Print:Christmas Dinner

In 1860, when "Harper's Weekly" printed this engraving on the cover of its Christmas issue, a gala dinner was still at the heart of American Christmas festivities, but hanging stockings, giving gifts, decorating Christmas trees, and dreaming of Santa were gradually encroaching on the central importance of the holiday feast. None of these practices was central to the celebration earlier in the century; "Harper's Weekly" and other popular magazines were largely responsible for introducing them and turning them into defining features of the American Christmas. During the 1850s, one magazine, "Godey's Lady's Book," popularized the decoration of Christmas trees. Beginning in 1863, "Harper's" promoted the now-ubiquitous image of Santa Claus by publishing hundreds of engravings of the chubby, bearded gift-giver as depicted by artist Thomas Nast. Founded in 1857, Harper's Weekly boasted a readership of 120,000 by 1860, making it one of the nation's most widely read and influential magazines of the time. Conceived primarily as a weekly news journal to report on national culture and politics, the magazine's fame owed as much to its illustrations as to its reporting. Calling itself "A Journal of Civilization," "Harper's Weekly" set the tone for middle-class culture, depicting and encouraging acceptable life for middle-class Americans.