Introduction: “Hasn’t everything already been written about
Christmas? Between Dickens and Dr Seuss?”
Chapter 1: “The moment anyone puts on a Santa Claus costume they
become a sort of semi-holy figure”: Faith and Belief in
Christmas
Chapter 2: “I feel, for some reason, that this is a good time of
year for looking backwards”: Time, Tradition and Festive
Nostalgia
Chapter 3: “Can’t we pretend to like one another? It’s Christmas
for heaven’s sakes”: Home and Family at the Holidays
Chapter 4: “I hate baubles and I hate tinsel and I hate ticky
tacky”: Stress, Sadness and Seasonal Depression
Chapter 5: “Now is the time of year for the impossible to become
possible”: The Supernatural in the Christmas Narrative
Chapter 6: “Sell sell celebration”: Christmas, Commerce and
Consumption
Conclusion: “Snow melts, lights come down. It’s all just an
illusion.”
Lauren Rosewarne is senior lecturer in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne.
We know that movies and television powerfully influence our
expectations of what Christmas should be like, look like, and feel
like. Lauren Rosewarne impressively scrutinizes nearly 1,000
contemporary works and shows us how their seasonal platitudes feed
and sustain our notions of the holiday ideal.
*Hank Stuever, author of "Tinsel: A Search for America’s Christmas
Present"*
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