Christmas and Halloween share a peculiar trait. The tradition of gift giving on Christmas as well as the custom of trick-or-treating were both the results of efforts by civic leaders to bring about social reform. Before these reforms, neither of these holidays were family -centered nor had they invited children to participate in any particular way. Although Christmas had a long history of feasting on customary beasts and preparations, on the whole these two observances tended to be rowdy and drunken street celebrations. Both had incidents of urban violence, and class, ethnic and racial confrontations. Christmas gifts were virtually unknown before the early 19th century. Instead the custom was to exchange gifts on New Years, and this has origins going back to the rites of the Roman calendar. Disorderly celebrations had gone on weeks after New Years so it was deemed necessary to shrink the holiday season by moving gift giving and festivity to earlier in the season, from New Years to Christmas. This helped undercut the legitimacy of urban disorder. Considerations about capitalist growth and industrial efficiency at this time supported Christmas, but there was also a growing fascination among the middle class with German Christmas and it's Christmas tree. It was preferred over the French New Year celebration by the mid 19th century. Added to this was the English tradition of Christmas boxes, Dickens' Christmas Carol, and old world tales of St. Nick. Christmas became a family centered holiday around this time. Fashionable magazines featured illustrations of families gathered around the hearth and Christmas tree opening gifts. The new American synthesis of the holiday now had the same perfect symbolic center for the exchange of gifts in the domestic setting that we have today. New Years, with it's custom of visiting and gift giving that fanned out over a diffuse circle of friends and acquaintances, lacked the same warmth. The gift giving of the wise men and St. Nick, and the benedictions of the angles, became more interesting, cozier and more appropriate than the chillier, calendric images of Father Time and the Roman god, Janus. The dense symbols of Christmas ultimately resonated better in the marketplace than the thinner emblems of New Years also.

Many of the misunderstandings about present-day Christmas would have been avoided if the focus of gift giving had remained on New Years. But it didn't. Except for cards occasionally being sent for New Years instead of Christmas, our vision of the holiday season is firmly centered around the nostalgia and sentimentality of Christmas. It is unlikely to be replaced by New Years or any other specifically named observance as the preeminent focus for both gift giving and merchandising.

We like to think that our holiday traditions are constant and have unbroken lineages that can be traced back into the far reaches of a timeless folk culture, but this isn't always the case. Traditions are mutable and can change in a generation or two if people want the change. Changes can be re-inventions of earlier models. The early twentieth century establishment of trick-or-treating on Halloween harkens back to the same ancient origin of wassailing as does the custom of door-to-door Christmas caroling, but in more recent times was re-invented as a way of discouraging street violence and to tame Halloween. We're now faced with the vulnerability of Christmas in the era of holidayization, with "Holiday" as a contemporary trick to shrink Christmas and repackage the festive season. The good news is that "Holiday" is also susceptible to change and withdrawal, and we are as capable as anyone of affecting this change.