This is thinking in public, a program dedicated to intelligent conversation about frontline,

theological and cultural issues with the people who are shaping them.

I'm Albert Moller, your host and president to the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville,

Kentucky.

Tara Moore teaches in the writing program at Penn State University at York.

She has previously authored the book Victorian Christmas in print. Her most

recent work is Christmas The Sacred to Santa. This new book was published just this year

by Reaction Books in London.

Dr. Moore, welcome to Thinking in Public.

Thank you for having me on to talk about Christmas.

Well, this is an appropriate time as the Christmas celebration here in the United States is very fast before us.

But your book had to have taken years in terms of research and writing, and it had to be a major

interest that was driving you in terms of your writing and research for years.

How did you come to write a book on Christmas?

Well, when I was a graduate student, we had to decide on a dissertation topic and I thought that Christmas and I was interested in the Victorian period I thought that Christmas would make for a pretty lively and entertaining topic certainly more upbeat than some of the other choices that I was faced with at the time and it has continued to be

something that's been engaging and interesting and uplifting at times so I'm glad I

went with it. And of course you're writing as a professor you're writing as an

historian and one of the things I appreciate about the book is the attention you give to the historical issues, but also to pop culture, and not only in times past, but today.

But one of the things that I I was thinking about as I read your

book is that you're not only an academic you're also a mom yes and so this

has this research has informed the way that I think about Christmas as I transmit our traditions

to my three daughters recognizing some of the roles that women play especially in carrying,

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