It’s hard to imagine, but at the beginning of the nineteenth century Christmas was hardly on the map. Christmas was viewed as an English custom after the American Revolution, and its celebration fell out of favor in the new nation. Various political and religious conflicts downplayed the holiday’s celebration in England, although its importance remained strong in Germany. The Victorians really gave us the Christmas we celebrate today, thanks to writers like Charles Dickens and Washington Irving, as well as Queen Victoria and her German born husband, Albert.
Religion and its sacred traditions of the birth of Jesus continued as they do today. But it was during the Victorian age that the commercial side of Christmas was invented. By the late 1800s businesses would shut down over Christmas, decorated Christmas trees were the norm, Macy's Christmas windows were the main attraction in New York, and the exchange of gifts marked the occasion.
Prior to 1300 nearly all of the songs or music associated with Christmas would be sacred. Chants or Litanies associated with the mass or service would be the core music. Later there were more classical musical settings for Gloria, such as Vivaldi’s, or even Handel’s Messiah, although originally written for Easter.
In Christmas music we see three major developments over time. The first development towards a more secular music was the early carols, and the second development was the explosion of Christmas sentiment during the Victorian era which led to many Christmas songs being published. The third development was the success of the song “White Christmas,” written by Irving Berlin and sung by Bing Crosby, which led to many more Christmas songs in our repertoire.
White Christmas
The final development really didn’t happen until 1942, a full half century after the last big Christmas hit, “Away in a Manger” in 1887. This is interesting as this skips over the largest effort at songwriting in history, Tin Pan Alley, which ran from the late 1890s to around 1920. Yes, Tin Pan Alley composers wrote many Christmas related songs, but none to my knowledge became big hits.
When Irving Berlin wrote White Christmas in 1940 for a musical revue, Holiday Inn, it was a sentimental, sad song. Berlin thought some of the other songs in the show had a better chance at becoming a hit. But, the songs more sad sentiment came from the death of his son, who died on Christmas day in 1928 at only three weeks old. Christmas Day to Irving Berlin, a Jewish immigrant from Russia, was visiting his son’s grave every year.
After releasing the song, Bing Crosby echoed this effect of the song when sung to troops in WWII:
“I hesitated about doing it because invariably it caused such a nostalgic yearning among the men, that it made them sad,” Crosby said in an interview. “Heaven knows, I didn’t come that far to make them sad. For this reason, several times I tried to cut it out of the show, but these guys just hollered for it.”
The song’s first public performance was on Christmas Day, 1941 -- just 18 days after the attack on Pearl Harbor by Bing Crosby on his radio show The Kraft Music Hall on NBC.
Crosby later recorded the song in 1942, and history was made. It still is the best-selling single of all time and stayed in various Billboard charts for decades afterwards.
Besides all of the accolades the song accumulated, it was its commercial success that animated the last vestiges of Tin Pan Alley. Within a year other Christmas songs were becoming major hits. Within the next decade 10-12 of these songs became classics of our Christmas music traditions.