As we're heading into another Christmas season, you're probably looking forward to revisiting many of your favorite Christmas stories.

Whether they're in the form of movies or television specials, storybooks, or if you're like me, Christmas stories on vinyl record or from the world of old time radio.

The particular mix of Christmas

stories that you know and prefer are themselves part of a story all their own, the story of your

Christmas experience, and by extension, the story of you. Storytelling is likely the first human

art form, and certainly one of the things that makes us human. Researchers have even been able to show that

over the millennia, the human brain has adapted to understand and store information in narrative

form. More than mere entertainment or escapism, stories are literally how we think and how we understand

the world and each other and ourselves. They reflect our values and concerns, and in turn

go on to influence those values and concerns. So it follows naturally that our Christmas stories

and how they've changed over time can serve as a sort of lens through which we can view

various parts of our history, 19th century American history, for example.

And in today's episode, that's exactly what we're doing.

I'm Ryan Earle.

This is Christmas past.

Yes, it's a cliche, but it's true nonetheless, and when it comes to Christmas,

it always bears repeating.

The only constant is change.

The Christmas we celebrate today is simply the latest iteration, and it too will one day belong to Christmas past. And with all the talk we hear these

days about Christmas becoming too commercial or coming too early in the year, or straying from the true

reason for the season, it's easy to imagine that, say, 200 years ago, Christmas

was pure and unambiguous, unsullied by contemporary concerns and interests, but that's just wrong.

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