内容简介：
Christmas is the Western World's foremost holiday. It brings out generosity and affection in families and among friends, it fills a great need and delight young and old, and provides the opportunity to take stock and reflect as another year draws to completion. It also is the day we celebrate the nativity of Jesus Christ whose incarnation two thousand years ago has affected mankind and history so profoundly as to be beyond overstatement. What are the many aspects of Christmas which have served and continue to serve both as a Holy Day and a Holiday so universally? In eighty-six potpourri articles, mostly original, author William A. Barr covers the gamut of Christmas fact and fancy with his fascinating and illuminating scrutiny of the Nativity, history, biography, literature, music, art, popular culture, sports, human interest, humor, fiction, lists, trivia, and essays-all related to the various aspects of Christmas past, present, and future. Learn of and enjoy: the evolution of Saint Nicholas into Santa Claus; 235 events that have occurred at Christmas time through the centuries; Bob Hope, the Wright brothers, Shirley Temple, W.C. Fields, Charles Lindbergh, Frank Capra, Jimmy Stewart and other popular personalities and their Christmas experiences; the three thousand year history of Bethlehem; Aesop, King Herod, St. Jerome, Martin Luther, King Wenceslas, Bach and Handel, Raphael, George Washington and their roles in Christmas history; the President and their families in the White House through the years; war time Christmases from Charlemagne to Napoleon to George Patton; Christmas bells, ballads, carols, cards, creches, trees, plants, paintings, poems, parties, gifts, airplane and spaceflights, and legends; and twenty one Biblical prophecies that foresaw the Nativity. Make use of a reference guide to Nativity Scripture. No Christmas subject has been overlooked All articles have been thoroughly researched and referenced. No other Christmas book resembles this comprehensie trilogy, CHRISTMAS, the Holiday, CHRISTMAS, the Historic Day, and CHRISTMAS, the Holy Day.