The Time Machine of Christmas

Every December, something remarkable happens. Long before the lights go up or the first carol plays, there’s a shift in the air, an old, familiar tug that feels part-memory, part-music, part-magic. Christmas doesn’t return to us as a single date on the calendar. It arrives as a season of recollection.

I was reminded of that again this year while talking with fellow Arkansan Ace Collins, known globally as Doc Holiday, a man who has written 111 books, a dozen of them on the history and meaning of Christmas. Smithsonian named him their holiday historian, the BBC calls on him every December, and broadcasters from Canada to Australia rely on him to decode the culture of Christmas. Yet Collins speaks with the curiosity of someone who still sees the holiday as a child might full of wonder, warmth, and deep-rooted joy.

His stories weren’t just trivia. They were reminders that Christmas, more than any other holiday, is a living archive. A time machine.

A Movie That Failed…Until It Didn’t

Collins knows classic films better than most, and It’s a Wonderful Life sits high on his list of cultural miracles.

“It was an abject failure,” he told me. “It took television to make it a tradition.”

Released in 1946, when American audiences craved grit and film noir dominated the screen, Capra’s earnest tale of hope and community couldn’t find its moment. Only years later, as television revived the film through constant re-airings, did people realize how much they needed George Bailey’s story.

Now it’s the movie that makes grown adults tear up, every time.

The Author Who Was Rejected 24 Times

Collins didn’t intend to become the nation’s unofficial Christmas chronicler. In fact, the book that launched him, Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas, was rejected 24 times over a decade.

“Several publishers rejected it twice,” he recalled, laughing at the memory.

But once it finally reached readers, it caught fire. It hit #3 on Amazon, landed on the New York Times list, and transformed Collins into a seasonal authority. His Christmas titles have sold millions, including a new edition called O Holy Night.

Christmas Music and the Making of Immortality

Ask Collins what sets Christmas apart from every other holiday, and he answers without hesitation.

“It’s the only time of year when old friends come back to greet us,” he said. “Those friends are songs.”

Every December, the same soundtrack returns:  Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Elvis, Brenda Lee. Even college students who were born decades after these artists can’t imagine Christmas without White Christmas or Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.

“Christmas gives you the chance to be immortal,” Collins said. Bing Crosby charted more than 400 songs in his lifetime, but it’s the Christmas catalog that keeps him alive in the culture. Meanwhile, Dinah Shore charted nearly 500 songs but never had a holiday classic, so modern listeners hardly know her.

And what about Mariah Carey? Collins believes her chances are good but says we won’t know for another 10 to 15 years, once her pop career settles and “All I Want for Christmas Is You” lives or dies solely on its seasonal power.

A Holiday That Was Never About December 25

Collins is also quick to point out that Christmas, as we know it, is far from ancient.

Christ was almost certainly not born on December 25; the detail of shepherds watching their flocks suggests spring or summer. For centuries, early Christians celebrated Christmas at various times throughout the year, with Easter as the primary holiday.

The church chose December 25 in the 4th century as a replacement for the wild winter solstice festivals known for drinking, revelry, and chaos. The idea was to shift attention toward Christ’s birth, but the partying simply absorbed the new meaning.

In England, Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas for its unruly behavior. In early America, outside of Lutheran or Catholic communities, Christmas was largely ignored. Congress met on Christmas Day until around 1840. Boston even formed a police force partly to control the disorder tied to holiday festivities.

Christmas, in modern form, had to be reinvented almost from scratch.

The Poem That Saved Christmas

The reinvention began with a New England preacher who loved German holiday customs and wrote a poem that swept the country.

That poem ’Twas the Night Before Christmas introduced a new American Christmas vocabulary: Santa, stockings, chimneys, anticipation, family warmth. Suddenly, the holiday shifted from a dangerous public festival to a child-centered, home-centered celebration.

Stores embraced the imagery. Churches embraced the season. Congress eventually closed for the holiday.

Collins argues that the commercialization of Christmas, so often criticized, actually did more to expand the season than anything else.

“It gave Christians six weeks to talk about their faith,” he said. “It opened the door to conversations they never would have had otherwise.”

Upside-Down Trees, Animal Crackers, and Early Fire Hazards

Collins is a walking encyclopedia of holiday origins.

• The Christmas tree originated in Latvia, where early celebrants hung trees upside down from their ceilings.

• Early ornaments were edible, including treats and candies. Even animal cracker boxes once had strings so families could hang them as ornaments before eating them on Christmas morning.

• Martin Luther is credited with tying the first candle to a tree to show his children how Christ brought light into the world—accidentally inventing the first Christmas tree fire hazard.

• Electric tree lights followed in the 1880s, and owning a strand of seven bulbs was once considered a sign of modern sophistication.

The First Song Ever Broadcast Was a Christmas Carol

One of Collins’ favorite stories centers on O Holy Night.

Written in France in the 1840s, widely loved, then banned when the church discovered the composer was Jewish, the song found new life in post–Civil War America.

But its biggest moment came on Christmas Eve 1906, when radio pioneer Reginald Fessenden used a new transformer to transmit the first human voice over the airwaves. People expecting Morse code suddenly heard him reading from the Gospel of Luke.

Then he picked up a violin.

The first song ever broadcast on radio was O Holy Night.

And the most popular version today? Barbra Streisand’s.

Mistletoe: From Missionary Symbol to Kissing Plant

Even mistletoe has a backstory most people have never heard.

To ancient Celts and Vikings, it was a magical plant—green life sprouting from dead wood. Early Christian missionaries used it as a visual symbol to teach the story of Christ:

• Green: eternal life

• Red berries: Christ’s blood

• White berries: Christ’s purity

• Wood: the cross

Couples were once married under mistletoe, and households hung it above their doors as a sign of faith. Over time, only one custom survived: the kiss.

The Heart of It All

For all his expertise, Collins became most reflective when he remembered the Christmases of his childhood, his grandmother’s tree lit with blue lights, her home filled with people who had nowhere else to spend the holiday, the living room buried in wrapping paper by night’s end.

“She wasn’t wealthy,” he said. “But I felt her love every Christmas.”

That, he believes, is the real legacy of the season: the way it calls us back to the moments where we first understood love, generosity, and belonging.

Christmas, in that way, is a time machine. A return to the music, the stories, and the faces that shaped us, and a reminder of who we still hope to be.

You can hear our interview with Ace on the new podcast Chasing Faith with Dorothy Lucey, here, or wherever you listen to podcasts.