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By Ryan McMaken

Mises.org

Giving toys to children is not new. As noted by Nicholas Orme in his book Medieval Children, baby rattles date at least to Aristotle’s time, and the philosopher himself praised rattles “as a means of allowing children to expend their energy without doing damage.”

During the 1980s, millions of American children pored over the Toys ‘R’ Us catalog, daydreaming about what toys we hoped to receive in a few weeks on Christmas morning. After all, by the mid twentieth century, Christmas—for countless middle-class households with children— had become more or less synonymous with an enormous number of gifts for children in the form of toys and games. Barbie playsets and a myriad of action figures were routinely advertised during Saturday morning cartoons and in Sunday print ads in the weeks before Christmas. We kids of the 80s were sure to tell our parents what toys we “needed.”

We weren’t the first generation with such thoughts, of course. As Jean Shepherd (1921-1999) recounts in the beloved film A Christmas Story—set in 1940—Christmas was the time to strategize on how to receive essential toys—such as a new BB gun—from Santa. The annual bacchanalia of gifts at Christmas meant the holiday had become something “upon which the entire kid year revolved.”

Moreover, the copious number of gifts for children has been just one aspect of how Christmas in many ways has become a holiday focused on children. From Santa Claus to gingerbread houses to countless children’s Christmas movies and picture books, Christmas has become a time for adults to invest enormous amounts of time, money, and energy into amusing and entertaining children as a means of expressing parental affection.

But, of course, as with so many modern rituals and cultural expressions, the extensive focus at Christmas time on children’s amusement and gifts is a fairly young practice enabled by the wealth and disposable income made possible by modern economies.

Early Child-Centered Christmas Rituals

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