[Many, many, many times over the last year, I’ve wished that more Americans would have the chance to read my writing and learn even a few of the many lessons I believe it offers for us in 2025. So for my annual Wishes for the Holiday Elves series, I wanted to revisit my six books, highlighting something specific from each that I think we could takeaway today. Leading up to this special post on my awesome wife’s Christmastastic new book that everyone should check out!]
I wrote back in September about my wife Vaughn Joy’s then-forthcoming and now-released first book, Selling Out Santa: Hollywood Christmas Films in the Age of McCarthy; I’ll write more about it as part of a late-March series on her many book talks across a number of different media and formats. But I couldn’t share a blog series on my own books without highlighting Vaughn’s, and I do have a few specific wishes for the Holiday Elves related to Selling Out Santa specifically:
1) Redefining American Christmas: One of the most consistent and most striking responses that we’ve seen to Vaughn’s book is from folks who see Christmas as an overtly and centrally Christian holiday, and thus for example take issue with Vaughn’s claim (the center of her main book talk) that Christmas = America. But Vaughn’s argument, and it’s both incredibly convincing and hugely important, is that American Christmas has always been an amalgamated, multicultural, secular and civic holiday—while of course Christians can celebrate their version of the holiday, that’s just one of countless layers to American Christmas, and one that came along much later in the historical development of our holiday than (for example) Santa imagery. Vaughn seems to be fighting an uphill battle to remind people of these vital histories and realities, but it’s a fight well worth fighting, and one that I wish all Americans could really take to heart.
2) Cultural and Media Literacies: Learning that lesson requires folks to engage thoughtfully and meaningfully with not only histories, but also and perhaps especially with the cultural and media texts that have created our Christmas and holiday imagery, narratives, and myths across the centuries—a list that includes but is in no way limited to Vaughn’s focus on Hollywood Christmas films. As Vaughn developed her book talks she realized that one of the most central throughlines of her scholarly work has been a focus on enhancing our literacy when it comes to such cultural imagery—whether of classical mythologies (her first MA), comic books (her second), films (her PhD that became this book), or other genres and media. I wholeheartedly agree with her assertion that no skills are more important for all Americans and people to practice and strengthen in late 2025, and I wish all Americans would have the chance to do so by reading Vaughn’s book.
3) Sharing My Joy: Ultimately, though, my wish for the Holiday Elves is simpler than that: I wish every single person could have the chance to see just how excellent this book is—how engagingly written while offering nuanced ideas, how attentive to close readings of tons of classic films while making overarching historical arguments, how exemplary of interdisciplinary public scholarship at its best. If you want to share my Joy and aren’t sure how to get your hands on a copy of the book, feel free to leave a comment or to check out our website or to shoot me an email, and thanks in advance!
Year in Review series starts Monday,
Ben
PS. You know what to do!
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