Why was Christmas a subject of bitter, even bloody, controversy for the first 200 years of American history? Why did leaders of several colonies make determined efforts to ban any observance of Christmas? How did the War Between the States, and the development of the traditional Santa Claus, lead to the nearly universal acceptance of Christmas as our great national holiday? What do historians say about the real date of Christåä’s birth? Michael Medved provides provocative and in-depth answers to these and other rarely answered questions about Christmas traditions.