THERE were no neatly wrapped presents. Nor were there tinseled trees or Santa Claus. Christmas in preindustrial Europe and America looked very different from today’s iteration. Drunks, cross-dressers and rowdy carolers roamed the streets. The tavern, rather than the home or the church, was the place to celebrate. “Men dishonor Christ more in the twelve days of Christmas, than in all the twelve months besides,”—so despaired Hugh Latimer, chaplain to King Edward VI, in the mid-1500s. Some 200 years later, across the Atlantic, a Puritan minister decried the “lewd gaming” and “rude reveling” of Christmas time in the colonies. Those concerns seem irrelevant now. By the end of the 19th century, a rambunctious, freewheeling holiday had turned into the peaceable, family-centred one we know today. How?

　　没有包装整洁的礼品，没有俗丽的圣诞树，也没有圣诞老人。工业化前的欧洲和美洲的圣诞节和他们现在每年过的，看起来很不一样。人们在大街上痛饮、异装秀、欢唱。酒馆才是庆祝圣诞节的地方，家里或教堂不是。在1500年，爱德华六世的牧师Hugh Latimer悲叹道“人们在圣诞节12天里对上帝的不敬，比在其它12个月里加起来都多”。大概200年后，一个新教的牧师谴责了北美殖民地里圣诞节期间人们进行的下流游戏和放纵的狂欢。但是，这些景象，和现在似乎已经不相关。到了19世纪末，圣诞节这个粗暴放纵的狂欢节，已经变成了我们如今所见的平和的，以家庭为中心的节日，这种转变怎么发生的?

　　Men dishonor Christ more in the twelve days of Christmas, than in all the twelve months besides。

　　人们在圣诞节12天里对上帝的不敬，比在其它12个月里加起来都多

　　In early modern Europe, between about 1500 and 1800, the Christmas season meant a lull in agricultural labor and a chance to indulge. The harvest had been gathered and the animals slaughtered (the cold weather meant they would not spoil). The celebration involved heavy eating, drinking and wassailing, in which peasants would arrive at the houses of the neighboring gentry and demand to be fed. One drinking song captured the mood: “And if you don’t open up your door, / We will lay you flat upon the floor.” Mostly this was tolerated in good humor—a kind of ritualized disorder, when the social hierarchy was temporarily inverted. Some were less tolerant. In colonial Massachusetts, between 1659 and1681, Puritans banned Christmas. They expunged the day from their almanacs, and offending revelers risked a five-shilling fine. The ban did not last, so efforts to tame the holiday picked up instead. Moderation was advised. One almanac-writer cautioned in 1761 that “The temperate man enjoys the most delight, / For riot dulls and palls the appetite.” Still, Christmas was a public ritual, enacted in the tavern or street and often fuelled by alcohol.

　　在近现代早期的欧洲，也就是公元1500年至1800年，圣诞季意味着农业劳动的停息和放纵的机会。农田的收成在库，牲畜已经宰杀(天冷让宰杀后动物的肉不容易腐败)。庆祝活动涉及大吃大喝，期间农民们会去临近的乡绅家里要求接受款待。一首歌反应了当时的心情“如果你不开门，我们就让你从竖着走的人变成横着躺的人”。大部分时候，农民们的行为会被善意的容忍，这是一种仪式化的失序，社会阶层短暂的发生倒置。

　　That soon changed. Cities had expanded at the turn of the 19th century to absorb the growing number of factory workers. Vagrancy and urban poverty were by now common. Rowdiness at Christmas could turn violent, with bands of drunken men roaming the streets. It’s little surprise that members of the upper classes saw a threat in the festivity. In his study of the holiday, Stephen Nissenbaum, a historian, credits a group of patrician writers and editorialists in America with recasting it as a domestic event. They refashioned European traditions, like Christmas trees from Germany and Christmas boxes from England, in which the wealthy would present cash or leftovers to their servants. St Nicholas, or Santa Claus, whose December name day coincided with the Christmas season, became the holiday’s mascot. Clement Clarke Moore’s poem “A Visit from St Nicholas”, first publized in 1823, helped popularize his image. In it, a jolly Santa descends via reindeer-pulled sleigh to surprise children with presents on Christmas Eve. Newspapers also played their part. “Let all avoid taverns and grog shops for a few dazays,” advised the New York Herald in 1839. Better to focus on “the domestic hearth, the virtuous wife, the innocent, smiling, merry-hearted children.”

　　情况很快就变了。城市在19世纪末吸收了更多的工厂工人。流浪和城市贫困至今都普遍，在当时更是严重的问题。一群醉汉在圣诞期间的大街上游荡可能会引发暴力。所以上层社会的人把这个节日视为威胁毫不奇怪。历史学家Stephen Nissenbaum把圣诞节被驯化为家庭内部节日归功于上层社会的作家和编辑们。他们复兴了欧洲的传统，如来自德国传统的圣诞树，圣诞礼品盒本来是英国的富人用来给佣人们装剩菜或钱等礼物的。

　　It was a triumph of middle-class values, and a coup for shop-owners. “Christmas is the merchant’s harvest time,” one industry magazine enthused in 1908. “It is up to him to garner in as big a crop of dollars as he can.” Soon this new Christmas would become a target of criticism in its own right: as commercialized and superficial. Nevertheless it lives on.

　　这是中产阶级价值观的胜利，也是零售店主们的出乎意料的好运。“圣诞节是商人们收获的季节”，一份工业杂志在1908年兴奋的表示。“只要他能，想挣多少钱就能挣到多少钱”。没多少时间，这种新的庆祝圣诞节的方式本身就成为批评的目标：因为过于的商业化和肤浅。但是，我们仍然这么过。

　　雅思阅读经济类高频词汇

　　enthuse：热心

　　garner： 获得，储存

　　tinseled：亮闪闪的，俗丽的

　　iteration：重复，迭代

　　tavern：酒馆

　　chaplain：牧师

　　lewd：下流的

　　revel：狂欢

　　decry：谴责

　　rambunctious：粗暴的

　　wassailing：痛饮

　　almanac：年历

　　expunge：擦除

　　Rowdiness：吵闹

　　Vagrancy：流浪

　　It’s little surprise 毫不奇怪

　　patrician：上层社会的

　　virtuous ：善良的

　　grog shop：小酒馆

　　enthuse：热心

　　garner： 获得，储存