Page 6 - HSLChristmasAnthology

HSL Christmas Anthology Page 6

Massachusetts. The father, a German immigrant, had placed a
small tree on a table in the drawing room, and he and his wife hung
each branch with small toys, candies and wax candles. The man
and his wife hid the tree from the children until making a dramatic
reveal of it, throwing open the doors to the dining room to the
delight of their five-year-old son “little Charley” and his friends.
Martineau ends her account by predicting that this custom will
quickly become an integral part of the American Christmas
experience.

But what Martineau excluded from in her account was the identity
of little Charley’s father. He was Charles Follen, the brilliant
Unitarian minister and progressive thinker. Nor did she explain
that she was in the Follen’s home because of their shared
commitment to abolitionism, or that the Christmas of 1835 was not
a joyous one for either of them. Follen had just lost his job teaching
at Harvard as well as a subsequent tutoring position because of his
abolitionist stance. Similarly, Martineau’s social connections, as
well as her readership, were dwindling in the face of her own
opposition to slavery. The friends were together to muddle through
their shared misfortunes and to regather the courage, and it was
best not to broadcast widely the fact that they had spent the
holiday together.

A child-centered Christmas and abolitionism might seem like
separate concerns, but often they were not. Abolitionists and
progressive educational reformers saw a similarity in the conditions
of children and enslaved persons as people subject to being beaten
within their own homes. And for people like Follen and Martineau,
both of causes were also deeply wrapped up in the Unitarian belief

in the deliberate cultivation of moral life, in all persons and
children.

But how could a Christmas tree improve moral life? The answer
involves one specific account of a Christmas tree made by another
Unitarian, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, during his travels in Germany.
He described children placing gifts that they had made for their
parents and siblings under the Christmas tree. The idea of children
demonstrating generosity rather than merely receiving it proved