen again!

[Gwenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

5 holidays: Christmas, Valentines, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving
liked the method the author used to compare and contrast.
lots of interesting facts and ideas

[Corissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read. Nice synopsis of the holidays!

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

AN INSIGHTFUL AND INFORMATIVE LOOK AT AMERICAN TRADITIONAL HOLIDAYS!

[Chris Bertrand]

Pretty interesting

[Niesa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good listen, objective but also affirmed to me exactly why bible believers have no business keeping four of them.

[Jessi · Rating 3 out of 5]

A look at five holidays that seem to be a major part of the American (at least United States culture); Christmas, Valentine's, Easter, Halloween, and Thanksgiving.
I liked his point about the variety in Christmas celebrations not only being religious vs. cultural but also parts of various branches of Christianity.
It was interesting to read about Valentine's that it was a fully-commercialized holiday long before Hall ever created Hallmark. I also enjoyed Forbes' discussion of how the symbol of the heart became part of our culture and discussion on why it has that particular shape.
All of the holidays had interesting stories and links to various "beginnings." An interesting read with okay writing but sometimes the repetition of specific points or ideas gets to be a bit much.

[Steve Wiggins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good introduction to many aspects of five holidays: Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Valentine's Day. The last may seem an odd inclusion, but Forbes uses economic indicators to define major holidays. When do we spend our money? Valentine's Day is a spending holiday, and therefore is included. I enjoyed the accounts of where various traditions arose. It would be nice to have a few more holidays included, but such choices are, well, economic. I said a bit more about the book here: Sects and Violence in the Ancient World.

[Kayla Tornello · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book looked into the histories of five major American holidays. I learned a lot of interesting facts about them that I had never come across before. This is definitely an interesting book, although my attention did tend to wander a bit as I read it.

I received this book as a Goodreads First-Read. Yay!

[Saturnq · Rating 4 out of 5]

as the title says, a nice candid summary of modern american holidays and a little about their origins. good armchair history read.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book did a great job at running down the mentions holidays in a way that was both highly academic and still able to capture the interest of a casual reader. It was concise and clear and gave you options for more reading if you wanted to dig further into something. It did a great job at treating several loaded topic (mostly religious and genocidal stuff) with great care while still getting the point across. I particularly enjoyed how the author set up the framework for evaluating each holiday.